A pair of conversations with my daughter, age 5

We have a book of kid’s songs compiled by a group called Wee Sing, and it’s full of innocent and/or Christian children’s songs (e.g., “Big Rock Candy Mountain” with the lyrics changed so that the streams are lemonade, not alcohol). A couple nights ago, we sang songs from the book.

“Who‘s got the whole world in his hands?” she asked.

“It would have to be someone with really big hands, right?”

“Like Zeus?”

That is what happens when an atheist with an interest in literature has a kid: the kid ends up more familiar with the Greek myths than the Christian ones.

The other conversation happened a month or so ago. She asked me what I was reading. I replied,

“Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze…”

(Source, and the rest of the poem, here.)

After I got up to about “And the last age should show your heart,” she asked, “When am I going to die?”