Diary 148

Thursday, August 13th

The home schooling effort is providing plenty of fun. Zoe (7) is learning about money and making change. The workbook she has asks the question by showing a picture of the money, a picture of the items, and the different prices of each. The task is to find what she can afford, in each case.

Zoe, though, responds to the idea that she’s going to be giving these items as presents, and to specific people, and so what would they really really like to receive? Obviously this leads to some fascinating discussions about what might be a good gift, and the personalities of those recipients, and so on. We have some astonishingly good discussions.

And that’s the core of it, it seems to me. In the larger world of things like climate catastrophe, mass unemployment, and so on it’s never simply a question of ‘what we can afford’, but of what needs to be done, and done properly, thoughtfully, with love.