Curiosity Makes Me a Better Parent

My five-year-old loves The Magic School Bus. He likes when I paint the windows of my truck with planets, stars, and rocket ships to resemble Ms. Frizzle’s shape-shifting vehicle of discovery. He wants adventure, curiosity, and whimsy. 

Recently, I took us on a field trip to the planetarium for a show on the spring sky. At the end of the presentation, the astronomer asked if anyone had any questions. My child’s hand shot up so many times that she had to give some other people a chance. 

Parenting my son and his two-year-old brother is a constant exercise in curiosity. They force me to “Live the questions now,” as the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote. My children have taught me to sit in the discomfort of not always knowing the answers. To me, living the question means embracing an openness to the idea that everything I think I know about myself might be wrong. As long as I am alive, I welcome the possibility. 

After all, for years I was wrong about being straight. For many more years, I was wrong about being cis. But my most egregious misreading of myself I engaged in was believing that I didn’t want children. 

I thought I was too selfish, impatient, and temperamental for the incredibly important adventure of raising children. What a beautiful thing to prove myself wrong, time and time again. After all, if I don’t remain curious about myself, then how can I possibly show up for my children? How can I possibly model a life of inquisitiveness? And how can I extend that same interest and attention to them? 

Often, interpersonal curiosity is discussed solely in reference to reducing conflict and increasing connection with romantic partners. This is because curiosity guards against defensiveness, blame, and escalation. But far less frequently do I encounter people encouraging that same curiosity with our children. 

Do they not deserve the same commitment and devotion? Of course, they do. Perhaps more than anyone. They are new here, after all. 

The thing about curiosity is that it gives way to compassion, understanding, and dignity. The ultimate gift you can give a child is to take them seriously, and to do it all the time. 

Too often, we are content to view children through a lens of control and power, even inadvertently. What happens if we meet every behavior, every tantrum, every joy, every fear with inquisitiveness and importance? 

When I tell my five-year-old he can’t have a popsicle before bed and he has a breakdown, screaming that he doesn’t love me anymore, I could engage in a fight. I could meet his language and aggression with equal intensity. I could close my eyes and wish the behavior away. 

Or, I could ask myself: What’s happening inside him, beyond the popsicle? Has he had a tough day? Did something happen at school? Is he sad about his hermit crabs dying? Does he miss his grandma? And once he is calm, we can ask those questions together. 

We play detective. We look for clues. We tend to his despair. We hold it tight and refuse to shame it. 

I wasn’t always this way. At times, when, as a baby, he was crying or wouldn’t sleep, I wanted to solve the problem and make him stop, which is understandable given how overstimulating and exhausting parenting a newborn can be. However, I rarely stopped to ask what was going on inside him as he experienced this new world. I merely wanted to make his pain go away, just as I had once done for myself as a closeted teen—instead of meeting my needs with kindness and curiosity, I muffled them. 

But I wasn’t doing either of us any favors with that approach. And once I realized that, I rearranged my life as a parent to center curiosity as an orientation to the world and those I hold dear.

Engaging with curiosity is, by definition, a vulnerable act. For much of my life, I was terrified of what I’d find if I dared to look. What if, once my children could talk, I discovered that they thought I was a horrible parent? That they didn’t love me? The act of asking itself is a form of vulnerability; it is the beginning of a quest into the unknown. 

Naturally, “question” and “quest” share the same Latin root in “quaerere,” which means “to seek” or “to ask.” And maybe that is what living the question, as a parent, embodies: a quest that never ends. 

Sure, our goal is to eventually become obsolete as a caregiver, but that in and of itself is a beautiful transition. I wonder, how many different things can we—my children and I—can become to each other, simply by asking.