Tough Questions

It seems to me that children age in strange surges that defy the space-time continuum.  The girls grow and mature, for the most part, without my notice nor my permission, until something startles me into realizing that time lurches by in great heaves.  The things that usually trigger this periodic realization usually revolve around the girls’ physical sizes.  Sometimes I’ll look down at Mo’s feet and it dawns on me that they are rapidly approaching the same size as Amy’s.  I’ll look at a picture from two years ago and see Shay’s stubby little toddler legs, and my breath will catch in my chest, because I know those legs won’t ever look like that again, that she is older and growing and that entropy is more than an obscure thermodynamic property, that it governs the arrow of time, and indeed, our relationship with our own children.

And at time, the clues of their unyielding maturation reside not in their physical appearance, but in their questions. 

They used to ask such simple questions.  Questions that a six or seven or even eight year old would ask.  Things easy to answer in short, safe responses. 

But now, as the universe continues to slip into a more and more disordered state, their experiences have led them to put more and more complex thoughts together.  They are at the age where the ordered world of childhood is beginning to slip into the far more complex, far more disordered world of adolescence, which we know itself one day slips into the even murkier and more random realm of adulthood.  And as they try to reconcile these worlds, they look to Amy and me for guidance in trying to ease their transition. 

Which means, their questions are getting hard to answer.

 “Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

Shay is staring down at some alien piece of pink plastic she has pinched between her thumb and forefinger, rolling it around, eyeing it with intensity, this broken bit of some toy long since gone and forgotten, likely banished with the dust bunnies lying beneath beds or behind dressers.

“Sure.  Is it about that thing you have there?”

She looks up, her dark eyes searching my face, wondering why I’m so damn dumb.

“Uh, no, I don’t even know what this is.  I found it outside.”

“Okay, awesome.  That means I’ll step on it in bare feet later and cuss up a storm.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I sigh, gently taking from her the jagged piece of foot destruction and putting it in my pocket.  “What do you want to ask me?”

“Well…do you believe that God made all the people in the world?”

“Uh…sure…I suppose…do you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  That’s good then.”

“But…”

“But…what?”

“So if God made all the people, does he make murderers?  And if he makes murderers, does he know they are going to be murderers?  And if he does, then why?  And if he doesn’t, that means he really doesn’t know everything, at least not in the future, which means he can’t see the future, but if he can see the future, then he already knows what a murderer is going to do, and he knows what I’m going to do, then does he already know I’m a good or bad person because he can see the future, and…”

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa!  How long have you been thinking about this stuff?”

She shrugged, pulled at her shirttail, sniffed back a rattling wad of snot.  “A while a guess.”

“Man.  Shay, those are some questions I don’t even know how to begin to answer.  I’m not an expert on Calvinism and predestination.  You just have to be the best you can.  That’s all anyone can be.  Okay?”

She stared at me for a minute, a look of consternation spreading across her brow.  “But…what’s the answer?”

Uh-oh. 

She knows.

She knows that I don’t know everything.

I cannot bullshit her anymore.  She’s not asking the regular “what ifs” that every kid asks.  She’s starting to ask real questions and expects real answers.

Damn.  I thought I had a few years before all that started.

“I know that people have been debating those questions for a long, long time.  And I know that people have fought each other because of them.  I guess what I’m saying… is that Sunday school classes are up and running again.  Maybe you should ask one of the teachers at our church.  They’re the experts on that kind of thing.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

As I watch her shuffle out the room and into the hallway, I realize that I need to be more careful.  Not just with questions, but with a lot of things I say. 

My God.  I could actually screw them up if I’m not careful.  They don’t know my sarcasm yet.  They don’t know that most of the time I’m joking or just talking out of my ass about stuff.  What if I give them a complex about something?  What if they yearn for an answer to some existential question that might define how they view the world around them and impact every personal relationship they have, and when they come to me I give my usual glib, off-the-cuff response?

Dad, why don’t chickens fly?

Because God is dead.  Now go do your homework.

