"What?" Doesn't Kill You.

"Question Authority."

That's the quote that was emblazoned in big white letters on the matching red T-shirts my parents bought for the five of us that made up the Kander family in the mid-1980's. Mom, Dad, Jake, Adam and I wore those t-shirts with pride. We even had a picture taken of the five of us, standing in the gravel driveway behind the green-roofed white duplex on Main Street in Brighton, grinning ear to ear, red and white and questioning all over.

(Note: wearing matching shirts is okay when the kids are all under eight and the shirt carries a bold message of independent thinking, which counteracts the whole lookalike/matching-thing. Also, a family headed by alterna-parents might have something to do with making it work...)

Anyway. My brothers and I probably didn't really know what the quote meant at the time. Frankly, speaking as someone who's done a lot of work with kids... a six-year-old showing up donning such a shirt might make me a little nervous. Informed or not about the nuance of our apparel, all three of us knew it had something to do with questions, and we loved questions.

• Why is the sky blue? (It's NOT?!?! What color is it REALLY? Why do our eyes trick us?)
• Why are there different countries?
• Why don't we live in a different country?
• Do all things taste the same to all people, or is that why some people like some foods and some people hate those same foods? Does the FOOD taste different, or do WE just like different tastes?
  

Questions are important. We knew that as kids. Sure, somewhere along the way, questions went from safe to risky. The answers we got from other people were often important to us, and entirely contingent on them.

• Do you like me?
• Will I succeed?
• Why isn't she here anymore?
• What does he really mean by that?

Questions can be scary. But the questions unasked, the authority unquestioned, the "facts" unchecked are far more dangerous. Yet looking around, the unasked "why"s and unshared "what"s fill silent football fields all around us.

Why the fear of questions?

I think some people fear questions because they feel that not already having an answer is some sign of weakness -- and the risk of not getting an answer once a question is posed seems terrifying. But is blind acceptance less terrifying? Is it more comforting to have an answer that you accept without really owning, than to do a little probing and reach a more informed conclusion... or avoid a conclusion at all, and keep your mind a little more open?

Just a little reminder: "What?" doesn't kill you... and "Why?" might even make you stronger.