FAMILY MATTERS
Dad trips over birds-and-bees inquiry but regains balance

By Michael C. DeMattos

Adult-child conversations can and often do take unpredictable turns.

It usually starts out normally enough. "How was your day?" "What are you learning in school?"

Give me three questions that I have absolutely no hope of answering. Such was the case last Saturday. We were on our way to ballet, having a perfectly normal conversation when my daughter blurted out, "Children do not come from heaven, do they? Where do they come from? Where did I come from?"

In one fell swoop, my daughter completed the trifecta.

Don't get me wrong; I know where babies come from. I was there when she was born. I served as witness to the wonder of childbirth and a few other things that I would have appreciated just reading about.

But these were serious questions that demanded serious answers, and I thought I had them.

I held the wheel with one hand and turned the radio off with the other.

"It's time we had a talk, honey," I said.

I then began a 20-minute discourse and waxed profoundly about the mystery of life.

But it wasn't all metaphor and mirrors.

I gave enough details and facts to satisfy her 6-year-old curiosity. I danced the dance of the wise and through it all, my wife stared at me from the corner of her eye, knowing that I was entering dangerous territory from which I may never return.

Our "talk" started with the birds and the bees but quickly spread to subjects far-reaching.

Within the time it took to shoot over the Pali, we covered geography, astronomy, archaeology and paleontology — to name but a few.

My daughter rattled off questions at light speed, each more difficult than the last, and I found myself walking a fine line between fact and fiction.

My answers grew more creative as we neared her ballet class.

I looked in the rearview mirror and noted that my daughter had a quizzical look on her face. She was on to me. Maybe my responses were too quick or too confident or perhaps not confident enough. Maybe she saw the sweat dripping from my temples. I couldn't fake it any longer. I knew it and she knew it.

Then, like a gift from heaven she said, in a matter of fact tone, "There are a lot of things that are a mystery to me, Daddy."

She paused and then asked: "Where do street signs come from?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, a question that I could answer.

"Well, honey, they come from a small factory in Kalihi."

Then it hit me.

My daughter, like so many children, lives in a world where nothing is taken for granted and mystery will not be dispelled by way of simple explanation. We are the same she and I, both hungry for answers, but unlike me, her world seems to grow in splendor while mine shrinks bit by factual bit.

Maybe I had it backwards.

Maybe she has the answers that I am looking for.

Michael C. DeMattos has a master's degree in social work. He is a family therapist, educator, trainer, storyteller and angler, and lives in Kane'ohe with his wife and 6-year-old daughter. Reach him at: Family Matters, Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; fax 525-8055; or at ohana@honoluluadvertiser.com.