Of course I wouldn’t ever be that bad, but still.  What if I say something about how I’m getting fatter and it’s harder to lose weight up here in my late thirties?  I’ve said as much, and Mo looked at me and said, “Oh, Dad, you’re perfect, don’t worry about it.”

Now, instead of getting all misty and hugging her, I say, “Yeah, well, the seams of my pants are worrying about it.  So are my man-boobs.  They’re starting to jiggle around when I don’t want them to. ”

See?

They don’t get that I’m joking (well, kind of joking) and am just not thinking about what I’m saying.  I sure as hell don’t want them to have poor body images, grabbing and pinching at every perceived spot of imperfect flesh and wishing it away.  It’s a shitty way to go through life.

Now, I could just flat out lie to her about random stuff like my dad did when he didn’t know an answer.  I’m pretty sure it was his favorite thing in the world to do.   Those of you who know me well are aware of the Pierre Frontage story (“Frontage” pronounced with a long “o” and a soft “g” like a French name).  One fine day in the mid 1980’s, after hours of driving along some remote Kansas highway, I pointed to a sign that read “frontage road” and asked my dear old father what it was.

“That’s a sign that marks the path of the famous early explorer Pierre Frontage,” he explained sagely.  “You always see them along the highways because Pierre Frontage found all the best ways across America, and when the roads were built, they just went right next to his path because he already had it all mapped out.”

Made sense.

I believed that shit until high school. 

Dad swears he never said that, that I must have heard it from somewhere else.  I beg to differ.  Regardless, it was a pretty good story, one that he cannot deny sounds exactly like something that would have come out of his mouth.  I know for sure I asked him what the definition of “dire” was.

“Dire.  Means, like, fast, emergency.”

“Oh," I said, momentarily satisfied.

“Dire.  Like in…dire-rhea?”

“Sure.  I guess.  But then what does ‘rhea’ mean?”

Dad, with a shrug, said simply, “poop.”

Fast emergency poop. 

Made sense.

There are other questions they have not asked yet that I know are coming soon.  Horrifyingly uncomfortable questions about their ever-growing bodies…and about boys.

The other day Shay came home with her school pictures.  They were amazing.  She looked so grown up and pretty and yada yada yada gushing father garbage.  Anyway, as she began to pull them out, she stopped, looked me dead in the eye and said, “Dad, now, a friend of mine, a boy, not a boyfriend, a friend that is a boy [the reason for her adamancy was undoubtedly due to me constantly reminding them they are far too young to worry about boyfriends and that stuff] asked me for a picture so I gave him one.”

“That’s okay.  I always traded school pics with people in my class.  Did he give you one?”

She then returned the biggest, sheepish grin I’d ever seen from her.  “Yeeeeeees,” she said with rising pitch.  She then pulled out a huge picture of a chubby blonde-haired kid with funny round glasses set askew across his nose and a big goofy grin on his face. 

And I don’t mean it was the medium sized one or even the one that has two to a sheet.  It was the full sheet monster, the biggest one in the pack.  Like 8 ½” by 11”.  Huge. 

All I could do was laugh.

She snatched it back from me and shot me a nasty look.

“Shay,” I said.  “Seriously.  You’ve gotta give that back.  I’ll bet his mom will want that one.” 

Shay shook her head and said, “No, his mom is in jail.  He lives with his Dad.  He said his Dad won’t care if he gives it to me because someone else paid for the pictures, he doesn’t know who, but that his Dad doesn’t even know they are coming.”

I stopped laughing.

“His mom is in jail?”

“Yeah,” she said with a wave of her hand.  “I think drugs or something.  That’s why he’s my friend, because I was a foster kid too and he had to go to a foster home for a little while until his Dad came and got him.  Maybe that was who paid for the pictures.  Anyway, he said his foster parents weren’t very nice, and I said that mine were, and now they‘re my real Mom and Dad.  But that’s why he’s my best friend, because of all that.” 

I let her keep the damn picture and I didn’t laugh at it again. 

