Big Questions

The job description for a 4-year-old always includes the word "inquisitive" (along with "chocolate milk addiction," "aversion to sock seams," and "constant noise production," to name a few others), and as demonstrated by the speeding ticket incident, Keira definitely fits the bill. In the past week or two, she's asked a few doozies:

1) "Mommy, that man is BLACK. Why is he BLACK?!"

Remind me to add "embarrasser of parents" to that job description (and to add "embarrasser" to the dictionary--hey, Shakespeare invented words! Why can't I?). There we are, in line at The Gap--which, interestingly enough, is White People Central and probably the least likely place this question could ever have come up--and the man behind us gives Ellie a high-five and starts making small talk with Keira while I pay for our clothes. As we leave, Keira poses her question, loudly and repeatedly while I a) suddenly realize that I've never had to overhear a child asking his parents why I'm WHITE, b) try to imagine what that it would be like to have my skin color noticed on a regular basis, and c) try to figure out how to answer her question while getting her out of there before she says anything else on the subject.

I finally gave her the old "People's skin comes in lots of different colors" speech and thought of that episode of "Seinfeld" where George Costanza tries to befriend his exterminator to prove to his boss that he has "black friends." How is it possible that we live where we live, and yet the girls apparently have almost no contact with people outside our own race? Yikes, yikes, and more yikes...and yet, how to fix that without pulling a Costanza, especially when I'm not one to seek out new friends, period? As Chandler Bing would say, "Can open. Worms everywhere."

I got nothin'. Moving on, then...

2) "Mommy, why is your tummy so big up here?"

She asked this while patting my chest as she snuggled against me on the couch. First, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank her for her overly-generous use of the term "big," and for indirectly implying that my actual tummy is NOT big. Secondly, how does a child who nursed nonstop for six months, and who watched me nurse her baby sister a zillion times, not know what boobies bazoombas ta-tas okay, fine, breasts are?? Go figure. Brief anatomy lesson...check!

3) "But Mommy, why can't I get married with Ellie-Bugs when I grow up?"

This one was, by far, the easiest one, even though she asked it in the middle of a shoe store (right after the Gap experience, in fact). If I can get mildly political for a sec, I never really understand it when people say, "How am I supposed to explain [gay marriage, that kid's lesbian moms, those two guys holding hands, etc.] to my kids?" It's not like kids are born with an understanding of what traditional marriage is in the first place--we've had to explain to Keira tons of times about why she wasn't there when I "got married with Daddy," why Bear and I wear wedding rings, why she probably won't marry Daddy when she grows up, what a wedding is, and so on. How hard is it, really, to tack "Usually boys want to marry girls and girls want to marry boys, but sometimes a girl wants to marry a girl, or a boy wants to marry a boy" onto the end of all those other explanations?

And when they get older, you can add, "And some people don't think that's okay, but those people still shouldn't make hurtful comments about it."

And then you can discuss whether thinking something is gross means you should be able to legally prevent others from doing it (in which case nose-picking would be outlawed and half of my students would be taking kindergarten as a correspondence course from the slammer), or whether people of all religions--or who have no religion at all--should have to follow what certain religious groups believe.

I guess we all know how the Bears feel about this issue now, don't we?

Anyway, back to my daughters' incestuous lesbian marriage. The shoe store clerk seemed to think it was a pretty funny question, and chuckled to herself when I said, "Trust me, Sweetie--when you grow up, you won't want to marry Ellie-Bugs anymore. But she can be in your wedding with you, just like Aunt Jen-Jen was in mine with me!" Actually, since half the girls in my class are "in love with Justin Bieber" (one of them declined a sweater on a chilly day because, she said dreamily, her Justin Bieber t-shirt was keeping her warm), I think I like this sister-wife stage much better than what's to come. Ick.

So yeah, Kiwi fits the job description for a 4-year-old to a T...so well, in fact, that we may have to start paying her for all this entertainment!