Our budding social scientist...

Tonight at the dinner table, we had the most interesting conversation.

Parker was reading the bottom of his cup and remarked, "Made in China. Aack, I hate China!" I was quite surprised at his strong reaction, but quickly realized that he had been influenced by conversations about lead paint in toys and lack of government regulation on toy making. I told him that he can't say he hates China because China is a big place full of people. I told him there were things and people in China that he would love, and it wasn't nice to make a general statement about a culture or country.

I told him there were things about China that I didn't agree with, mainly governmental issues in the country. He asked me what that meant. Joe and I began to explain about freedom and rights. Joe was telling him that people in China did not have the same rights that we have. I went on to tell him that another problem with China was overcrowding and that if we lived in China we would not have had a baby Ben. Parker asked me if we would have had to kill Ben or destroy him or something. I told him that we would have had to take medicine that would keep us from having any more babies. He responded, "Oh yeah, birth control, right?"

Randomly, he changed the subject to French. He asked us if we could tell him a little bit more about all of the countries that spoke French. We started telling him about some of the countries where French is the native language and Joe mentioned that some countries in Africa speak French. Parker thought about that for a minute and then said, "Oh yeah, what about African Americans? Can we talk about them for a minute?"

We talked a little about African Americans and what it meant to be African American. I was trying to explain that African Americans had grand-parents, great-grandparents, great-great grandparents who had once lived in Africa. Parker said, "Oh, you mean their ancestors mom?" Seriously....he is going to be teaching me next year. Then he asked about our ancestors and we told him that we had ancestors mainly from Europe. He asked how we knew and we began a conversation about genealogy and old records. This led to a discussion about the census, and I had to take a break for dessert.

Every single day I am amazed at how much Parker learns. I wish I could record every conversation and reflect on it when I have time. I am hoping that I can encourage this developing sense of social awareness. I love that my five year old doesn't think he is alone in this world, and is beginning to see the differences and beauty around him.