Last Word: wisdom

‘Mum, what should I do when Harry tells me he won’t be my friend unless I let him cheat on the spelling test?’ ‘Dad, if we’ve been working so hard to save money, how come we’re not going to Barbados like Mia?’ ‘Mum, why did that celebrity die when they worked so hard, had such great health care, and went to the gym every day?’

Little people ask big questions. To our embarrassment, toddlers do not nuance their inquiries about injustice. Even teenage children humbly cross-examine Mum and Dad when their worldview crumbles. On one hand, as their parents, we love receiving such questions. We rejoice in participating in their intellectual exploration. We cherish that in an uncertain world we are still their rock (at least for a few more years). Yet, often we find ourselves tongue-tied. We replay conversations and notice the deficiency of our advice and of our answers.

Indeed, if you are a Christian parent, then you, like me, often find yourself fluctuating between speedy, time-crunched responses and answers that swiftly springboard to Jesus. With regard to the former, we encourage our child to simply ‘tell the teacher’; we explain that Mia’s parents won the lottery and can now afford such luxury vacations; we skirt around the topic of death lest we make our children overly anxious.