There’s been a lot written online recently about toddlers asking 400-plus questions a day. At first it seemed like a fairly excessive number. But I want to make it perfectly clear, I’m not willing to sit there with a clicker for 24 hours, keeping tally on every question that Jamie asks.
No way. After further consideration, I’m too afraid that number might be right.
But like anything else, there is a catch. Does it count if 399 of them are the same question? I am serious. Jamie has officially entered the “why” phase.
You tell him to do something.
“Why?”
You tell him the sky is blue.
“Why?”
You tell him to put his toys away.
“Why?”
It doesn’t matter. Factual, or conceptual, real or imagined. The response to almost anything you tell him at any given time these days may just be the same one-word question.
Some of the “Why’s?” seem perfectly logical. He is trying to figure things out and piece together his world. Some of them are positively absurd if they came from anyone else but a toddler.
For example:
“That’s a present, buddy. Somebody gave it to you.”
“Why?”
Or,
“You’re green beans aren’t orange, silly, they’re green.”
“Why?”
Now who in their right mind would ask “Why?” to these kinds of statements? A toddler, of course. Because their little brains are built on repetition. It was the response to the last 15 statements that you gave him. In his mind, it stands to reason that the 16th should also be marked with a “why.”
It doesn’t help that his mother and I both had reputations for asking an array of questions as kids. I remember one neighborhood adult telling me he would start charging me a nickel for every question. I was trying to figure the world out myself. Who knows, maybe my inquisitiveness led to a career in journalism. Or maybe I was just doing my part to drive my parents up a wall.
As we become inundated, we’ll work on our responses.
In the meantime, “I don’t know,” and “Because I said so,” seem like two perfectly acceptable answers to almost any question.
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