Although I do chuckle every time I see that kid grinning back at me from her dresser.

There is another question I am in no hurry to answer, but I know is coming.  And if I don’t address it soon, it could lead to some serious embarrassment later.

I’m talking, of course, about Santa Claus.

Now, as a kid, I loved Christmas.  I still do, but I mean…I loved it.  Especially Santa Claus.  And I was in no hurry to know the truth about Saint Nick, even though most of my friends already knew and looked at me with growing unease and pity every time I mentioned him. 

This went on until Christmas of the fifth grade.

Dad was in no hurry to ruin Christmas for me, and knowing what I know now, I don’t blame him.  So he just never took an active role in informing me about it.  He figured that if I really wanted to know, I’d ask.  And he was right.  Some friend of mine would announce that there was no Santa at all, that everyone who believed in him was a moron, and I’d sadly shake my head and wonder why being correct and cool trumped the possibility of no longer receiving presents.  My belief just made good sense.  Why screw up a good thing?  Who was it hurting?

Well, that was before the day the first grade wrote letters to Santa, and we, the fifth grade, were to respond to them.  Mrs. Solomon announced what we were doing just before we were to go outside for afternoon recess.  I was horrified.

None of the other kids seemed to think how…wrong this was.  My ears started to ring as I grew angrier and angrier.  This was an affront to Christmas!  Who were we to steal the first grader’s letters, so nicely addressed to the North Pole, and impersonate Santa Claus?  Besides being wrong, I was pretty sure tampering with mail was a federal offence.  So as she passed the hand-decorated stuffed envelopes up and down the rows, I slowly raised my hand.

“Yes Matt?”

“Why don’t we send these to the real Santa Claus?”

The laughter was immediate.  Even from Mrs. Solomon.

“Oh, honey, if you still believe in Santa Claus, then someone’s been lying to you for a long, long time.”

And we held each other’s gaze for a few seconds, and she realized that she had just crushed me in front of everyone, some of whom were laughing, some of whom were just sitting there with their mouths open, others just beginning their assignments.  Mrs. Solomon got the class under control and later she apologized to me.  I played it off like it was all a big joke, that of course I didn’t still believe in Santa, that I was doing it to see what everyone would do, that kind of thing.

But she knew.

And I knew I was PISSED at my parents for not telling me sooner.

When I confronted Dad about it, he just said that he thought I was having a good time believing, so who was he to screw up my holiday?

But there are some things that cannot abide that passivity.  There are things that must be taught up front.

Mo will have to learn that there is no Santa after this Christmas.  She’s in the fourth grade, and I don’t want her to have the same horror story I have.  Besides, I think she already knows.

There are other subjects we are going to face that must be discussed with our girls, things that, despite our best efforts and desires, we cannot shield them from.

Some are kind of whimsical, like Santa.

Some are uncomfortable, like sex.

And some I will have absolutely no idea how to handle, because I don’t know how to navigate the intricacies myself.  Like all the things they’re hearing about in the news, from other kids, or by simply overhearing Amy and I talk to each other.  Like politics.

Like sexual assaults.

Like race relations.

They haven’t asked these questions directly yet, but…do I wait until they do?  Or do I help guide them through the impending loss of innocence?  Is that something for which I am even qualified? I used to hide behind a veil of buffoonery, make light of it.  But I can’t with these kids.  I know that I will have to sit them down and talk about so many things.  Because if I don’t, they may suffer a similarly traumatic revelation as I did that day in Mrs. Solomon’s class.  One that might affect her relationships with her friends, her school, her society.

One that might affect her relationship with me.    

I can think of no truer horror than one day Mo looking at me with betrayed eyes and saying, “My God Dad, what else haven’t you told me?”

But man, I am in no hurry to tell Mo there is no Santa Claus.

Well. 

I guess I’ll let her have just one more year.  And even though I hate it with everything I have, I’ll move that damn Elf on the Shelf a just a few more times, and know that soon the girls will move on to the more disordered world of adolescence. 

Because entropy happens.