Wish I'd said that - October 9, 2016

“When children ask inconvenient questions it is the custom to say to them, ‘When you are older you will understand,’ a reply, generally speaking, justifying parricide. But the answer is not merely irritating; it is generally, I am sorry to say, a lie. The questions asked by children, as a rule, are questions that do not depend upon any matter of age: they are simple and unanswerable questions. When we grow up we rise superior to them, not by answering them, but merely by giving up. Logically, the parents ought only to say, ‘When you are older, you will not want to understand’ though it may certainly be said that if the first version of the reply would justify parricide on the part of the child the second version might justify suicide on his part.”

G.K. Chesterton, “The Abyss”