Shopping alone when you are five

The world must be so exciting for her. I try to imagine how she experiences the shops, the distance to the riverside park or the large playground, the roads full of traffic, the market. Buying a snack in the corner store is something trivial for us, a relatively meaningless act we won’t remember. It’s no achievement, it doesn’t exhilarate our spirits. It is a dull and mundane task that would instill a sense of awkwardness just because I am writing about it.

But when Miru goes shopping, she is all excitement. It is one of my tricks to make her understand the usefulness of elementary math: she must count her coins. I follow her on the street because I want to know if she observes the safety rules: look left, look right, stick up your arm as you cross the street. She does this flawlessly and it looks most adorable. I see her enter the corner store and come out, five minutes later, with a plastic bag. Much as I prefer she buys broccoli, this little step towards independence is most endearing.

I don’t want to speed her up to get her out of the house earlier, Eighteen years of a daughter like we have is a blessing. It is the other way around: by encouraging independence at this tender age will enable her to rely on her parents without embarrassment, says my intuition.

Most of the time it is chocolate biscuits or “pepero”, biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate. Yesterday she bought princess lipstick candy. Shopping alone when you are five is exciting, memorable and gives you a real sense of achievement. It makes me wonder what the equivalent would be for adults.

She just offered me one of her treasured cookies so I am going to wrap this up. Being a parent is a tough job.