I promised myself I would not employ that phrase in my maternal vocabulary. I told my naivety it is only fair to a child to give her a good reason for whatever you were wanting her to do. I assumed it would only take a little imagination and creativity to come up with sufficient answers to the inevitable challenges to my authority.And then somehow, somewhere, someone (obviously inspired by the devil himself) said the phrase, "But, whyyyyyyyy?" around my verbal little copy-cat sponge. With a little pause and a slight breath after the 'but' and a long and drawn out 'why' with a falling tone, it was the worst possible combination of two words for her to overhear.
Would you just please observe a moment of silence for me?
While I have not yet broken my promise, I am running out of anything else to say. I mean, who can come up with 7 answers to 'butwhy' in 120 seconds? I am NOT exaggerating.
I have tried the following:
"What are you talking about?"
"That doesn't make any sense at all?"
"What did you say? Is that English?"
"Blah, blah, blah, blah"
"Because the sky will fall down on you if you don't"
"Because the monster in the disposal will come out and eat you"
"Because you will turn into a frog"
"Because, because, because, because, because.....because of the wonderful things he does"
(OK, I've only used first half, but I have thought the rest.)
What would you say? But, why?
(This post is part of Watercooler Wednesday at Ethos.)
6 comments:
Well, I can be of no help here. I finally pulled out the "because I'm the Mom" argument stopper just today after trying to explain for 10 minutes to my oldest, intentionally-named Anna daughter, why she could not change her name to Ashley Alexzandra...Well, that and "when you're the Mom you can name your kids whatever you want."
The adults-only party was very nice. We had a fabulous time. I don't know why we don't do stuff like that more often. Oh yeah, kids. We all have kids :o)
My kids have moved past this phase, but nieces and nephew are just now in it. One of them asks so much that I literally just have to ignore it. I let a minute or two go by and then just start talking about something else. I'm sure it's much easier because they aren't my child!
It could be argued that the ability and willingness to obey authority simply for the sake of obeying authority is what preserves society as we know it.
My favorite? "I don't know."
I use it a lot. Then, he comes up with possible answers. Hilarious.
I never have a good answer for that horrible question, though I quite like your options of "because the sky might fall down on you." I'll definitely tuck that one away!
My daughter has just moved on from that stage however my son has now started too! I have 2 answers for this... number 1: 'never say 'why' because why has a long tail' the response to this is 50-50 sometimes they sit there and try to work it out giving you 5 minutes peace and other times they just ask 'why does it have a long tail' number 2: 'why do you need to know?' when they answer 'because i do' keep asking them 'why' the reverse is the best way and works EVERYTIME and it winds them up as much as it does you! hope this helps. Candy :D
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