Child development experts often refer to the Why Phase in a toddler’s life, when every single statement, question, and command from an adult is met with a cute—if sometimes whiney— “But why?”
We’ve all been there and we’ve all heard it. Why do I have to go to bed? Why do I have to eat my broccoli? Why are you my mommy? Why does grass grow? Why do I ride in a car seat? Why do mommies have headaches all the time? Why do people get sick? Why do cats have whiskers? Why does Daddy have a beard? Why do dogs poop outside and not in toilets?
It’s enough to drive absolutely any parent insane. But often forgotten in the list of toddlers’ intellectual stages is what I call the If Phase—every bit as persistent, and every bit as bizarre, as the Why Phase. Like the Why Phase, the If Phase is how children, with their fast-growing little noggins, learn to link cause and effect and establish those first little connections of critical thinking.
The ifs are endless. If I were a grownup, I could drive a car. If I were a snake that ate an egg, I would be shaped like an oval. If I ate too many cookies, I would get a tummy ache. And if, by some disturbing accident of nature, a carrot had eyes and could talk, that would be really weird and kind of creepy.
And it would.
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