I am overly prideful in how I father my children. I've never sought advice from anyone on parenting, nor do I offer parenting advice to others unless I'm explicitly asked for it. But there have been two occasions where I've come across wisdom that has struck me as so insightful that I applied it to my interactions with my daughters.
I've written about one recently where I learned the value of praising children for effort instead of praising them for "being so smart," as parents are wont to do. The second instance was when I read about some father (perhaps an historic figure, I can't really remember) who, instead of asking his child at the end of every day how many questions he answered at school, was more interested in knowing what kind of questions he asked.
Recently my daughter has asked me some surprisingly probing questions. Yesterday, she asked whether there was still slavery in Egypt (think: pyramids), and then followed up with, "How did the slavery end?" That was a question I had never considered myself, and I had no answer. This morning she asked where people came from. At first my wife and I stuttered and stalled, thinking that we were heading down the path of birds and bees. But no. When we eventually got around to the standard story that she "popped out of mommy's tummy," she clarified her question, by saying, "No, no. I mean, you know there are trees and animals on earth. Where did people come from?" This was a question for which I did have a clue, but my answer was totally inadequate. I mumbled something about bacteria and fish and amphibians and monkeys, but I totally botched it before mercifully changing the subject. For someone so proud of his parenting skills, this wasn't a shining moment as father, that's for sure.
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