His Heart Shows

Last night, we were having a simple risotto dinner cooked by C, to tie up a sweet, relaxed Mother's Day. We were listening to the radio, and The Bad Weather came on. C noted that Jack White had recently invested in some massive studio in Nashville, and he wonders if it is okay based on the horrible flooding down there, considering that Kenny Chesney's home is likely to be condemned. He commented that since it's not really a flood zone, he wondered if people would even get any insurance money to rebuild.

Green/AP

O spoke up and asked what we were talking about. So we explained to him about insurance, what happened with the flood, and why it could be hard for people to rebuild. (I know, he's not even six, we likely go a little far sometimes with the explanations.)

So then he offers to open up his piggy bank to help out. "I have a lot of money in my piggy bank - we can send some to those people." So we said, yes we could, if he really wanted to. Of course, I think he had the impression that he could half-build a house with "all the money" in his piggy bank.

So we talked more about donating, and money vs time. And that sometimes volunteering time was as or even more important than donating money. If he wanted to build something, we can look into groups (I was thinking Habitat for Humanity) that build houses for people, and we can see if we can volunteer. Would he like to do that? And he said yes.

I think we all need to listen to our children at that age, before things affect them too much. They can teach us so much, and give us a very good reminder about priorities now and then.