Learning economics in second grade

At dinner, Thalia talked about the book she wanted to write with me. We had been discussing it for ages, only for all kinds of reasons, it now seemed more viable. She brainstormed a few titles, then devised ways to write it, print it, and sell it. (“We can make lots of copies and sell it on the corner like a lemonade stand, only for books! Then we can walk to Barnes & Noble and give them some to sell and they’ll give us some money!”)

Sage asked what happens if you write a book but people can’t read the handwriting and we told her we would try to type the pages so that that wouldn’t happen. Then Thalia talked a little about pricing and supply and demand, which means that the less people want something, the lower the price goes so you should buy things that no one wants so that the price is almost zero.

“You’re going to be a great capitalist one day,” I said. “Do you know what capitalism is?”

“I do!” she exclaimed without cracking a smile. “Capitalism is upper case and lower case.”

She sat back in her chair and folded her arms proudly.

Maybe, I thought, we should just write a book on capitalism. The upper case and lower case kind.

 

{12 Comments}

12 thoughts on “Learning economics in second grade”

  1. That is insanely adorable. What a girl!

    It reminds me a bit of when my son was three how he once pointed to our teapot and his sister’s tiny teapot next to it, and declared them to be upper and lower case teapots.

    Tell Thalia if her corner book stand works I will hire her to sell copies of my novel there.

    1. That is the BEST! Aren’t you glad we have blogs to write all this stuff down that we’d otherwise forget tomorrow?

      And your novel will be our second item, promise.

  2. Oh, this warms my heart. As the mother 2 girls – a 2nd grader and kindergartener, we live similar lives. 🙂

    In related news…Texas kindergartener mistakes one word for another….

    Katherine: playing a Boggle-type game on my phone. “Mom, what is the 7 letter word?”
    Me: “I don’t know. Click the light bulb, and it will tell you.”
    Katherine: “What is that word?”
    Me: “Pothole”
    Katherine: “Mom, that’s a bad word!”
    Me: “A bad word? Use it in a sentence”
    Katherine: “Shut your POTHOLE”
    Me: No, honey, a pothole is a hole in concrete…you know, when we are driving in the van and there is a bump in the road, usually it’s because of a hole …they call that a pothole.”

    You’ll never look at another pothole without giggling. You’re welcome.

  3. I used to think writing a blog was a gift to ourselves, family and friends. Now I see it is a gift to our children. I imagine she will laugh long and hard, tears of joy running down her face, when she reads this one day.

    1. I swear, I just said almost the same this morning.

      This was a post I wrote specifically so I could remember this moment and share it with her one day. It’s still an honor that you’re joining me in reading it though.

  4. Adorable and oddly profound.

    For the record I use to use her technique of buying things no one else wanted because they’d be cheaper. The result was some very odd (and rarely worn) sales rack fashion statements.

  5. Clearly Thalia is a girl who can’t be stumped. I’ve never made a purchase from a lemonade stand, but I could never pass up a child selling books.

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