I used to hear people complaining about the questions children asked, all their whys. And I thought: So easy! Just answer! What’s the issue, you strange, complaining parents? That’s what I thought. Now I want to claw out my eyes sometimes, at the questions, the days and days of questions. Life is a constant pop quiz, and I’m always failing. The cognitive dissonance, the limits of my knowledge, the exposure of those limits when the four-year-old demands answers in a lift, say, a quiet, crowded lift, everyone waiting, with interest, for my reply. To be left with I don’t know, to slip listlessly
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