When Your Kid Says “Hi, Question To Parents From Kid”: What To Actually Say
I was standing at the kitchen counter last month, sprinkling cinnamon on sliced apples after my 8-year-old Lila’s soccer practice, when she leaned against the fridge, shifted her weight on her hole-toed socks, and said, “Hi. Question to parents from kid.”
The soccer bag by the door was still leaking crumbs of grass onto the linoleum. My husband was half-focused on his laptop, paying our monthly utility bills, and I fumbled the apple slicer, which clattered loud enough to make both of us jump. I’d known this question was coming. Lila’s great-grandma, who’d lived with us for a year before moving to a nursing home for early dementia, had mixed Lila up with my aunt three times during our visit two days before. Lila hadn’t said a word about it in the car ride home, just stared out the window and picked at a loose thread on her jacket.
I almost gave the answer I’d rehearsed without thinking, the one that’s supposed to make hard feelings go away fast: “Of course she’ll remember your name, honey, don’t worry.” But I stopped. The line of her shoulder was tight, and the way she’d prefaced her question – that silly, formal little “Question to parents from kid” line she’d started using a few months earlier for anything that felt big to her – told me she wasn’t asking for quick, false reassurance. She was asking for the truth.
I wiped apple juice off my hands onto my jeans, pulled a step stool over to the counter so she could sit, and said, “Go ahead. What’s your question?”
“Is Grandma ever going to remember my name again?” she said, and her voice didn’t shake, but she picked at the edge of the cutting board like she was scared to hear the answer.
I thought about the caregiver support group I’d been going to for the last six months, and the thing the social worker said that I’d brushed off at first, because it felt too simple. She said most parents think when a kid asks a hard question, their job is to fix the worry by giving a good answer. But most of the time, the kid just worked up the courage to ask, and they don’t need a perfect solution. They just need you not to run from it.
I told her, “I don’t think she will, baby. Her brain is changing, and it’s getting harder for her to remember all kinds of things, and it will probably keep getting harder. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t this way.” I paused, then added, “But even if she forgets, I still remember how she taught you to roll out cookie dough last Christmas, and you remember too, right? We don’t have to lose that just because she does.”
She sat there for a minute, then wiped her eye on the shoulder of her soccer jersey, ate a slice of apple, and asked if we could write the cookie recipe down in a special notebook so we’d never lose it. After dinner, we sat at the table and decorated the cover with stickers, and she taped a blurry photo of her and Grandma covered in flour inside. It wasn’t a neat fix. She still gets quiet sometimes after we visit the nursing home. But she didn’t hold that question in anymore, which was what she really wanted in the first place.
I’ve noticed since that day that Lila uses that little “Hi, Question to parents from kid” line for all kinds of questions, big and small. It’s her way of flagging that this isn’t a throwaway question she’s asking while I scroll my phone. This matters. It’s a signal that she’s already worked up the nerve to ask, and she needs my full attention.
There are a few small things I do now that I didn’t do before, when I’d half-listen while finishing the dishes or answering a work text. If I’m in the middle of something that can’t wait, I say, “That sounds really important. I need two more minutes to finish this, then I can sit with you and talk about it, okay?” I don’t try to answer while I’m doing something else, because that tells her her question isn’t a priority. I also don’t lie to make the worry go away fast. If she asks if we’re going to be okay financially after my husband changed jobs, I don’t say everything is perfect. I say it’s tight right now, but we’re making it work, and we won’t lose our house. That’s all the detail she needs. And most of all, I just say I don’t know if I don’t know. I used to think that would make her feel unsafe, but it turns out it’s more unsafe to get a made-up answer that falls apart later.
Last week, we went to visit Grandma again. Lila brought the notebook, introduced herself like she always does, and Grandma still called her Susie. Lila just flipped the notebook open to the cookie page, sat down next to her on the couch, and started reading the recipe out loud. It’s not the ending any of us would have picked. But it’s where we are right now.
Lila still brings me questions that start with that same little line. Some of them I have answers for, some I don’t. What I do know is that stopping what I’m doing and giving her the truth, even the messy parts, is enough more often than not. I don’t think we’ll ever have all the right answers, but that’s okay. We’re still learning.
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