My kids forced me to say things. Some statements are universal in parenting, such as “Because I said so, that’s why.” Some statements not so much.

We often assume intelligence in our offspring only to be disappointed. My son once asked permission to stick his head through a screen door. Kudos for asking, but surely, I thought, if I explained my “no” logically – even if that shouldn’t be necessary – he would understand and not ask again.

That didn’t come close to working. Eventually it was “Because I said so” after I ran out of ammunition. He still argued with “because I said so,” but since a parent doesn’t need backup facts, it lessens the chance of reasonable counter-arguments.

Responses that apply at least once to every kid

• Why do I have to tell you everything four times? This one sometimes – but not always – leads to “Because I said so, that’s why.”

• I don’t care what Adam does. This comes from the infamous “If (fill in a name) jumped off a cliff, would you?” That one danced on the tip of my tongue for years, but I avoided it most of the time. When I was six-years old, I made a promise to myself.

• How can it be an accident? This is previewed by some preventable tragedy, such as my son punching his sister in the face. In my son’s world, it was an accident because he only meant to scare his sister and not hit her, but his fist accidentally went closer than the half inch he had planned.

I explained that hitting someone in the face is not an accident. Falling down stairs is an accident. Dialing a wrong number is an accident. Hitting, by definition, cannot be an accident. But eventually it will happen again, and I’ll pull out “Why do I have to tell you everything four times,” inevitably followed a few minutes later by “Because I said so, that’s why.”

I should have gone right to the because-I-said-so explanation. The reason I didn’t? It made me sound like my own parents.

I wanted to be the understanding, fun-to-be-with Dad who took the time to explain life. I wanted my children to listen quietly, shaking their heads up and down at the best parts and absorbing my wisdom. I wanted them to thank me, go out into the world, and make whole new mistakes that I didn’t have time to discover.

Isn’t that better than “because I said so”?

There are other expressions I was forced to say. However, these spring from a kid’s confusion about life and the simple rules they’ll soon take for granted. Every parent has stories, but all end with the parent thinking: “I can’t believe I have to say this out loud.”

Responses that applied to my kids

• I don’t know why you can’t eat spaghetti for breakfast, you just can’t.
• It’s not polite to burp while you’re kissing me.
• You should never lie, but yes, even if you hate the present Grandma gave you, you have to tell her you like it.
• No, you can’t watch Mom and me have sex. (One of the perils of early sex education.)

In response to my wisdom, my child usually asked the most difficult question of all: Why? Why do I lie about the present? Why isn’t it polite to burp while kissing?

I struggled with answers. If lying is bad, why do we do it? My answer: Lying isn’t always bad; we just say it is because the nuanced exceptions are too hard to explain. You can’t watch Mom and Dad have sex because … well … just because.

And I don’t have the slightest idea why you can’t have spaghetti for breakfast. Tomatoes are fruit and spaghetti is a starch, like corn flakes and shredded wheat, right? It’s all good nutrition. Many times, parents don’t know the answer and wonder themselves why they play by rules they never thought to question. They just can’t admit it aloud. If they did, it would lead to more unanswerable questions.

Until a child asks us spaghetti-for-breakfast questions, we forget that the world is not always logical. One of the joys of parenthood is the chance to peek again at the insanity (sanity) of childhood.

 

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