Dinner conversation yesterday… (some words substituted to make it sound more intelligible)
Daughter: When I grow up, I wanna buy all the books that I like to read.
Mom: But then you have no place to keep your books…
Daughter: How about we clear out the shoe cabinet and let me keep the books there?
Mom: How about you buy a big house to keep your books?
Me: How about you buy all the books you like and give them to the library?
Daughter: But I don’t want to give the books to the library. I want to read them.
Me: How about you become the librarian?
Son (interrupting): But librarians earn a low salary.
Me: Small price to pay to be able to read everything you like.
Daughter: But the library has books that I don’t like to read.
Son (persistent): But you won’t have time to read. You’ll be doing boring stuff like arranging books in shelves.
Me: How about you own the library and you stock it only with the books you like?
Daughter (suddenly excited): Yes!!! I want to be a librarian.
Me: And you can have a daily programme to recommend books that you like…
Daughter: I don’t like to talk.
Me: Ok, then maybe you can make a video and play it on a video wall?
Daughter:
Me: Or maybe you can serve food? Libraries don’t allow people to consume food inside. Maybe you can serve cat food? (She loves cat.)
Daughter: Yes! Yes! Yes!
The rest is some mindless chatter between the siblings. I didn’t get to the stage on how to make a living from this, but that’s not the point. When our children grow up, the world will be very different. If we impose what we know now on them, their imagination will not go beyond the limits of our knowledge.
