The Luckiest Day

It was a 'student free day' today. Like two weeks of school holidays isn't enough? I know, I know, teachers have to plan. As do parents. I don't get customer free days so in preparation for my six year old daughter's day off, I booked her into an activity day at a local Anglican church, with many of her friends.

I should preface this with the fact that we're not church going people. But we are Catholic and I went to an Anglican school, so I figure it's not too much of a stretch. The event was 9am - 5pm, and included all food, drinks, and activities. All for $10. A far greater investment for the church than for me.

At that price, I figured there'd be a bit of attempted indoctrination. They have to get something in return for their effort. We can handle it. We have no beef with God so my kid doing a bit of praying, although a foreign concept for her, won't do her any harm.

When she got home, I asked about her day. Excitedly, she said there was a jumping castle, craft, face painting, dancing, drawing, a pirate show and more. She said she also spent a fair bit of time in the church. That was my cue. "So did you talk about God?" I asked. "We'll, we prayed twice." she said.

That seemed a little light on compared to what I expected. I imagined at least some attempt to embed the idea that they should return with mum and dad for a mass one Sunday. A couple of prayers didn't really seem like a lot of return on their investment. I enquired a little further.

"What were the prayers about?"
"One was funny. It was 'Thank you God for the food'. How funny is that!"
"And the other one?" I asked.
"I can't remember."
"So," I asked, "what was the best thing about the day?"
Her response was immediate, "The food."

I thought that was quite a curious response. Of the jumping castle, face painting, pirate show, dancing etc, the best thing about the day was the food?

"What did you eat?" I asked.
"Um, well, ah... I ate apples and oranges."

Hmm...

"What else did you eat?"
"Well, you know those things that are shaped like a saucer with a pointy end, and they're covered in icing and sprinkles? I ate one of those."

I have no idea what those are, but as she described more and more of the food on offer for the entire day, it became very clear that, besides some fruit slices, she only ate sweets. All day. I asked why she didn't eat the sandwiches. I assumed there would at least be Vegemite sandwiches. But she insisted there were no sandwiches. In her reality, the only real food on offer were the apple and orange slices.

As I argued with her that there couldn't possibly be no normal food, she said adamantly, "Mum, I had to walk the whole length of the table with my plate, and I didn't see one sandwich. Except for the apples and oranges, it was all junk. It was the luckiest day of my life!"

She then handed me a flyer on a positive parenting seminar being held by the church. "Mum," she said, "can we go? Please? They have a program for kids while you're at the seminar, and there's food!"

The Anglicans have it all worked out.