I can only hope that my mother eventually forgave me for the million+ questions that I must have pummeled her with during my growing up. It seems that she has as there is no evidence of any harboring of ill will for this rather innocent, but nonetheless wide spread abuse of the aging by their bright eyed and ever curious--to the point of wishing that you could just grab a fly swater to fend them off--Tots and Tot-ettes. As we know, this would never fly (no pun intended) and we would also never do that anyway. But the thought has probably crossed more than one parent's mind out there; I'm sure of it. The point here is just to say that having your own child changes your perspective on everything. Absolutely everything. As a teenager, I remember having a heavy dislike for this particular parental response because I thought that it meant that I was being disavowed as a reason/experience-enabled member of the household and in a small way that might've been partially true. Although it was not really that, it was more that my mother either didn't have the time and/or the desire (read: Both!) to explain herself to someone who thought that he knew more than was actually possible at 14 years of age.
I remember getting all hoped up on psycho-babble in my high school psychology class and then coming home and practicing my 'still wet' analytical skills on my mom first thing through the door after her long, hard day at the office. Yeah, that didn't particulary go over so well. It was kind of like the relationship that sparks have to gasoline. Most of the time we were fine though....as long as I remembered that I was a kid and not her equal. (She gave me a lot of latitude growing up.)
Age changes things though, as life takes you across the fence and shows you life from the other side as you now have a little one (or ones) who question(s) every little thing that you ask them to do. For us it's not really every little thing, but there are times when it sure seems that way. Our daughter is only 4 1/2 at this point and she already thinks that she understands things just fine. She's got a few, but otherwise it's all jungle. So there are times when she asks for an explanation of a directive that I've given her by saying "Why (are you asking me to do) this?" or "Why that?" and a lot of the time I try to be reasonable and give her a little info as to why 'we're doing this' or that so that she has that sense of involvement in the process. This doesn't always work and sometimes it backfires outright and then out of my mouth pops that classic phrase "Why, you're asking me? Because I said. That's Why. (silence) ....and I'm your Dad. End of Story." P.S. Hey Mom, by the way, you rock. You're a Saint, and I love you.
I remember getting all hoped up on psycho-babble in my high school psychology class and then coming home and practicing my 'still wet' analytical skills on my mom first thing through the door after her long, hard day at the office. Yeah, that didn't particulary go over so well. It was kind of like the relationship that sparks have to gasoline. Most of the time we were fine though....as long as I remembered that I was a kid and not her equal. (She gave me a lot of latitude growing up.)
Age changes things though, as life takes you across the fence and shows you life from the other side as you now have a little one (or ones) who question(s) every little thing that you ask them to do. For us it's not really every little thing, but there are times when it sure seems that way. Our daughter is only 4 1/2 at this point and she already thinks that she understands things just fine. She's got a few, but otherwise it's all jungle. So there are times when she asks for an explanation of a directive that I've given her by saying "Why (are you asking me to do) this?" or "Why that?" and a lot of the time I try to be reasonable and give her a little info as to why 'we're doing this' or that so that she has that sense of involvement in the process. This doesn't always work and sometimes it backfires outright and then out of my mouth pops that classic phrase "Why, you're asking me? Because I said. That's Why. (silence) ....and I'm your Dad. End of Story." P.S. Hey Mom, by the way, you rock. You're a Saint, and I love you.