If you have older kids, you under stand the Why stage. If you haven't hit it yet, get ready. It is honestly my least favorite stage (I know adolescence will make the Why stage seem like fairyland). Ian hit the Whys at around 4.5 or 5. Will is there, in full throttle.
He asks me about everything. Why does Daddy have 2 trucks? Why does Maggie not have a wee-wee? Why is Molly called a chocolate lab instead of a brown lab? Why is your belly fat? Why do crayons smell funny? Why do you wash the dishes like that? Why are your eyes green and mine are blue? Why do you shave your legs? Why do you like Diet Coke so much? Why is God in heaven? Why does Daddy have to go to work? The list can go on and on and on.
The hard part about the Why stage is that an answer, truthful or not, really doesn't satisfy the question. You guessed it, it leads to another question. It boils down to curiosity and I am so grateful that he is so curious about everything. Really. I am.
Sometimes, it is hard to find honest answers to questions without saying too much, too soon (Remember TAMPAX?) or even having an answer at all. This week, Will has had a lot of questions about subjects I really don't want to talk about--Casey Anthony--mostly because Ian has asked me a lot about it. How do you explain to a child why a mother would hurt her own child? That is unexplainable even to me. And then today, we were driving home when we witnessed a train collide with a truck that tried to outrun the crossing rails. (The driver was able to escape unharmed). Will was pretty traumatized from seeing it happen. I was too. For me personally, it brought back memories of an awful tragedy of my sister's friend Casey Heisenbuttle, who died after her truck collided with a train. She was just 15. Will kept asking me why the accident happened? I didn't have an answer to satisfy him.
After the train incident today, I read a blog entry from one of my favorite bloggers Angie Smith (if you have never read Angie's blog, Bring the Rain, you should. Reading the story about the diagnosis in vitro and loss of her daughter Audrey will change your life. I really mean that). The recent post was about always wanting to know the why without remembering the Who. She suggests that we always want to know why things happen the way they do without really remembering Who is in control of those events. God of course. And in the end, the Who is all that matters. Today, her post brought me a lot of comfort. Not just from the emotional memories of Casey, but comfort in knowing that I don't really have to know all of the answers to the Why questions. A lot of answers to the why questions are "Because God made them that way." In other moments, when I don't know the answer, I just pray for guidance.
In parenting, I think it is important to admit that we don't know all the answers. Giving "I don't know " as the response to "Why little boys can't fly" or "Why fireworks smell so bad" will help condition them (and you) for the future. It will be the go to response you need when they ask "Why are you so mean?" and Why do you want to ruin my life?" or "Why can't I stay out until 4 in the morning?" Maybe this Why stage isn't so bad afterall.
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