Relentless

Jack has always been very curious and enthusiastically interested in the world around him. While I by no means want to discourage this trait in him, there are times when the relentless questions get a little wearing.

He has been doing this thing lately where he will ask me a question whose answer I don’t know. When I tell him I don’t know the answer, he will guess something outrageous. When I say, no, that can’t be right, he takes it as a sign that I do know the answer after all, and will try to keep guessing until I put the kibosh on the conversation.

Case in point: the other day we were driving to school, and he asked me how big around the Earth was. I told him I didn’t know, that we could look it up when we got home.

“A trillion miles?” he asked.

Well, I know it’s not a trillion miles, and I told him so.

“A billion miles? A billion and a half?”

“No, Jack, not that much.”

“Well, how much is it? A million? A hundred thousand?”

OH MY GOD. I explained to him that, even though I don’t know an answer exactly, I still know that it’s not an incredibly outlandish number like a trillion miles.

I told him, “It’s like if you ask me how old someone is and I tell you I don’t know. If you guess a thousand years, well, I know that he’s not a thousand years old, because no one’s that old. But it doesn’t mean I know how old he is. You guessing, ’99? 80? 60?’ isn’t suddenly going to make me know it. The only thing it’s going to do is irritate me.”

I mean, HONESTLY.

And then this morning, Jack was asking me if I had a smart phone (I guess he must have heard the term from someone). I told him I did not. He asked if anyone we know has one. I told him yes.

“Who?” he asked.

I named a couple of people.

“Who else?”

I named a few more.

“Who else?” he pressed.

I named a couple more. My patience for this conversation was starting to wear thin.

“And who else?” he asked again.

I’m ashamed to say it, but I sighed and cried, “What difference does it make, Jack? Stop asking!”

He pouted for a while. I asked him, “Why are you pouting?”

“Why do you get mad at me when I ask you questions?”

I told him it would be one thing if he was asking different questions, trying to find out different kinds of information. But if he just wants me to rattle of a list of people or continually guess at something, that's not an interesting conversation. I told him it was kind of like how, when I ask him what he did in preschool that day, he so frequently tells me only one thing and then says he can’t remember anything else.

“What if,” I asked him, “instead of accepting your answer, I kept badgering you, ‘What else? What else? What else?’ Would you like that?”

“No,” he admitted sulkily.

“Jack,” I said, “you asking me 'Who else?' so many times is pretty much like that. There is no way that I’m going to be able to name every single person I know who owns a smart phone. Why do you want to know anyway?”

“I don’t know. I just do,” he said.

ARGGHHH.

Seriously. Relentless. This thirst for knowledge better stand us in better stead once he starts school.