I answer six-year-olds' questions all day and come home with none left for my own 3 year old

plum_sketch_746418 Jul 2026

I teach the early primary years. By 3.30 I've answered a few hundred 'why' questions, patiently, with follow-ups, because that's the job. Then I get home, our 3 year old starts, and by the fifth 'why is the fan going round' I'm saying 'because it is' in a voice I would never use at school. My partner, who is at home this year, has noticed and is kind about it. Others in the house are less diplomatic. Does anyone else spend their best patience at work? I don't want a routine chart. I'd like to know whether you found some way to come home with something left, or whether this is just what jobs like ours do to evenings for a few years.

4 comments

hazel_river_397418 Jul 2026
After a theatre list I'm the same, minus the six-year-olds. What helped me was a fifteen-minute buffer: I sit in the car outside the gate or walk round the block before going in. It sounds silly, but the first ten minutes at home were where I was at my worst.
saffron_tiffin_872418 Jul 2026
The questions don't stop, they just change. Mine is in class 11 and asks about loans and visas now. One thing that worked when he was small: I'd turn some of the whys back to him, 'why do you think?', and he'd happily answer himself for a while. It saved my voice more than my patience.
- marigold_button_6718 Jul 2026
  With my son also it was like this. At 3 he wanted to know why every machine in my shop makes noise. Now he is in hostel and calls when he needs money, so enjoy the questions while they are still coming to you.
ochre_moon_224118 Jul 2026
i'm not sure it's only jobs like yours. i'm in software, nothing like teaching, and some days i still came home empty. what i noticed later was that my son remembered the evenings i sat on the floor with him, not the ones where i answered well.
fern_drum_288818 Jul 2026
My partner is a teacher too, so this is very familiar. Some evenings my partner would announce in a silly voice that the 'question shop' was closed till after dinner, and our daughter treated it as a game. It reopened after dinner. Didn't work every day, but it bought half an hour.