Freedom

One of my all time favorite songs is "God Bless the USA".   I swear it makes me cry every single time I hear it.  I am a goober.  What are you gonna do?

We were listening to it on the way to school yesterday and I could just tell Jake's wheel's were turning because he was so quiet.  When the song was over, he said, "Mama?  What does freedom mean?  What does it mean to be free?"

Oh, boy.  So I explained that part of what it means to be free and why we are so lucky and proud to be Americans is that we get to choose to worship our God anytime we want.  We are free to be what we want to be when we grow up and as long as we work very, very hard, we can do whatever we choose to do with our lives.  And because of that freedom, we are the best, most powerful country in the world and that means that we also have a responsibility to help other countries who are not as fortunate sometimes.  (I SHOULD HAVE STOPPED HERE.)

Jake: "So what is a country where you're not allowed to be what you want to be when you grow up?  Is England (Engwand) one of those countries?"  (Jake's best friend Caleb's uncle lives in England)

This is where I got a little too complicated.  haha:

So I said well, no, in England you can be what you want to be and they're a happy country, too.  One thing about them, though, and some other countries close to them in Europe, is that their governments (then explained that that's who is "in charge") takes a good bit of the money that they make from working and decide what to do with it.  It's called tax.
We have taxes here, too, but we get to keep a lot move of our money (less and less, am i right?).  Daddy and I believe that people should be able to keep the money they work hard for and decide for themselves what to do with it (like help others, etc...) instead of the government deciding for them.  We feel that's another big part of being free.

He said it was sad that other countries are not the same way as we are and got a tear in his sweet lil' eye.  God bless this sweet, big-hearted child.

No doubt, I could have skipped the tax portion of his question, but it's on my mind a lot lately given the current political climate and it just goes hand in hand with the freedom talk, I feel.  He's 4, but he understand a lot.


During supper last night, Jake said, "I told 'Cawup' (Caleb) today at school that in Engwand the government takes a lot of the money the people work for."

Eeeeesh.  I bet their conversation was interesting over supper last night.