Wednesday, April 6, 2011

when grown ups can't work it out they quit?

The buzz all over DC is about the potential government shut down.

The buzz all over kindergarten  is about our zoo field trip.

Unfortunately, the two cannot exist at the same time.

Just how am I going to explain this to overly Pixie and friends?
That we cannot go to the zoo because the government couldn't decide how to spend its money so it stopped working?  That's a great example for our kids- when grown ups can't solve a problem they quit.
Or that people couldn't get along so they closed the zoo?
The people in charge decided that if nobody could make a decision then nobody would get any money?
Our government stopped working and made the zoo stop working too?
 For the life of me I cannot think of a good way to have this make any sense to a five year old.  Besides the fact that most of them will then worry about who is feeding the animals.  (And who will be? Do zoo keepers get to be considered 'essential personal'? )

On the flip side, DC traffic police wont be writing parking tickets if the government shuts down...

3 comments:

Jenny said...

Apparently the animals will still get fed. A headline online made that quite clear. This is of no help in the process of explaining this to small children. Good luck with that.

Karen said...

Yes, zoo keepers are essential personnel...but, the last time this happened, the waste disposal contracts were all cancelled--so the elephant poop piled up in the parking lot.
It will be interesting to see if the web cams stay operational. http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/WebCams/default.cfm?hpout=webcam_link&xtr=

If that doesn't work--maybe we can work out a "live" broadcast via Qwik from Old Faithful.

Cathy Brackett said...

Thank you for putting it in kid terms. Silly grown ups!