Because I Said So

There is a combination of four words that, when uttered by a parent, will instantly anger virtually any child.

Because I said so isn’t exactly a slap in the face or an insult. Instead, it’s a byproduct of some of the necessary lies we tend to tell children.

We exaggerate and tell kids that their flesh will melt off if they touch the hot stove. We tell them not to swallow watermelon seeds, or else a watermelon will grow in your stomach. Gum takes seven years to digest. You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.

There are lies we tell kids so that we don’t have to explain uncomfortable things, like how storks bring babies, or how there’s someone watching you all year-round, determining whether you get a reward or not at the end of the year. These lies kick the explanation can down the road a few years, hopefully to a time when the kid is ready for your explanation.

In a nutshell, because I said so is directly tied to the need to simplify the way the world works. A seven year old kid isn’t likely to understand the full psychological benefits to kickstarting your day with a task you’ve just accomplished—that realization usually happens around the time a kid grows up and starts reading self-help books. A child, by contrast, might still develop the good habit and derive the benefits, but they can’t yet understand why that happens.

Clean your room and make your bed aren’t just about the displeasure your mom sees when she looks at your mess. They’re about setting a routine whereby you learn to organize your things and time. They’re about building habits.

Likewise, getting kids to start saving money (assuming there is some to save) can be a real challenge. Kids aren’t always the best at planning for the future, so parents often encourage them to imagine what they might buy one day if they could save up for another day.

To a kid who feels like their parents are always trying to control them, this feels like another shackle. To a parent, they want to explain the power of compounding, but the concept of exponential growth can be challenging even for adults. Kids just need time to develop their minds before grasping something like this.

Compounding wealth yields security and safety, but the young kid can only see deprivation and discomfort.

Because I said so has a close cousin-phrase that might have infuriated Young Andrew even more. It’s the one that goes: listen to your elders or respect your elders.

This makes sense: people who have been alive for a long time have seen a lot of things, so they’ve figured a few things out by now. Wisdom abounds, in other words. At least, that’s the reason for the slogan.

At least some of the time, the advice is solid. Elders are going to keep you from being burned on the hot stove, and they’re going to know how to open a bank account. They might have also dealt with death and other painful things that you just haven’t lived through yet.

Young Andrew is seething right now. He thinks I’m only going to point out the good things adults say and do for kids, and figures today’s takeaway is that adults are wise. As usual, he only knows sees part of the picture.

He doesn’t get the complexity of the world. He doesn’t yet grasp that a person or a thing can be simultaneously good and bad, and have many different attributes that make a situation much more complex than it appears on the surface.

It’s true that adults have to use this sort of placeholder language, at least at first. There’s just no way to show someone everything they need to know on day one, especially since the human brain continues developing all the way to around age 25.

I forgive my parents for telling me little lies in order to keep me safe. I hope they can forgive me for being overwhelming for my first couple decades of life.

However, it’s also true that respect your elders and because I said so describe a potentially very dangerous mindset. Young Andrew, fidget no longer.

Change in minds is how the human condition gets better over time, and such a shift in mindset requires confronting the old way of doing things. People who are already invested in that way of doing things are prone to get upset when you start talking about doing things differently.

That means pushing back against because I said so thinking. Now, there is a not-so-fine line between a conspiracy theorist who embraces every single alternative explanation out there, utterly disregarding helpful heuristics and grasping at every exciting alternative. This means selectively pushing back, and that ultimately requires wisdom.

Wisdom takes time and experience, some of which can be very painful. Age is a guarantee of time, but not necessarily of experience… nor of wisdom. In other words, just because you’re an elder does not automatically make you a wise person.

So, you have to grow up a little, learn a few things, then try to shake things up. Even when you think you have it all figured out, some hidden nuance and unintended consequences have a funny way of rearing their complex heads.

Change is hard because old people tend to be wise, so they’ve often thought whatever innovative nobody-has-ever-thought-this-before idea. They too were Young Andrews in past lives, and they too came up with bold ideas to one day change the system. This “I’ve heard this idea before” mentality—and the inevitable eyeroll that comes with it—means that the elders aren’t always listening out for your genuinely new ideas.