This Is the Only Satisfactory Answer to ‘Why?’
Do not let your inquisitive toddler win
It’s bedtime, and you’re trying to get Little Socrates to brush his teeth. He would rather question the nature of reality, which is incompatible with the fastidious scrubbing of every single one of his little pearly whites.
Some questions are too big for us adults to fit into our everyday lives: What is important? What is really true, and what is false? How do we know we can trust our senses? Why do we exist? We stack them neatly in the cupboards of our minds, away from our daily concerns of work and family and health and news and, oh goodness, did you hear about what happened to Muriel? Hey, wait a minute. Someone is rattling at that cupboard door. It’s Little Socrates. Again.
Toddlers, unburdened by the distinction between big and small questions, seek only ultimate truth. They see it as their burning duty to interrogate reality, to discover the nature of the world, and to know why they can’t wear their rain boots to bed.
They want to know why they will never see Grandma again. And why one dog has spots and another one doesn’t. And why they haven’t ever seen a blue dog outside of their picture book. These are, in the moment they ask them, questions for which they have a singular, burning desire to be satisfied by an…
