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My two-year-old son is adept at this technique. Unfortunately I am not sure he always listens to my responses. An example copied from one of my recent blog po
by adriand 17y ago
My two-year-old son is adept at this technique. Unfortunately I am not sure he always listens to my responses. An example copied from one of my recent blog posts:
We have interesting conversations in the front hallway on weekday mornings when he tries to prevent me from going to work.
“No Daddy go!”
“Daddy has to go to work.”
“Why Daddy work?”
“Daddy has to work so that he can make money.”
“Why money?”
“Because we need money so that we can buy food.”
“Why?”
“Because we need to eat.”
“Why?”
Why indeed? I used to believe that when I had a child, I would always try to explain things to that child and never resort to the pat answers I’d hear from other parents (”just because”). My child is only two and he is already defeating this goal. Why DO we need to eat?
You can answer that question, sure, but ask enough “whys”, and you’ll find yourself trying to explain the nature and reasons for existence of the universe – to a two-year-old.
- wglb 17y agoI spent some time worrying about this just before I had kids, running scenarios like this through my head. My daughter's first question for this destroyed any value such rehearsals might have had by saying "How do you know?"
- dschobel 17y agoThe ultimate answer to which, of course, is "I read it on Wikipedia". Also acceptable, telling your child to "just google it".
- Splines 17y agoI know you're being facetious, but I actually sometimes say something like this to my son when he asks me a question that I can't give an answer I'm satisfied with. I usually say something like "I don't really know, but let's look it up together." Yes, googling can be a family experience. Binging, however...
- BerislavLopac 17y agoROFLMAO. Startup rule #24: When picking the name for your project, make sure it won't embarrass you when used as a verb.
- wglb 17y agoWell, this was before wikipedia, and the kids did not yet have computers.
- makmanalp 17y agoSometimes there's nothing wrong with "I don't know".
- pcc 17y agoBut do you then to this add "...but I'll try to find out for you" ?
- abstractbill 17y agoWhy don't you know? ;-)