Tag Archives: questions kids ask

Story of My Life

One of my 10-year-old’s favorite conversation starters with me is the fact that I have a Ph.D. in theatre (and from a very prestigious program and school too. Please allow me to brag. I kind of need a little bit ego booster lately. In addition, I am reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In and felt vindicated when she said that women do not share with others our accomplishments often enough for fear of not being liked. But of course, I digress)

Perhaps because children are more honest and straightforward, they instinctively know the most vulnerable place to aim? Or perhaps my child, Mr. Monk, is a future David Frost in the making. Either way, he has a talent of asking me questions that make me feel cornered. I have no answer to any of them, or perhaps I simply don’t want to answer. Afraid to.

“And you are not using your degree at all? Then why did you get it?”

“Isn’t it a waste?”

“Do you remember anything?”

“Is anything that you learned useful?”

“What good is your Ph.D. degree then?”

“Why didn’t you do something with it? Why didn’t you fulfill your potential?” Yup, he said that.

We would be doomed if our kids ever turn the table and ask us to assess our lives with the encouraging words that we use to inspire them.

“Have you reached for the stars and followed your dreams?”

“Have you lived your life to the fullest?”

“Why not?”

And we’d have to bite our tongue.

Finally, after much pestering which at that moment felt more like missile attacks, I looked him in the eye and confessed, “The reason why I refrain from answering these questions of yours, about why I did not do more with my life, is because anything that I want to say, if I am being honest, may be misinterpreted as I regret having ‘this life’.”

How apropos then that soon after our unavoidable heart-to-heart, we moved everything out from the basement and I decided that it’s time I threw away the research material for my dissertation.

 

image

 

The box contains three years of my life and more than ten years of secret self-delusion that I am a research scholar/academic/intellectual at large.

Farewell to secret double life that never was. I only wish that I could have set it ablaze to send it off in style instead of unceremoniously dumping it into the recycling bin.

Story of my life.

The Lesser of Two Evils

Yet another interesting conversation with my 8-year-old that makes me worry…

[In the car]

Mr. Monk: Mom?

Me [Distracted by This American Life on NPR]: Huh?

Mr. Monk: What’s the drug that starts with an M?

Me [Paying attention now]: Eh… You mean Methamphetamine? [Crap! How did he know about Meth?!]

Mr. Monk: You know what I think? [He IS the King of Non Sequitur] I think that the best way to get rid of an addiction is to have another one.

Me [Trying hard not to freak out. Deep breath]: Eh… Where did you hear that? Who told you that?

Mr. Monk: Nobody. I came up with this theory on my own. Let’s say you want to quit smoking, won’t the best way to quit smoking is to become addicted to some other drugs?

Me: Ok. It does not work that way, honey. Addictions don’t work like that. You are going to end up addicted to BOTH cigarettes and whatever drugs, and that would be really really really bad.

Mr. Monk: Oh. But wouldn’t it be better if you are addicted to cigarettes if you have to choose?

Me: Ok. Let’s say some crazy god comes down from heaven and says to you, “Thou shall choose an addiction!” Then yes, hypothetically speaking, you should choose cigarettes. Or if someone sticks a gun to your head and make you choose. Then yes, go for the cigarettes.

Mr. Monk: Yeah. Because cigarettes will cut your life short but drugs will ruin your life completely.

Me [Kind of relieved]: Well, I sure hope you never get yourself into a crazy situation where you are forced to choose! Ha ha.

Mr. Monk: Then why do they have Marijuana added gum at Walgreens for helping people quit smoking?

Me [So this is where the FIRST question came from. M is for marijuana. I should feel better about this. But… WILL THIS NEVER END?! And what was the last time we were at Walgreens? Wasn’t it a week ago?!]: What? WHAT?! Oh I am pretty sure you saw it wrong. First of all, it is illegal to sell marijuana. [Yes yes, I omitted the whole exception for medicinal use. But I think I deserved a pass here since I was trying hard not to crash the car!] I don’t think Walgreens would sell some gum with marijuana  in it. You must have read the label wrong.

Mr. Monk: Yeah, you are probably right.

[Silence]

Mr. Monk: Mom?

Me [Holding my breath]: Y–E–S?

Mr. Monk: What does CVS stand for?

 

My son. Champion Player of Free Association.

 

Towards a Discussion of Religious Pluralism with a First Grader. Gingerly.

Seriously. This is how I feel every Saturday now...

