Telling it like it is: mortality edition

I would generally describe my parenting philosophy as very honest. Our kids don't do Santa except in a discussion that a long time ago there was a man who liked to surprise his friends with presents, and that we are carrying on that tradition by putting chocolate/oranges into their boots on December 6th to surprise them in the same way.

More recently, Jolly has asked some tough questions, namely, "Does everyone die?"

"Yes, Jolly."

"EVERYONE?"

"Yes. Everyone."

"Even Rupert?"

"Yes, even Rupert, but that hopefully won't be for a long long time when he's very old."

"Even ME?"

"Yes, even you. But that won't be for such a long time that it seems like forever to you right now."

(whining) "But I don't LIKE dying!"

"I know, kiddo, I know. I don't think anyone does. But we ALL have to do it eventually."

"Even you?"

"Yes, even me. But I am taking very good care of myself to stay healthy so that won't be for as long a time as possible, so hopefully you will have lots of children and your children will have children before that happens."

"Does the table die?"

"No, you have to be alive to die." (Jolly looks like he's contemplating how he'd like to be a table, then...)

"Who is going to die next?"

"Hmmm, I think probably your great-grammy, mama's grandmother. She's very old and has had a long full life. Her children's children's children have had children of their own. That means her grandchildren have had grandchildren!"

(Ephiny breathes sigh of relief as I've found a satisfactory answer that is minimally upsetting to our child. I breathe sigh of relief that Ephiny approves my answer and that I shouldn't have gone with our older cat instead.)

Sheesh, kiddo, you know how to time these weighty conversations. We haven't talked about the school shooting at all around the kids because Jolly is already not excited about the prospect of going to preschool ("not OUTSIDE! I want to take care of the next baby insteeeaaaaad."), but of course he hits us when we're very much reeling from the concrete evidence that life is fragile and that sometimes it's unfairly NOT the oldest people who die next.

However, even within my "tell it like it is" framework, I think we're still willing to support the "death happens at the end of a long life" framework a little while longer, at least until we're actively confronted with a counterexample in our children's lives. It's already enough that we don't have an afterlife belief system that we can helpfully provide to cushion the blow of certain death. (If Jolly asked "what happens to us after we die?" I'd tell him that "no one knows for sure, but different people have different ideas." However, I think based on his experiences with the death of spiders, birds that hit the window, etc., it wouldn't even occur to him to ask about anything other than the component molecules that make us up.)

This whole conversation of how everybody dies, Jolly (Everybody. Yes, EVERYONE.) reminded me of Red Dwarf when the computer has to break it to Dave Lister that everyone on the crew died and that he's been in stasis for 3 million years while the radiation decays to safe levels.

Lister: Where is everyone Hol?
Holly: They're dead, Dave.
Lister: Who is?
Holly: Everybody, Dave.
Lister: What, Captain Holister?
Holly: Everybody's dead, Dave.
Lister: What, Todd Hunter?
Holly: Everybody's dead, Dave.
Lister: What, Selby?
Holly: They're all dead, everybody's dead, Dave.
Lister: Peterson isn't, is he?
Holly: Everybody is dead, Dave.
Lister: Not Chen?
Holly: Gorden Bennet, yes, Chen, everybody, everybody's dead, Dave.
Lister: Rimmer?
Holly: He's dead, Dave, everybody's dead, everybody is dead, Dave.
Lister: Wait, are you trying to tell me everybody's dead?
Holly: *slightly under breath* Shouldn't have let him out in the first place!

In the meantime, Jolly is keeping us on our toes. Recently I had a conversation where in the span of about three (MAYBE five) minutes, we discussed size/weight, judging people on their weight, monarchy versus democracy, why we don't have a king in this country, and why it isn't polite to call people fat, before ending up in race and why people have different skin tones. Start of conversation: Jolly's out-of-the-blue proclamation, "I don't like fat kings." and upon being asked to clarify what on earth he was taking about, "I only like thin kings." Whaaaa?