By Krystal Sieben 
It’s exhausting to be the answerer of all the questions.
“Mom?” How many times do you think we all hear that in a day? How many questions, on average, would you guess a mom answers in a day?
I kept track today. Just a regular Tuesday with nothing going on. My name, not Krystal, but Mom, was said 63 times.
I was asked 55 questions. None about me personally but just administrative questions. Yowza. I love my family, but saying their names infinitely more than I say my own, not being addressed by my name Krystal but “Mom” all day, it is very overstimulating to be the answer to every question.
6:03 a.m. before I even had my coffee, “Mom, can I earn my iPad back?” asked my 9-year-old as I shuffled through the living room to let out the family dog.
“Want to hear about my nightmare?” my 6-year-old asked cheerfully as I was getting their juices ready. My husband stood next to me, putting bacon on a tray.
“One sec, honey,” I groggily replied. Without missing a beat, “It all began . . .” she started.
“What should we do for dinner?” my husband asks.
I’m not sure if anyone feels—like I do—that the most intense experience of questioning happens as I drive all three kids to school. My kids are 6, 9, and 11, and they can rival just about any investigative journalist out there with the hard-hitting questions.
“Does Taylor Swift have a boyfriend?”
“Why does Teddy get to sit up front and not me?’
“Can we go to Skyzone for my birthday?” (It’s nine months from now.)
“How does God hear our thoughts?”
“Why did Grandma and Grandpa get divorced?”
“Can I have your ring when you die?”
“Did I tell you about my nightmare?”
“Will you come have lunch at school?’
Are these questions adorable? Yes. Will I long for these questions one day? Yes. Is it too much to listen and answer questions like this every day on the way to school? Yes!
Being the answerer of questions big and small is such a huge gift and an enormous responsibility especially because I am facing my own questions simultaneously. Is this the right answer? Am I doing the right thing? Is it normal to be this tired? What’s best for my kids? Did I handle that right? And the all-encompassing, am I doing a good job?
That’s all we want, right? Just to do a good job. To provide the guidance and love and patience and answers and all the things.
But maybe . . . just being there is enough. Even if we are tired or crabby or we don’t have all the answers, just being there to listen to the question . . . maybe that is enough. For today, I tell myself that it is.
by Christina Abernethy 
by Christy Marshall 
