Mommy is my occupation

Lately Elisa has been listening to this CD from the library entitled, Free To Be You and Me. It's a CD that first came out in 1973 and it is very agenda driven. It asserts through poems, songs and stories that women are indeed equal to men, that girls and boys can be anything they want when they grow up etc. etc. It is pretty amusing, a lot of the stories are downright funny (for adults that is, Elisa doesn't get the stories at all). Now I am sure that back in the 70's this was needed. But now it is apparent that perhaps the pendulum had to swing a little too far in order for them to assert their point.

Anyway, another thing Elisa has been into lately is Richard Scarry books. You know the ones: tons of detailed pictures on each page, usually involving animals doing things around town, in an airport, at home etc. So I checked out a Richard Scarry DVD for her from the library. And wow! She loved it! The theme of the video is "What do people do all day?" And it is about different occupations. At the end of the video there is a song that starts, "You can be anything you want to be..."

So, now I have set the stage for the following conversation that occurred yesterday over lunch...

Elisa: "Mommy, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Me: "I want to be a mommy."

Elisa: (regards me carefully for a moment and then, clearly unsatisfied by my answer says) "No." "What do you want to be?" (sees that I am eating a carrot) "Maybe a carrot-eater?" (This comes from a Richard Scarry book where Lowly worm says that he'd like to be a apple-pie-eater when he grows up, and the narrator says, "Well, I think that is very nice work indeed.")

Me: "Sure, I'd like to be a carrot-eater."

Elisa: (pleased with my new answer) "I want to be a cake decorator."

Me: "Do you know what a cake decorator does?"

Elisa: "Yes, she puts the flowers behind the cakes and then takes them for birthdays." She then launches into "Happy Birthday" to Jonathan, which he fully appreciates.

It's so funny having this conversation with my just turned three-year-old. And it dawns on me that she already recognizes the potential to "be" something when she grows up. She takes for granted that she will be a mommy. Of course she will be a mommy. But now she is realizing that she could also do something else too. And the potential! The sky is the limit when you are three!

But for me, now that I am thirty-one... well, I guess I'll have to settle with being a carrot-eater.