I was having a good day. Just one of those days when parenting is enjoyable and no one, not even me, had screamed for at least ten minutes. My boys were cleaning up the living room which had been redecorated in Modern American Toddler(hallmarks of this style include toys liberally strewn from one end of the room to the other and free-form marker and pen art drawn directly on the walls). I was in the kitchen, waiting for my essential afternoon coffee to brew.
As the sunshine streamed through the windows, the coffee aroma filled the air, and the sounds of happy boys came at me from the living room, I sighed happily to myself and said “Ah boys, boys, what would I do without my boys.”
From the living room came the answer, courtesy of seven year old Daniel: “You’d probably have to work hard for a living.”
I was momentarily speechless as I pondered the meaning of this pronouncement. Honestly, I thought it was astute social commentary from my budding young philosopher. Obviously, he had realized that there were women, even mommies, who did not stay at home. With keen insight he had deduced that if I did not have four children, I would be expected to be in the work force earning a paycheck because that’s what adults do, right? I wanted to hear it in his own words - so I asked him, “Daniel, what do you mean by that?”
His answer was quick and ever so slightly acerbic. “Well, if you didn’t have boys, you would have to do all the housework yourself…. I mean, if you wanted the living room clean, YOU would have to do it.”
My answer was also quick, and by the grace of God, not acerbic. “Daniel, if I didn’t have kids, my living room wouldn’t be dirty. If I didn’t have kids, there wouldn’t be toys all over the floor.”
Daniel may not be the young philosopher that I thought, but he’s quick on the uptake nonetheless. With a little smirk of dawning comprehension, he said not a word and went back to cleaning up his toys.