Trares
The questions start before we even pull out of the driveway.
“What’s the name of this song?”
“Why is it called that?”
“What’s in my lunch today?”
“Why did that car beep at you?”
Like most children, my son has an inquisitive personality. Anthony has never shied away from asking about something he might not understand, something that seems interesting or something he thinks I might be able to make more clear for him.
I love that about him. There are so many incredibly interesting tidbits and facts about everything we encounter that it has been a joy filling in the blanks with (age-appropriate) answers.
His curious nature has led to some fun conversations about why there are earthquakes, or why it’s called a “duck,” or why a sunrise is pink and orange. I’ve had to explain why ice floats on water, how a solar panel works and where the huge rocks around the farm fields by our home came from.
If I don’t know an answer, it’s an opportunity to look it up, and both of us can learn more about the subject.
Of course, there are appropriate times and places for questions. We’ve had the discussion that it’s not nice to point at other people and ask loudly about someone’s appearance. Even though they can be mortally embarrassing as a parent in the moment, those queries have led to good talks about how people are all different, and that’s what makes us all special.
Such questions have opened the doors to talking about race, religion, ability and other heavy but important topics.
So I’m always prepared for the curiosity to kick in. In the quiet of the morning drive to school, his brain is getting warmed up for the day, and more often than not, the commute turns into a game of 21 Questions.
Passing a house that hadn’t quite gotten around to taking down their autumn decorations: “Daddy, why do they have a scarecrow on their porch? It’s not even fall anymore!”
Driving over one of those notoriously craggy Indiana roads as I mutter under my breath: “Where do potholes come from? Why do you keep running over them?”
Hearing a spirited Van Halen solo on the radio: “How do you play guitar?” (That one is definitely a question for his mom, the musical one in our family.)
There are some mornings when the last thing I want to do is serve as the Quizmaster. The coffee hasn’t kicked in, and I’d prefer to ride in silence.
But even then, I force myself to take a deep breath and try to answer as completely and honestly as I can. My job as a dad is to teach him all about the world around him, good and bad, so he can apply that to his own life as he gets older.
Plus, I’ve managed to accumulate a wealth of dumb trivia over the course of my life. My wife is already sick of my never-ending stream of useless knowledge. When else am I going to have a captive audience to pass that on?
