Kids Say the Darndest Things: "THAT's what they meant in the Lion King..."

The other day, driving Cierra home from school, the following conversation took place:

Cierra: "Mom, I wish that nobody got old and only lived until they are forty."

Me: "Why forty?"

Cierra: "Cause forty is a good age, I don't think it's THAT old and people still look pretty when they are forty."
(At this point I began to think of how many fantastic forty-year-olds I know)

Me: "Would babies still be born?"

Cierra: "Yes, of course! Babies are great, they make people smile."

(I read her an article a few weeks ago about the social scientific reaction that people naturally have when they see babies... the response is smiles, even in men who don't inherently have the 'sense of nurturing'.)


Me: "Well, that would be great for a little while... but it could never work."

Cierra: "How come"

Me: "Well, because if babies continued to be born, and no-one died people would overrun the world. There would be too many of us..."

Cierra: "sigh, yeah, I did NOT think about that ma"

She was really quiet for a few minutes when out of no-where she said "SO THAT'S what they meant in the Lion King! At which point she began to sing obnoxiously..."the circle of of life....."