Recent dining table topics
#1: family values
Context: we are staying at a Manila friend’s house for the Bangkok swim competition. The husband stayed in Manila for work when the wife moved to Bangkok for work (she is my colleague).
Sofia: I don’t understand why P (husband) stays for work instead of going to Bangkok with T (wife). Clearly T has a better job.
Me: well, I guess P wants to work too.
Sofia: but it’s choosing between work and staying together.
Me: he clearly made his choice.
Sofia kept thinking and absorbing the idea that (I) some people would choose work over family/couple; (2) one would work not just for money. Hopefully she appreciated what dad’s choice of following me instead of work.
#2: fulfillment in personal achievement
Context: daddy says how expensive is US colleges tuition fees. He said if he’s a billionaire, he’d donate 100 million to admit the girls without being a genius.
Sofia: what if I get zero in SAT?
Daddy: it doesn’t matter, you’d be admitted
Lizzy: if I am a billionaire I will buy toys every day.
Me: I think being a billionaire would deprive you from something precious. The best feeling in life is to achieve something by yourself.
Silence after that 🙂
#3: social studies
Context: Sofia shared how excited she’s with her social study project about over consumption, and that her best friend chose deforestation instead.
Me: deforestation is an important topic too.
Sofía: yes but it’s so boring. It’s straight forward as deforestation is bad, what to research about?
Me: the what to do is easy to come to conclusion, but how to do it is super complex. Just look how we haven’t figured out how to stop deforestation in Brazil.
Sofia: yes but when you type deforestation there are pages and pages of resources on internet. It makes the work so easy. While over consumption has only 2. Note: they don’t use google, they are a kid version of google.
Me: I guess that makes you have to think harder and come up with ideas. But still I think deforestation is a good topic to study as it’s so complex.
Lizzy: what is over consumption anyway?
Sofia rolling her eyes.
I am fascinated by how much Sofia has matured. I also observe from a far and realize how much values we transmit to our kids as parents through those casual conversations.
Context: I haven’t mediated by 5:40am when Sofia came to my room. I invited her to join me for a short mediation (8 min). After that
Me: did you like it?
Sofía: no.
Me: it’s okay. You have 30 years to learn to like it.
Our New Journey 
Such fascinating topics! I loved (and still love!) so much talking things over with the kids to see their minds grow and develop. Those are a couple of very bright girls you have! Pretty sure they would NOT get a zero on their SATs, lol!!
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I think the values Sofia is developing now will stay with her for life. She already seems to have a strong sense of what matters. Somehow, I can’t imagine her living apart from her future partner.
It’s also great to see that schools are addressing important topics like deforestation and over-consumption. As a minimalist for environmental reasons myself, I really appreciate when younger generations learn early on how important sustainability is.
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And Paul’s first grade classroom, one thing that they learned about this fall was wants versus needs. I thought it was really cool that they explored that topic. They also did a section on economics which Paul loved. I am confident that we never study those sorts of topics in first grade when I was a kid! The younger you are when you learn about those concepts, the better in my opinion!!
I’m sure your kids will get into college easily on merit!! I kind of hate that people can donate money and get their kids into a college as a result! That was a big topic of controversy during the whole varsity blues situation with actors donating money and falsifying documents to show that their kid was a college athlete so they could get admitted without merit!
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Also interesting because they can learn that deforestation is linked to over-consumption, so you can for some of the same problems together….
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sorry, “solve for” I meant to write!
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Lizzy’s comment about buy toys if she’s a billionaire made me chuckle. So cool to see kids opinions, values and ethics develop as they get older. I love being able to have those kinds of conversations with my 7 year old. Though she’s just at the stage where everything can be solved by changing the law. If somethings illegal, it won’t happen! If only…
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I like the “silence” after the billionaire conversation, ha. I’m pretty sure the girls would prefer riches and lots of toys to building character. But these are some interesting topics! It’s fun when the kids get older and actually have conversations that challenge both of you.
I hope the swim competition went well!
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