Seriously. I fear this is true.

Scene 1

On our way home in the car, the 11 year-old lodged an official complaint against his younger brother for embarassing him in school: He talks about God too much. He said things like, “God created everything” in daily, random conversations, without prompting. On top of that, he also sometimes sports a British accent, according to his older brother, “Like Charlie and Lola!”

(Trying very hard not to laugh out loud since both kids were visibly upset).

“People don’t talk that way. It is rude. You can’t assume that the person believes in what YOU believe in.”

“He was telling Miss [Babysitter] about the Ten Commandments!”

“Well,” I attempted to smooth things out, “Miss [Babysitter] is probably not offended. At any rate, it is very possible she is Catholic since her family moved from Poland when she was in high school.”

“Isn’t it rude to assume?” Once again, he got me right then and there.

He was so indignant. Mr. Monk, my 6-year-old, started wailing. “I DID NOT! And why can’t I tell her about the Ten Commandments? She knows about them too!”

At the same time I was proud that we must be doing something right bringing up my oldest, I also felt panic. Surely my youngest is confused as hell. If we insist on him going to Religious Ed every Saturday morning, why can’t he talk about what he has learned there? And if there are people that do not believe in Jesus and God as taught in Religious Ed, for example, Mommy Heathen here, why does he have to believe? Of course, these were questions swarming inside my head as I sped home since the radio cranked up way high was not enough to drone out Mr. Monk’s indignant sobbing. He himself has not asked me those questions yet. Not that day. But they did come way sooner than I had expected.

Seriously? What kind of 6-year-old discusses religious pluralism with their parents?

Scene 2

“Why do people that were not baptized NOT believe in the same god as people that were baptized?”

The questions came. They came fast and furious. We were going to bed. Supposed to.

Not knowing how to answer this question, I decided to take the literal approach:

“Honey, you know that Muslims and the Jewish people believe in the same god that you do. [I am assuming he does for the convenience of having a conversation with him that would actually get us somewhere…] The main difference is that they do not believe that Jesus is the savior.”

Did I say it right? Is Jesus Christ the savior? I was sure I pulled that line out from one of the Christmas carols.

“Do you believe Jesus Christ is the savior?”

“No.” I said without hesitation.

I never talk down to my children. I made a conscious decision when I was pregnant with my first born and one day, all of a sudden, I realized just how heavy that burden is, to be responsible for another human being’s moral upbringing.

He turned away from me. I could see his shoulders heaving. He was quietly sobbing.

Oh my god. Was he fearing for my soul? Finally he turned to look at me in the eyes, very seriously, too serious for a 6 year old.

“Do you want me to learn that Jesus Christ is the savior? That GOD created the world?”

I explained that since his father is Catholic, and I am not, I would prefer that his father talks to him about this subject.

“No.” He said emphatically.  “I want to know whether YOU want me to learn about this.”

I started to explain why we decided to have them baptized and have them attend Religious Ed: Moral upbringing. It takes a village.

Growing up, I was never religious yet deep down I understood the expectations of me to be good. To do good. Karma. Reincarnation. It was never explicitly taught, but I knew. Everyone of us knew. It is embedded in the culture. I am certainly not suggesting Asian societies/cultures are more moral. Ha. Far from it. My theory is that the subtle permeation in daily life of the implicit belief in Karma, in What goes around, comes around, in you do reap what you sow, makes it easier to conform to a certain moral code without an explicit religious upbringing.

My husband and I were alone in the city. Far away from any “villages” that we could count on as a moral foundation for our children. We thought, Catholic Church! Besides, my husband went through the whole Religious Ed ordeal ritual thing and he turned out fine, it just seemed a natural conclusion to draw.

“I don’t need you to learn about God, which god, I am not sure. You will have to make your own decision when you grow up. But right now, I want to make sure that you can learn right from wrong. That you will know to do the right thing when we are not around.”

With a stroke of genius, I used Spiderman as an example to explain Karma.

“Remember when Peter Parker let the robber go because he was mad at the man for cheating him out of his winnings, but later the robber killed his uncle?”

I think he got it. I hope he got it. He turned his back towards me again. Silence. But I could tell from his breathing that he was not falling asleep. It was almost midnight. My child with an old soul…

“Are you worried that mommy may go to hell?”

“Not really. I don’t know.” His voice was calm.

