Today was a special day, because after a couple days of solid work in the garden and skipping lunch with Smallsteps, I made it up to her by treating her to something that really wasn't very lunch-like at all - French Toast. But another name for this dessert lunch is Poor Knights of Windsor, which gets its English (and Nordic) name from a group of nights in the 14th century who had to ransom themselves after being caught by the French, leaving them destitute.
However, Smallsteps had never had this "delicacy" before, so I made the toast and we ate it with vanilla ice cream and frozen raspberries - the lunch of champions! And she loved it. She is always sceptical of when I make anything new for her, as she questions whether things will go together, like when I made her a banana split, and she was like "Chocolate and banana??" with a disgusted look on her face.
Inexperience has no taste.
I think that is a decent phrase!
Anyway, while she was eating and surprisingly (for her) enjoying ice cream on bread, we were talking about lots of things like normal and one of them was about how different foods come about, as in, who did they make different things to begin with. For instance, French toast is a good example where it essentially a good way to save stale bread and serve it as a dessert, which is maybe why it was associated with the "poor".
But I explained that in general, people had few options to choose from most of the time, so they would invent ways to combine what they had into something tastier, or healthier, or that filled them up. Like the assortment of rice dishes in Asia and India that are combined with a myriad different sauces, made in different ways, so that the rice staple needn't be a bland meal.
Necessity is the mother of invention they say, but boredom is also a pretty good motivator also. So, when people were bored of eating the same thing, they would find creative ways to make it taste better, or at least different, using what they had around them. And I think that food instability was also a great motivator for creative cooking too, because Europe seemed to have a pretty solid supply of some foods, but never experimented too much with them, especially in the Nordics. Good food, but not tasty food.
However, after this conversation Smallsteps surprised me with a non-food related question I definitely wasn't expecting, and I didn't really have a good answer for.
Why do girls think about having babies and being mothers, but boys don't think about being fathers?
I said that this was a great question, and asked if this was something she had been talking about with her friends, but it was something she had observed. She also asked if I thought about being a father when I was young.
I did.
Perhaps not at eight, but definitely by ten I knew I wanted to have children. However, I was likely an exception to the average boy at that age on this, but it is a good question to explore, don't you think?
My daughter hasn't been raised surrounded by baby dolls, but from a young age she chose them in shops for herself, without being prompted by family or peers. It was just "natural" for her, and from what I have seen, it seems pretty natural for many girls to do similar, as if they have an instinctual predilection to be mothers.
Smallsteps thinks it is because women actually have the babies.
Which is probably right. And I think that this is also why boys don't think about being fathers when young, because I don't think there is necessarily the biological instinct of what is to come in the future for the boy. Smallsteps for instance knows that women have babies, but she didn't know how men are required in the process. Until today, it was more "immaculate conception" of some form, and it just happened. Boys her age likely don't have a great understanding of the process either, so even if they know what happens in some sense, they don't really recognise their own role in the process, or what they add to the mix. And maybe, this understanding and lack of understanding of future consequence and responsibility is why girls mature faster than boys, because girls have a sense of what the future looks like for them, but boys live in momentary fantasy - obliviously.
Without going into anatomical specifics, I used analogy of seed and garden (since we had been outside gardening earlier) to explain that both men and women are needed in the process, because the woman has the garden, the man the seed and only when the two are combined, a baby can grow.
I know, it sounds silly, but it is better than when she was one and a half and I was changing her nappy and she asked what her lady parts were called in English, I just clumsily blurted out, "vagina" and then she was using that from then on - while using the much cuter euphemism of "pimppi" in Finnish.
Pippeli for the boys.
When Smallsteps and I spend time together, we actually talk. It isn't as friends, nor is it as student and teacher, but they are proper conversations that go back and forth openly, with curiosity and openness on both sides. We have done it this way since she could speak, and I would talk to her constantly from the moment she was born as if it was a conversation - and it is one of the joys of my life. I know there are likely to be a few rough teen years between, but I hope that these conversations will continue on endlessly and forever.
Because I have so much to learn!
I might be a poor knight, but my life is richer with her.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
French toast is a breakfast dish here in the US. We put maple syrup on it. I've never seen it eaten with ice cream. Very interesting!
Of course Americans eat a dessert as a breakfast ;D ;D
They do one here with a cinnamon bun too, which is really good. None of it is healthy, but hey - can't always wait for a special occasion.
Yeah I was surprised about ice cream as I know only the American version 😅
but maple syrup and icing sugar is okay? ;D
Honestly though, it all just depends on what is in the cupboards :)
Maple Syrup is supposed to be healthy it it is real :)
For sure. There really isn't anything sweet about it until you add the topping. Just bread dipped in egg and cinnamon.
❤️
Our daughter is almost 12 and she just found out that boys are needed for babies :)
What was her reaction?
Somewhat of a disgust 😕
An interesting question :) I would answer that some men don't want to take the responsibility of being father as it would need self-deprivation.
I don't think eight year olds would think that far ahead :)
This is not the first time I haved wished I could be a fly on the wall during one of your conversations.
It doesn't get better than that.
She is so funny in some of the conversations, as she knows if it is sensitive or awkward for her, but her curiosity gets the best of her and she asks anyway :)
I guess if you were with your son now you would think differently!
Dear @tarazkp ! Steve and @valued-customer Customer seemeed to have different thoughts than you because they have sons.
They probably believed that their sons would achieve the ambitions they could not achieve after their death!
I think every man instinctively wants a son who will fulfill his ambitions!
I wonder if you think Smallsteps can help you achieve your ambitions!
I hope you don't get offended by my awkward English!😅Dear my bro @tarazkp !
Why would I think differently if I had a son?
I always wanted a daughter and I don't think I would want any child to reach my ambitions.
I enjoyed the conversation with Smallsteps about French toast and its origins. The discussion about why girls think about motherhood and boys don't was fascinating to me. Your seed and garden analogy was a great way to explain things.
What would you have said in my place?