Norah’s Questions

This is a super long post that I don’t expect/want anyone to read. I marvel at my little Norah’s questions though and I want to remember the thoughtful conversations we had when she was just 4. She amazes me with her curiosity, logic and attention span.

Norah is constantly asking “why?” Remember Mindy on Animaniacs? That is my life now. Norah recently asked a bunch of tough questions within just a few days of each other and it made me feel like she was growing up a bit too fast. First, she caught me off guard with a mini interrogation on the specifics of how and why the Easter Bunny filled Easter baskets. I was really struggling to answer her questions without deliberately lying to her. It’s one thing to tell a kid the Easter bunny is coming when they are barely paying attention and immediately move on to asking for a snack; it’s another thing when they are earnestly trying to understand, seeking the truth if you will . . .or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better about spilling the beans. I told her that the Easter Bunny was something we pretended. She thought about that for a second and then said “oh, because Santa is really filling our Easter baskets.” I kind of panicked. I didn’t want to destroy Santa too but I didn’t know want to say “yes, exactly” so I said “well, when I was a kid, my mom and dad filled my Easter basket but we pretended it was the Easter bunny.” Norah said “so you are going to fill my basket” and I said “yes but we are going to pretend it’s the Easter Bunny.” She threw that out the window and asked “Why don’t you fill it right now?” and the rest of the week leading up to Easter any time there was any mention of the Easter Bunny she corrected us and said “you mean you and Dad.” At these moments I’d hang my head in shame and Bryan would say something like “don’t worry, it’s no big deal, you just robbed her of her childhood.” I’m not sure I did the right thing but what was done was done. All we could do was encourage her to pretend and play along. She resisted at first but on Easter morning she was very much in character and could have convinced anyone that she had a good mom who let her enjoy the magic of childhood. I hope she enjoyed “pretending” as much as “believing.”

The next tough set of questions I got were prompted by NPR. Oh NPR! Ever since Norah asked me what a suicide bomber was at age 3 I’ve tried very hard to not listen when she’s around, but sometimes I feel like my brain is eating itself when I’m in the car listening to kid music and I succumb to temptation. This particular lapse included headlines about deadly fires in Chile. Norah knows most Latin American countries from school so Chile caught her attention and the questions began. She was very concerned and wanted to send money. I didn’t want her to feel burdened but I also didn’t want to discourage her empathy so I gently explained that children didn’t really have money and that it was up to the grown ups to take care of Chile. But Norah reasoned that she could persuade her parents to send money and thus have some influence. This is tricky right? I want to raise charitable children who believe they can make a difference but I also don’t think kids should be troubled with global disasters. I can clearly remember worrying as a child about the Kuwaitis and I think I was burdened by it. I don’t think there was anything my parents could have done to keep me in the dark about Desert Storm because news and discussion of it was omnipresent (at least in my childhood memory of it). I briefly considered agreeing and promising to send some money on her behalf but I didn’t want to in anyway send her the message that this sort of thing was something she had any responsibility for. So I just said again that she didn’t have any money and that’s why kids didn’t need to worry about it and that I would make that decision all on my own. Do you empower your child to make a difference or make it clear they are helpless in hopes that they won’t dwell on it? I thought a compromise would be to tell her she could pray for Chile and God would send them her love. That launched Norah into more questions – this time on God. “Is God Jesus or Heavenly Father?” “What are their jobs?” “Who is more important? Heavenly Father or Jesus?” These questions were even harder for me to answer! Whenever I say God, in my heart I mean Heavenly Father AND Heavenly Mother. I love the familiarity of “Heavenly Father” but I’m uncomfortable with how clearly it limits God to only the masculine. I feel like saying God is a way to include both the divine masculine and feminine . . . but I feel conflicted about explaining my unorthodox views to Norah. Instead I’ve tried to subtly influence her by making a point to include Heavenly Mother whenever possible (as in, you have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother and they love you) and it made me a little sad that she didn’t even think to ask me about Heavenly Mother’s “job” (not that I would have had an answer!). Several months ago I mentioned Heavenly Mother and Norah actually challenged me on it and said “who is she? We don’t pray to her.” Norah absorbs everything from primary – she comes home talking about Satan and the war in heaven, she picks up everything. I think she’s gotten the message loud and clear from primary that Heavenly Mother is simply not a part of anything - not the Godhead, the creation story, prayer, not anything.

The next day Norah, Alice and I were eating watermelon and Norah asked me if the baby was going to be all messy. I asked her what she meant and she said “you know, isn’t she going to be all covered in watermelon in there?” I showed her some pictures of the inside of a woman’s belly so she could see the distinction between a uterus and the stomach. We looked at how the organs got all squished around the uterus as the baby grew and of course she had lots and lots of questions. We ended up having a complete anatomy lesson which concluded with Norah trying to find all her different body parts. I thought that was great, until Alice also started to investigate Norah. Then we had to have the talk about how only Norah got to do that. It was nice how it came up so naturally and how easy it was to use Alice as an example of what not to allow but even so it was more than I was expecting to discuss. All of these conversations were within a week of each other!