I remember, oh, a few years back, when the whys were easy.

"Mom, why is it dark at night?" four-year-old Josef would ask.

"Because our bit of the Earth has its back to the Sun at night," I'd answer, with parental certainty. "So the Sun's rays of light can't reach us until we turn around again in the morning."

"So why do you shout at Daddy when he only gets home from soccer once it's already dark?" he'd retort instantly.

Don't you just love a nimble mind in a child?

"Because it means he has gone to have a few beers with his friends and he is all giggly and silly and it is annoying when I am not feeling giggly and silly too."

See? Easy-peasy putsticks.

In fact, during that particular kiddy phase, I developed a certain smugness. After all, the speedy retort is my stock in trade. If that's what bringing up questioning kids required, well... then, I was styling.

Now, if you have ever read one of these columns before, you'll know how frightened I am of parental smugness: it has a Murphiness to it that is just too wince-worthy to behold. You know what I mean. I know there are others of you who have had a friend with a newborn lean over and confide smugly: "Well, we have been very lucky. It just took two weeks, and then she was sleeping through. It must have been our strict routine, but it's so nice to have that problem out of the way.”

And you laughed uproariously in your head, didn't you? Admit it. I know I did.

And then the whys got scary...
So when I felt the familiar smug tug of the uninitiated, I did steel myself a little in preparation. And I was right. It didn’t take long before the whys got scary.

"Why are the Southern and Northern Lights just over the poles?" asked seven-year-old Joe, while we were watching that really long Penguins Marching About movie.

"Because light refracts differently at the poles," I answered confidently.

"Why?" asked Joe.

"Because the atmosphere is... thinner. No, I think because the light has to come in at an angle."

"So why do the colours go all wavy and beautiful?"

(I paused here to take what I like to call a 'wee and Wiki' break. I love Wikipaedia.)

"The colours look like that because the electrons lose energy or uh, voltage, quickly... or slowl... or something." I replied, somewhat less confidently.

Josef transferred his gaze from the penguins to me. Seven-year-olds can have very unnerving gazes.

"You didn't really understand the Wiki entry, did you?” he said evenly.

"No, I didn't," I confessed. "And, honestly? I don't think I ever will."

Honest is the best policy
I think honesty works really well with the scary whys. Unless of course, the scary why question in question actually scares you.

"Mom, why are we unevolving?" asked Joe, just last week.

"What do you mean, honey?" I asked, worried.

"Well, you know how dinosaurs and woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers were all big and strong, with terrible claws and terrible teeth and stuff?"

"Yes?" I answered, secretly wishing we had not chosen Where the Wild Things Are as a bedtime story quite so many times.

"Well, we only have these thin little nails and little teeth and skin that breaks and burns really easily. We are much weaker than the creatures that came before us. Are we turning back into amoeba?”

My reaction to this was two-fold. First, I was way impressed that Joe could have come up with something like that on his own (okay, with a lot of help from the National Geographic channel). Second, I got actively anxious. I mean, what if he is right? What if we are unevolving? Isn't that a colossally bad thing? And shouldn't we perhaps... take it up with someone?

"The important thing is not to panic," said Andreas the Scientist, when Joe and I confronted him with this scary why worry. "We may be weak, but at least we have a lot of technology to make sure we stay at the top of the food chain."

Joe looked thoughtful for a bit.

"What... d'you mean like guns?"

Hoo-boy. And you wonder why teens think their parents are stupid.

How have you dealt with the AGE of the SCARY WHYS? What's the most unusual or complicated WHY you've ever heard? Share in the comment box below.

This column originally appeared in Cape Town's Child.