I told him about how when his broher was his age, he came home one day after Religious Ed and asked us, “Are you and daddy going to hell?” Apparently the teacher had told him that his parents would be going to hell if they (we) don’t go to mass every Sunday.

“That was awful!” He commented. He did not sound traumatized. THAT. Seemed to be all I could have asked for that night.

How much do you tell your children when they are so young? Too little, you are sheltering them. Too much, you are burdening them. I decided I would make my one last pitch and let it be. Well, as much “let it be” as I could muster as a mother.

“I want you to remember this: there are people that will use religion as an excuse to try to get you to do things that you know are not right, to beleive things that you know are wrong. Anybody, ANYBODY, that uses religion as an excuse to talk you out of thinking for yourself…”

“… is wrong?” He finished the sentence for me.

“Yes.” I sighed and gave him a hug.

“Ok. I am going to sleep now. Good night.”

Then he was sound asleep.

“I want to be an artist so I can be rich!”

“Mom, what did you want to do when you grew up?”

My 6 year-old asked innocently. This question stirs a lot of anxiety inside me, but that’s another post, if you are unlucky enough, I may indulge myself in one day…

He’s been really concerned about his future lately. He has pondered on being an artist for a long time.

“I really would like to be rich when I grow up. So I’m going to be an artist.”

Oh, boy. I tried to think back to all of the things I have ever said to him, since he was a fetus inside me, things that I have done or not, Is it because I didn’t breast feed him long enough?, that have caused him to become so materialistic. Have we been living a life of too much comfort that somehow has instilled a sense of, oh gosh darn it, greed in the upbringing of our kids? PANIC.

Great job, mom. I said to myself.

What to do? What to say? In my mind, I could picture myself running around like a headless chicken. Wings flapping. Cluck. Cluck. Cluck. Somehow this visual image of myself as a headless chicken or a deer with widened eyes is projected quite frequently on the back walls of my eye sockets…

“Hmmm. I don’t think being an artist will necessarily make you rich.”

How honest should we be with our children? Once again I wondered. Once again I had to make an uninformed split-second decision purely based on intuition, yup, the same one that helped me every time I purchased lottery tickets…

“Van Gogh was very poor when he was alive. I don’t think he made a lot of money by selling his paintings until after he died.”

Way to go, mom, for dashing your child’s hopes and dreams. Why don’t you just tell him to dream about being an accountant. Or an actuary. Don’t ever tell them to reach for the stars now Mary Poppins…

“Not even a house?” A look of concern crept up his face. “I just want to be rich so I can buy a house when I grow up.”

Ooops. Failed by overthinking again. Fortunately I am a champion in the sports of back paddling…

“Oh, yeah. Of course you will be able to buy a house. I would say though, you should do whatever that makes you happy and not worry so much about buying a house now.”

“Oh good. Because I was thinking that if I cannot be an artist, I would like to be a musician so I can be rich and buy a house.”

Oh, boy.  Here we go again…

If I don’t write this down I will probably forget and it would be as if I never witnessed the genius in my kid

Act. 1 “The Middle Number”

Mr. Monk wondered aloud in the back of the car,

“What is in the middle of all the numbers?”

“Uh. Honey. We can’t know that since we don’t know what the ‘last number’ is.”  Taking a deep breath, I was all too scared of explaining the concept of infinity to a 6 year old while speeding towards the gymnastics practice.  (Not for me. I can only wish. For my oldest).

“Well, I think it is ZERO. Because you know, there are negative 1, 2, 3…”

 

Act 2. “Black and White Chicken”

We were having Boston Market.   To my kids, Boston Market is one of the greatest treats, almost like Thanksgiving, only better.  Well, better for me at least.  Sometimes I am embarrassed by their excitement when I say, “We are going to have Boston Market!”  So easy.  Almost like taking candy from a baby…

I commented on how it was a great deal to pay $2 more for all white meat since nobody likes dark meat especially the thighs. 

“I wonder how they found black and white chicken!” marvelled Mr. Monk

“Mommy, is tweeting bad?”

Nope. Didn’t make this up. This came up in my conversation with my 6 year-old, Mr. Monk, in the car today.

Most of our conversations happen in the car now, it seems. Could Mr. Monk be that smart so as to figure out that when I am driving, I am cornered and hence have to provide some sort of answers to the hard questions he throws at me?

“Mommy, why do you tweet?”

Gee. He got the lingo right. Many adults are still struggling with when to use Twitter and when to use Tweet…

“Hmmm. Why SHOULDN’T I Tweet?”

