My kids ask me 9,000 questions a day. About a third of them make me want to create an auto-response message of “Because I said so, that’s why” that I can play any time they ask me why they have to brush their teeth/feed the cat/eat their broccoli/etc. Another third of them can usually be answered with an, “If you had listened to me the first time I explained it, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself AGAIN.”

Most of these are stall tactics, as in, “What was I supposed to do after I cleaned out my bedroom and put away the laundry? I can’t remember,” and are accompanied by dillydallying while they wait for the perfect opportunity to ask me again or claim that they didn’t understand what I said in the first place.That last third, though, that last third, those are the questions that sneak up on you and can stop your heart or punch you in the stomach. Stuff like, “Mom, is the water in the toilet supposed to be that high?” or, “What kind of snake is this?” or, “Why is the fish floating upside down like that?”Let’s throw in a, “Mom, did you bake those cookies that I asked you to make for my Scout meeting?” for good measure. Most of the time, my initial response is, “Oh (four letter word),” and I have to hope that I only thought it, and didn’t say it out loud.Then, there are the questions that they come up with and you know that if you answer incorrectly, you’ll screw your kid up for life. G hit me with one of these last week, when he got into the car and said, “Mom, what’s a ‘no-e-nutsy?” It took me a second, but G tends to flip his vowel sounds, and I realized he was asking me what a neo-Nazi was. Apparently, someone likes to watch the news. Deep breath.Luckily, A had my back. A little. Always a history buff, he has recently become fascinated with World War II after reading the “Guts & Glory” series by Ben Thompson. He was only too happy to deliver a lecture to his little brother about the Nazis, and the evil they perpetrated. Adding an explanation of the prefix “NEO” meaning “new” to the tail end of the lecture, I summed things up by saying that neo-Nazis were still promoting the hateful ideology that the Nazis first espoused.G looked at me with his standard “well that makes no sense” look and said, “Why would anyone do that?” There’s a question that I just didn’t have an answer to, at least not one that he could understand. I don’t ever want him to understand how people can be so hateful. I love talking to my kids about history: the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of it, and we ended up having a long discussion about how people’s attitudes have changed, or maybe haven’t, over the years, and how we think other people would like to be treated, regardless of the color of their skin, or the religion they practice, or the country that they trace their heritage back to.It wasn’t an easy conversation by any means, and I could tell by the end of it, my kids were going to have many more questions, and this was just another installment in our series of difficult conversations. Even though it was a tough question, I told them I was glad that they asked me about it and I hoped they would always feel comfortable asking me about things that they didn’t understand.A few days later, as I pulled up to the drive-in window to collect my morning coffee, the cashier informed me that the person in front of me had paid for my order. Familiar with the “pay it forward” gestures that pop up every now and again, I treated the person behind me to their morning beverage. G, having overheard the entire exchange, incredulously asked me if I had just gotten my coffee for free. In the same tone as the previous week, he again asked, “Why would anyone do that?”This was a much easier conversation to have than the one about the Nazis. “Just because sometimes it feels nice to do something nice for someone else,” I told him. “Did that lady know you?” he asked me. Honestly, I hadn’t paid much attention to the driver in front of me, and I didn’t know if it had been an acquaintance or not, but I told him it didn’t matter! Being polite and nice to people, even if they are strangers, is sometimes OK. A, ever the one to remember everything I’ve said when it works to his advantage, was quick to ask why “stranger danger” didn’t apply here. So, it did turn out to be a little trickier of a conversation than I first thought.As we drove down the street, I found myself chuckling about G’s identical reaction to two very different activities. Seeing my happy face, G asked me if I was smiling because “free coffee” tasted better. Yes, G, coffee that is served with a helping of kindness and generosity “just because” definitely does taste better.Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.