My Child Asked Why It Is Still Broken

She asked why it is still broken, and she was not being unkind.

She is seven. She noticed a thing, and she wanted to know, and she asked in the way seven year olds ask, which is directly and at the worst possible moment, in front of somebody else.

And what you heard was not a question.

What you heard was every conversation you have had with yourself about that door since March. What you heard was: why have you not sorted this out. What you heard was your own voice, arriving in your daughter's mouth.

So you said something. Something short, or something slightly sharp, or something that closed it down. And then you felt bad about that for the rest of the evening, and she had forgotten it in about nine seconds.

Let me put this down before anything else. Not knowing how is not a character flaw, and neither is not having the money for something. A child asking a question about a house is not a child assessing her mother.

What mean these stones

There is a moment in Joshua where God plans for a child's question in advance, and the tone of it is the point.

That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? (Joshua 4:6, King James Version)

God sets up twelve stones specifically so that a child will one day ask about them.

The question is not a problem to be managed in that passage. It is the entire purpose of the arrangement. The stones exist in order to be asked about.

You have a Bible in which a child's question is the point rather than the trouble, and being asked something by a seven year old has never once been an inspection. Joshua 4:6 sets the whole thing up around a child asking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that read as ordinary rather than as pressure to have a good answer.

And notice what the parents are asked to give back. Not a defense. An account of what happened, plainly, so the child knows.

You are being asked for an account rather than a justification, and telling a child the truth about a house has never once required a good excuse. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the charge out of a child's question, and it is written in Joshua that the whole memorial existed so somebody small would ask about it.

Two different conversations happened

Here is what makes this worth an article, because it is a very common and very costly mix up.

Two conversations happened in that kitchen at the same time. One of them was between a seven year old and her mother, and it lasted about four seconds and was about a door.

The other one was between a woman and herself, and it has been running since March, and it is about money and failure and whether anybody is managing.

Your daughter was not in the second conversation. She has never been in it. She does not know it exists.

You have been answering the wrong conversation, and a question asked in four seconds has never once carried the weight of one that has been running for months. It is written in Joshua 4:6 that a child's question is the reason the stones were put there, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates two conversations that arrived in the same second.

And here is what she is actually asking, which is much simpler. She wants to know why. That is it. Children ask why about everything, and a door is not more loaded than a moon or a dog.

What she needs is a true short answer, and what she does with a true short answer is accept it completely and go back to what she was doing.

Now the limit, and I say it here rather than in a footer. If the answer involves something dangerous, tell her that plainly too, and let her hear you say it. Never a gas appliance, never the breaker panel, never mains wiring, never a wall holding the building up, never a roof. Call a licensed professional and pay them properly, and say out loud in front of her that some jobs belong to somebody trained.

You are teaching a child something excellent when she hears you name a limit, and saying that in front of her has never once made a mother smaller in her daughter's eyes. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person peace about that, and Scripture builds the whole memorial around a child asking and a parent answering plainly.

Two sentences, and then show her

So here is the ask, and it is two sentences and about a minute.

Answer the question honestly in two sentences, and then show them the thing.

The two sentences are the whole answer, and they are the true ones. It is broken because a part inside it wore out. We have not fixed it yet because that part costs money we do not have this month.

You are able to say two true sentences to a seven year old, and telling a child the plain truth about money has never once harmed a child. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an honest sentence ordinary, and Joshua 4:6 has a whole arrangement built so that a child would ask and be told.

No apology in it. No sigh. No look. Just the facts, at the volume you would use for anything else.

Then show her. Open it up, or point at the part, or let her hold something. Children want to see far more than they want to be reassured, and being shown the actual thing turns a mystery into an object.

And here is what will happen. She will look at it for about eleven seconds, ask one more question, and then go and do something else, and the whole thing will be entirely over for her.

You have permission to answer plainly and let it be finished, and one minute of showing a child something has never once been a smaller answer than a promise. It is written in Joshua that the stones were set up so a child would ask, and the same Spirit who breathed that line is standing in that kitchen with you.