I dropped my kids off for the first day of school and realized they have it pretty good. When I was a kid, I either rode the bus or I walked to school. They get chauffeured right up to the front entrance and picked up later that same afternoon.
My kids have always seemed to enjoy the drive time and usually spend it peppering me with all sorts of comments and questions, ranging from practical to theoretical to the wildly improbable. I am glad to answer as best I can, but some of them really throw me for a loop, especially first thing in the morning.
My middle child once threw out the whopper, “Daddy, did you ride on wagons with horses back in the old days?”
“Yes, baby,” I had smiled, “And we used to fight bears with rocks and spears.”
Apparently, I look old enough that she didn’t understand I was joking.
My oldest child, now in her last year of middle school, still holds the record for craziest morning question of all time.
It wasn’t that the question was out of line or one of those innocent inquiries about a sensitive topic where you fumble and then fob them off with “You’ll understand when you’re older.” It was one of the really big questions and deceptively simple. Maybe you would have your own answer ready to hand, but I was momentarily flummoxed.
“Daddy, what’s good and evil?” my oldest and at the time only schoolage child had asked me. She was all of 5 years old, full of precocious questions and seemed to regard me as the fount of all knowledge. Part of my confusion was this had literally been the first question of the day.
What is good and evil? This is how I start my day? Cut me a break, kid.
I’m just trying to get you dressed in time for me to drop you off at school and get to work without being late again, I thought to myself. Why are you hitting me with these big existential dilemmas at this hour of the morning?
But, ready or not, I had to answer. It was one of those questions too important for “you’ll understand when you’re older.” Also, if you think too much or hesitate too long, they might suspect you have no idea what you are talking about.
So, just what is good and evil?
Different people answer that question in different ways. Our individual answers depend on what we define as good and evil, which in turn depends upon our upbringing, education, family life, social and economic background, individual experiences and countless other factors.
All that and more flashed through my head, making me doubt for a second my own capacity to quickly and succinctly answer such a broad question. Of course, she was also just five years old, so it had to be couched in a way that she was able to understand.
“Honey, good is whatever promotes knowledge, justice and harmony,” I said quietly, partially because I didn’t want to wake up my wife and our new baby and partly because the gravity of both the question and answer deserved it. “Evil is whatever promotes greed, cruelty and destruction.”
I’ll say it again for those in back, good is knowledge, justice and harmony. Evil is greed, cruelty and destruction.
You can interpret that however you like, but my little girl seemed to understand what I was saying right away, which is good enough for me.