That’s a complete cop-out. I know.

“Is Tweeting bad?” See? He got that it’s a VERB!

“No. Of course not. Why do you ask?”

“I am just wondering why you do it.”

Hmm. Why did he assume it’s bad just because I am doing it?!

“….. Ok. It’s just like how you and your brother play on Runescape? it’s just something fun that mommy likes to do. Mommy enjoys talking to people on Twitter.”

Suave move, mom. Comparing Twitter to Runescape?! Let me turn the table on him…

“Now, why does it bother you so much that mommy is on Twitter?”

“I don’t know. Because you get to do it all the time, without having to ask. We have to ask you or daddy when we want to play Runescape…”

I wonder if I HAD a regular hobby like sewing or knitting whether he would have been so bothered by it.

The Ability to be Oblivious OR Is there a manual for the multicutural world we envision?

Warning: The following text contains ruminations on the color of our skins. If you feel uncomfortable discussing skin colors, wish that people would just stop obsessing over skin colors and go on with their lives, or believe that the insistence on talking about the colors of our skin makes the originator of the conversation a racist him/herself, there is nothing much I could do about it. But I thought I’d let you know since you may not want to read the following…

Like most kids, Mr. Monk, my 6 year-old, is fascinated by people that look different from him. The problem is, even though my children are half and half, Mr. Monk is able to “pass” if I am not around. His older brother, however, stands out distinctively and has experienced name-calling at school and at extracurricular activities, much to my chagrin and surprise.

Seriously. Which century are we in? BUT I also believe that my oldest will grow up to be stronger and more compassionate. It’s funny, or disturbing rather, how my children will grow up differently, shaped by how the outside world view them differently…

Despite my being an annoying PC Police, to my best intentions, I am utterly confused when it comes to educating the very young, especially my own. Even though I always wince whenever Mr. Monk refers to someone who is apparently not white by the color of their skin, I fear I may have lost my bearings…

The other day while I was trying to demonstrate to him that we do not refer to people this way and also to challenge why he does not refer to someone of Euro descent by saying, “The White Lady” for example, I asked him,

“So what color is your skin?”

“I am white.” He said without even a pause.

Shock. I did not expect this answer. Well, when we discussed this before, in the context of Crayola rainbow of colors and how we, thank goodness, no longer refer to the “Peach” color as “Skin”, we had agreed that his was “Tan”…

“Hmm. No. You are not white. You are only half.”

He started protesting. “I am white!”

“Ok. So what do you think mommy is?”

“You are white too!” (I am very obviously not and we both know it)

Now here came a moment when part of me thought, “I really should drop this. Maybe I should go back to school, take more child psychology and postcolonial theory classes, before we continue this discussion…”

Yet the other part of me insisted, “No. We have to discuss this especially when they are young and malleable and forming their self-identities.” Sometimes I think that if I were my mother I would hate me.

“Ok. Could you please tell mommy why you think you are white?”

“Because we learned in school there were slaves…” he stopped abruptly and would not go on.

Silence.

“Mommy. Are there still slaves in the world?”

Oh, gee. What is going on in that tiny head of his?

In the midst of trying to explain to him that in some parts of the world, yes, (WHY do I have to be so brutally honest with my children, I do not know. Damn liberals I guess…) but not in this country, Oh, god no, he does not have to worry about ever being enslaved, we dropped the discussion on the color of his skin.

Here is what I wish I had sometimes, with guilt of course, for myself and for my children:

The ability to be oblivious.

I GTalked my kid to ask him what he would like for breakfast today…

As over-thinking, ironically introspective, neurotic, obsessively over-analytical as I am, this incident strikes me as seminal. SEMINAL. Mark it on the calendar.

We have all seen those cartoons, parodying the increasing importance of texting in the life of teens and even preteens, showing kids texting each other while sitting next to each other on the sofa, or kids and parents texting each other while in the car, or family members texting each other while around the table, TXT “Could you pass the salt please?”

We all laugh. Then we tsk tsk and exclaim, “What the world has come to?”, while simultaneously congratulating ourselves for not being like the characters as depicted in the cartoons. And then we worry that it may become a reality. It is in some way part of reality, we begrudgingly admit to ourselves.

It happened on a Saturday morning towards the end of a school year, the rare time when we did not have any place to rush to and my son was playing the ever popular Runescape on the computer in my study. Normally, it requires a lot of yelling back and forth, impatience, frustration, foot-stomping, indignation, accusations of ingratitude and false accusations for breakfast to be served. Since I had my laptop working in the kitchen, I thought, “Hey, why not Gtalk him?”

