My nearly 8-year-old asked me yesterday why his friend at school no longer has a dad at home, and I had to navigate with him through the truths of alcohol and spousal abuse.

The day before he asked why his oldest friend never had a dad at home, and I had to gently explain that his dad was mentally ill and too dangerous to live with, and he has to live in a hospital most of the time.

At school, he observes that it's almost always the boys who fight and make trouble for teachers. He asks me why. I say I don't know.

He asks me why our farm worker gets angry so easily and so often, and why he uses so many very bad words. I tell him that he has a problem from a very long time ago, and that it makes him unhappy.

He asks me why it's the men who are 'sick' and who cause problems, and I say I don't know. Wait till you're older and I'll try to explain it to you as best I can.

[ 06 December 2005: Message edited by: brebis noire ]

We have girls, my oldest is 8. That seems to be an age of questions -- they notice the interpersonal and try to make the logical connections, but don't quite have the maturity to really process it yet. They're too grown up for the baby answers, but not grown up enough for the full, detailed answer, either.

The hard one for me is explaining my self-medicating bipolar sister to my girls... They hear what I say about loving and standing up for your sister, but Ms B also notices that I'm estranged from my own sister. I can't just go with "do as I say, not as I do", and it's hard to explain that you can love someone and care what happens to them but also know that they're too toxic to be close to. My sister also does a lot of things that are cruel and detrimental to her 13 yr old son... It makes me angry and I can't help but disapprove, and Ms B is old enough to pick up those vibes.

We've had some talks about it. I've had to explain that some people's heads work differently, like all the wires aren't straight and make funny sparks that affect what they do and how they think, and that her aunt's head is like that and she needs medicine to help her, but is afraid of the medicine and won't take it. That sometimes she might do something that hurts another person, so we don't go around her because it isn't safe, and that I hope that someday she'll start taking medication and straighten out her life so we can be around her again.