Part of our Dinner Conversation

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for the rest of his life.
This is true.
However!
Educate a man about what kinds of fish live where and the many different ways to catch them, and he will have variety as well.

There is also the fact that knowing all about fish he’ll have the security of knowing how to move to another body of water should this one become depleted, but that would make the phrase too clumsy. The point is, don’t just tell the man one thing (how to fish) make sure he understands as much as he can (all about fish, where they live and how to catch them) so that he can be fully prepared!

These are the sorts of things my parents did to my head. I rarely ever heard “Because I said so” but then again I did have to spend an awful lot of my childhood listening to well documented and reasonable explanations.