So the tough questions keep coming from my kids. Again, it always seems to happen when they’re in the jogging stroller, so I’m thinking about giving up running altogether. Yesterday, my boy shot this gem at me:

“Daddy, do ghosts have penises?”

Now, typically, if there’s a hard question that’s science-based like this, I’ll look it up on the internet and discuss the answer with my kids. I don’t really know what dads did before Google. Did they just make the answers to obscure questions up? Probably. But I’m a “modern dad” so I look this shit up. Big mistake here.

When you Google “ghost penis” you get an Urban Dictionary definition (“a clumpy fold in your pants that looks like an erected penis”), a news post about a ghost hunter who catches ghosts with his penis, and a story about a man who tried to convince a woman her vagina was haunted. You can’t make this shit up, people.

Now, what my kid really wanted to know was how ghosts went to the bathroom. If they’re just floating cloud-like figures without much shape and, presumably no penises, are they destined to spend the afterlife holding in a wicked pee?

Alas, this is yet another question that I don’t have a good answer to. I tried the whole make-believe angle:

Me: “Buddy, ghosts are just pretend. Like in movies.”

Him: “Yeah, but in movies, do they have penises?”

I tried the Socratic method:

Me: “What do you think?”

Him: “I don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”

And eventually just got practical and told him that no, ghosts don’t have penises, but they don’t eat or drink anything either, so they don’t really need to go to the bathroom.

Problem solved…until tomorrow, when he asks me another penis related question that I have neither the desire nor know-how to answer.

Parenting is hard.