Olivia\'s Political Talk

Recently in an effort to convince Olivia that we should only go out to eat on special occasions and for food that we normally don't cook at home, I started to explain to her about the economic situation whenever she wanted to go out to eat soup noodles or fried rice.
 
"I know the economy is bad "she said, "but I thought Obama is gonna fix all that."

"Well it is an easier thing said than done." I explained to her that Obama is not the president yet and that to improve the economy is a very hard job and may take a long time. It does not work like a light switch.

It is the holiday season so the word "economy" came up more often than usual, especially when we talk about gift buying.  Another thing I noticed was that Olivia started to link the prospect of profession to income. She has said previously that she wanted to be a teacher, a vet, a chef, an artist…all these things that she was really interested in at different times, purely based on her passion. But recently she has asked me and her Daddy a couple of times: "Why did you guys want to be engineers and not doctors and lawyers when you were young?" And I guess her underlying question was: "If you guys were doctors or lawyers, you would make a lot of money and can buy all these gifts I want (a lot of them on her wish list to Santa started with 'i'J)".

We explained to her that she should choose a profession based on her passion, on what she loves to do the most, and not only on how much money she can make, otherwise she may end up of being not happy. And if doctor or lawyer is what she wants to do, great, go for it!

A couple of days later she dropped by my desk and said she needed to talk to me about a serious topic.

"So seriously mom, what do you think of Obama?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" I was completely caught out of guard.
 
"You know, do you think he is dependable or trustable?" she explained.

"Oh, well, I don't know yet. He is young and smart and has his own ideas which are very good. He definitely can talk but I will have to see whether he does what he says." I answered.

"So if you were the president, what change would you make that Bush and Obama have not done?" she continued.

I have to say I am not a political person and I could see this conversation was getting out of my league.

"Well, I will probably do something about improving the economy which is the biggest problem right now." I was being vague.

"No, you need to be more specific, what specific things will you do differently to improve the economy?" she pushed me to the corner.

I had to be honest, "Honey, I am not an expert in economy. I will have to study and do a lot of research before I can come up with a solution to this problem."

Luckily she didn't beat the dead horse probably thinking that this would be a hard question for everyone.

"So why are you asking me all these questions?" I was curious.

"Because I think Daddy should run for the president." She answered.

"Really? Why? You think Daddy can do a better job than Obama?"

"Well, if Daddy wins, we can move into the White House and I can drop by the Oval Office as often as I want." She explained, "and I will be the 'American's Angel' (being the first daughter)".

Ah-ha, we finally came down to her wanting to be famous againJ.