Ping. “What do you want for breakfast?”

Ping. “What the…” “Mom, is that you?”

Ping. “LOL. What do u want for bf?”

Ping. “Pancake pls.”

It soon evolved into a Q&A session where the 11 yo asked me some words he’d learned from his fellow game-players but instinctively knew were “bad words” that he should not use. First right up:

Ping. “What does Jizz mean?”

Ugh, Jesus. Why can’t his father be doing this? “You don’t want to know.”

Ping. “It is close to jazz.”

“Believe me. It is not.”

Ping. “tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me”

Fine. “Have you learned reproductive organs in your health education yet?”

“No. But 6th graders did. We didn’t go.”

I explained that he would learn about it when he has sex education in the 6th grade. Upon that, he said, “Yikes!” in spoken language which I could hear from the kitchen.

For good measure, I emphasized that it is NOT a shortened form for when you want to say “Jesus!”

Then we moved onto:

“Mom, what does f-g mean?” “It is banned from this other site.” “People would say this to me whenever I kill [their characters].”

Well, the usage originated from The World of Warcraft, I believe. “You know the word ‘gay’ and how we agreed that we would not use it to make fun of people?” “There’s this word that is even worse than ‘gay'”

“Oh. I know that word.”

Me. Thinking. “How the hack does he know? Where did he hear it? And who the F called my kid that word?!”

Somehow it does not seem as lecture-y through Gtalk to make him promise he would not use this word. No matter how common an expression it has become in this game or anywhere else. It is a principle thing.

Although I can only hope that he keeps his promise when I am not around, which will happen more and more often now that he’s 11 going on 30, I am glad that we had this chance to talk. So, so what it is through Gtalk?

Parenthood makes me feel dumb

It is a cliche that children do not come with manuals. No education prepares one for parenthood. Sometimes I wonder whether a Jeopardy champion would make a better parent since they seem to be better equipped with answering completely random questions.

The series of questions and free associations my 6 year-old child fires from the back of the car often make me grip the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles turn white, because they are not the usual questions of “Mom, why is the sky blue?” Nooo.

“When was [his daycare] built?”
“I don’t know honey.”
“The president of [his daycare] would know right?”
“I don’t think so since there are hundreds of them.”
“When was our house built?”
“2000”
“See you know the answer. So how come the president of [his daycare] does not know when my school is built?”

“Who is the most powerful? The governor of [our local village]? The governor of Chicago? Or the Governor of Illinois?”
“Well, I would say the Governor of the State of Illinois. But you know they are responsible for different things.”
“Well, who is the most power? [The above list of people]? Or the governor of the United States?”
“You mean the President? I would say the President.”
“But you said that he works for us. So how come he’s the most powerful?”

“Mom, when do you want your Mother’s Day party to be?”
“Hmmm. I was hoping that I could just relax. I don’t really feel like a party since I don’t want to clean up afterwards.”
“Hmm, you should be like Obama’s wife.”
“What?”
“Remember how she went to ten parties* and she didn’t even complain? You should be more like her.”

* My guess is that he is referring to the number of Inaugration balls the first couple attended

Ever woner the worst question your child could ever ask you?

I found out tonight. I actually have never even pondered this. But when I heard it from my 6-year-old today, I knew, in my heart, this has got to be the worst question a child could ever ever ask of you, the parent.

Not “Am I going to die?”

Not “What happened to (insert: any family member that just passed away)?”

Not “Where do babies come from?”

Not “What is SEX?”

Not “Are you and daddy having a divorce?”

Not even “Did you and daddy plan to have me?”

Or “How do you use a condom?”

The worst question, if your child asked you the same, your heart would drop like an anvil all the way to your stomach (pardon me for the cliche but I never say I am a writer), and you would have the sick feeling in your stomach, and you would know, with no uncertainty, that somewhere, somehow, you must have screwed up big time. You would wish that you had not yelled at him, had not snapped at him, had not taken your frustration at your own situation (oh, foolish foolish immature girl’s dream that you would grow up to be somebody and not “just a mom”) out at him. You would wish that you were more patient, had more time to spare, were more like “other kids’ moms”, were more content. You would wish that you were happy enough just being, well, you.

My child asked me, quietly, tonight,

Mom, do you hate me?