“Why Did You Marry Dad?”: 71 Kids Who Broke Their Parents’ Brains With Their Questions

My 4 year old son’s question was “Dad, can I use your flashlight?” My response was “Why do you need a flashlight?” Brief pause then he answered with “Because I can’t see in the dark”.

Back when I was like 5 I asked my grandma who God was, and she described God as an “almighty being”, but i heard “bean” so i spent a couple years trying to figure out why so many people followed a giant Pinto Bean.

“Why are you telling me this? It’s too sad!”

~my young son when I had to break the news about his father’s d***h

Maybe it broke my heart and brain.

When my daughter was 4 yo (she’s 15 now) while putting her to bed and in the middle of our bedtime conversations, she told me in a matter-of-fact voice that God sometimes get it wrong. I asked her what did (God) get wrong. And she said, God should have just put humans in Jupiter since it was waaaaay bigger than Earth. This way, the animals will have more space in planet Earth. This was a conclusion she arrived to after a series of conversations about planets, about human activities destroying animal habitats, about how humans and animals share the same planet.

This is the same kid who told me (at age 5) to finish all my food (especially my meat) because the animals and the vegetables sacrificed their life for us and we should honor it by finishing it and not throwing it away.

My preschooler wanted to eat on the couch. I said he had to eat at the table.
Him “But you get to eat on the couch”
Me; “grown ups are allowed to eat on the couch”
Him “then how come daddy gets to eat on the couch”

My son, as a toddler, was in the car with us. We pulled into the driveway and suddenly he asked his mother “Are you and Dad going to d*e at some point?” She said, hesitantly, that it was true. My son immediately asked “If you d*e, do I get to keep your stuff?” She replied “Yes, you will.” My son thought for a minute and said “Okay, then.” He got out of the car and never mentioned it again. 😂.

My daughter asked me which side I was on in the civil war 😳.

“Mommy, why did [her brother] d*e when he wasn’t even a grown up yet?” Maybe broke my heart more than my brain, but I didn’t have much of an answer for her beyond “because life is really unfair sometimes.”.

My 3-year-old as I’m putting her to bed: “Why does time go by?…Where does it go?”.

Obligatory not a parent, but I have had one of my babysitting kids ask me why I can't sit and talk with them in bed all night. I'm flattered love, but there's only so many times I can hear that you know 3 different Elliots before I'm gonna lose my mind. Go to *sleep!*

“Why can’t my friends and I share underwear?” 
I’ve been keeping close tabs on our laundry since then.

I took my then-5-year-old fishing with me one morning. "Daddy, when you catch a fish and pull it in the air, do you think it's like when aliens steal us and take us up into outer space?"

I had so many questions...

4 yo son "Dad, how do we know we're real and not somebody else's dream?".

Me: "Well Gabe, philosophers have been trying to answer that question for a few thousand years. I don't know that we'll solve it on the way home from grocery shopping but let's give it a shot!"

He got his PhD in economics last month.

Not a parent but an uncle. My brother had twins, a boy and a girl. The girl got lung cancer at 10. Fought and won for almost 2 years and on christmas day got pneumonia and went into septic shock. They tried for a week to bring her back but we had to pull the plug. The boy had learning disabilities and emotional developement problems. We are walking down the hall after and he wanted to show me this fire truck in the kids lobby and write a pray message at the chapel. As we get to the elevator he grabs my hand and tugs it and asks in the most innocent and genuine way, "Uncle Tim, why is this happening?" I gave him some answer that I don't remember and tried to keep my composure because he really wanted to show me this fire truck. Broke my brain and a little of my soul. There is no answer to that question.

"Why do we have bones?"-
I Googled it, and Slim Goodbody came through with "Without your skeleton you'd be gelatin".

My kids were always what I called car seat philosophers. Anyone else only get questions about s*x, d***h and religion as you are trying to merge onto the interstate or was it just my kids?

"When will he be back from being died?" My son was three and missing his great Grandfather, as we all were. Broke my heart more than my brain.

I remember shortly after 9/11 I was sitting in front of the TV in military housing, turned and asked my military father in front of all of his military friends "Why are we fighting them? What do we get if we win? What do they get if they win?"

I was a child and it was the only way I could come close to verbalizing the question "what the hell is this conflict even about". Let me tell you, that was an insanely uncomfortable conversation for every single person in the room. The more follow up questions I had, the angrier everyone got. Which made me more curious because I had no idea why everyone was angry.

That was the first of many political arguments I would get into with my career military father.

My mom- I asked her about all the theoretical inbreeding taking place in my book of Bible stories. Her response was to take the book away because "those aren't the good ones". This was the first of many uncomfortable conversations about religion I would have with my Southern Baptist mother. She eventually stop letting me go to church when other people would invite me (because I was a difficult child who couldn't read a room). Her excuse was that "churches are often lame and full of mean people who need help feeling nice" and we weren't mean and didn't need help being nice ergo no church for us.

This probably will seem fake. Can't help that. When my daughter was 2, we were at the Air and Space museum, and she saw a photo of one of the planes hitting the tower on 9/11. After I gave a brief, simplified explanation, I tried to move on, but she wouldn't budge. She looked up at me and asked, "Were there any babies on the plane?"

I guess it broke my heart more than breaking my brain.

“Dad, the people on the side of the road with signs asking for money?”

“Yeah kiddo?”

“Why do most of them have brown skin?”

Hoo boy, I was not ready to explain structural racism and inequality to my 6 year old, but here we go.