Littlewoods, an online retailer based in the UK, released the results of a survey that showed that mothers are asked between approximately 200 and 400 questions a day. When this information came to light, you could almost hear millions of mothers around the world saying, "Really? That's it?" all at once. Because OMG, you guys. I know I don't have to tell the parents reading this, but it's exhausting. If you think about it, we have decades of learning, asking questions, and experience to get to our current levels of knowledge. Children on the other hand? They are very young and they know...basically nothing. Fact of life: kids need to ask questions. So in addition to paying for them, caring for them, and dealing with their nonsensical mood swings and annoying TV shows (why can't my kid be a Daredevil fan?), it is incumbent upon us to answer every single one of their many, many questions.
And truthfully, I think it's awesome. Yeah, it's annoying when they're asking you for their 14th snack in two hours (you took one bite out of that goddamn apple, are you friggin' kidding me here?), but there is little that excites me more than seeing my children curious about something and then dousing that spark with metaphorical gasoline and watching the ensuing mental bonfire. There's so much for me to teach them and so much to learn together and so many David Attenborough nature documentaries to watch; all those cool things the scary questions we have to answer, like talking to your kids about death or how to respond to street harassment. But for feminists, there are fewer scary questions out there, because we're not nervous about giving our answers. Here are a few common kid questions that might trip up most people, but not feminist moms: