When Your Child Asks a Question You Can't Answer

The Scenario

A hotel room. An ordinary weekend.

Lucky encountered his first smart toilet. The lid opened by itself as he approached. The seat was warm. There was a row of buttons on the side panel.

His questions came thick and fast:

"Daddy, how does it know I'm here?"

"Why is it warm when I sit down?"

"What does this button do?" — pointing at the bidet function.

Before I could formulate a dignified explanation, he pressed it.

I shall spare you the details of the next three seconds. Suffice to say, his interest in smart toilets reached an all-time high that evening.

These questions I could handle. Sensors, heating elements, control units — I work in autonomous driving, and "sense-decide-act" is the architecture I can explain in my sleep. I walked him through it: there's an invisible eye here that detects your movement, a brain there that sends commands — open the lid, heat the seat, activate the spray. Same principle as a self-driving car, I told him proudly.

Lucky was riveted. I was quietly chuffed: this dad still has his uses.

But the real challenge came a few days later.

We were back in China visiting family. Lucky used a public toilet in a shopping centre. He emerged with a deeply complicated expression on his face.

"Daddy, why is the toilet here... on the floor?"

"Ah. That's called a squat toilet."

"Why don't they have these in England?"

I opened my mouth.

Honestly? I had no idea. I'd never properly thought about it. Squat toilets were just... squat toilets. I'd been using them my whole life. What was there to explain? But when a five-year-old fixes you with a pair of genuinely curious eyes, waiting for an answer, you realise that "because it's always been that way" is not, in fact, an answer.

This is exactly what Rosen was getting at. In Good Ideas, he devoted an entire chapter to "THE LOO." He observed that we adults expend enormous effort pretending this little room doesn't exist. We mask it with air fresheners. We tiptoe around it with euphemisms. But children don't play that game. From their very first words, wee and poo are endlessly fascinating — because these are things they manufacture themselves, every single day.

Rosen also shared his adventures repairing a toilet cistern — lifting the lid to reveal a beautiful system of levers, ballcocks, and pumps. He called it beautiful. A man in his seventies, gazing into a toilet cistern and calling it beautiful. I love that.

But Rosen's era didn't feature the particular debate that erupted in my household.

Here's what happened. Helen watched a science-communication video by a popular blogger — a proper experiment with fluorescent dye in the bowl and a UV light. The footage showed the splash radius when men urinate standing up. The conclusion was, shall we say, eye-opening: invisible micro-droplets travel much further than you'd think.

She "strongly suggested" that the male members of the household — myself and Lucky — sit down.

Awkward.

One day Lucky asked me: "Daddy, aren't boys supposed to stand up? Why are you sitting down?"

The lethality of this question lies in the fact that it simultaneously touches on habit, hygiene, gender norms, and the domestic power structure. Get any angle wrong and the consequences are severe.

I went with honesty: "It's a tricky one. Standing is more convenient, but sitting is more hygienic. At home, we sit — for Mummy, and for keeping things clean."

He thought about it. He accepted it. But I know this answer has a shelf life. When he's older, this conversation will come back.

One loo, three questions — how does a smart toilet work? Why does China have squat toilets but England doesn't? Why should boys sit down?

The first one I nailed, because it happened to fall squarely in my professional domain. The second one floored me, because I'd never thought about it. The third I muddled through, but without much conviction.

Three questions. One father's limits, fully exposed.

L-Rating

This chapter's scenario: your child asks a question you can't answer.

My rating: this is a scenario where you need to voluntarily drop your level.

Most parents' instinct is L0 — I'll give you the answer. That's natural. We've spent decades as the ones who know things. Admitting "I don't know" to a small person takes real nerve.

But Rosen taught me something: "I don't know" is not a failure. It's the best possible starting point for learning.

When Lucky asked me about squat toilets, if I'd cobbled together some answer ("Because Chinese people are used to squatting"), he'd have listened, nodded, and moved on. Knowledge transferred. Curiosity extinguished.

But when I said "I don't know — let's find out together," that single sentence pulled me from L0 (I tell you the answer) straight to L2 (we figure it out side by side). He stopped being the receiver and became the investigator. He saw that his dad doesn't know everything either — and that not knowing isn't shameful, it's a starting line.

This is precisely what Rosen calls the power of "I don't know." Not pretending you don't know. Actually not knowing — and then turning that gap into a shared expedition.

Looking back, I answered too quickly on the smart toilet. I should have talked less and asked him more. But with the squat toilet, because I genuinely didn't know, I accidentally created the better learning moment.

Sometimes your ignorance is more educational than your expertise.

AI Practice

"Interview" AI together with your child:

Prompt: "Hello. My 5-year-old son and I have a question. We've just come back to China from the UK, and he noticed that Chinese public toilets often have squat toilets, while in England it's all sitting toilets. He asked me why, and I couldn't answer. Could you explain — in a way a 5-year-old would understand — why squat toilets are more common in Chinese public loos? Please cover three angles: hygiene, cultural habit, and ease of cleaning. Keep each point to a sentence or two."

Expected outcome: AI will explain in simple terms — in a busy public loo, squatting means you don't have to touch the seat, which feels cleaner; people in China have been squatting for a very long time, so it became the normal way; and squat toilets are easier to rinse and mop, which helps the cleaners. But the real point isn't the three facts. It's the process: your child watches you admit "I don't know," then ask a question alongside them. What they learn isn't public health policy. They learn that not knowing is nothing to be embarrassed about — and that even Daddy has to look things up. That, as Rosen would say, is the real good idea.