Otfried Preußler, Der kleine Wassermann, ch. 3-5. The gender roles here are very traditional, but hey, 1956, what can you say? Actually a lot; J and I had a conversation about the scene where the mother accuses all fathers of wanting their kids to grow up as quickly as possible and the father accuses all mothers of wanting their children tied to their apron strings their whole lives. I told him this absolutely wasn't true, that some daddies wear aprons too and want their kids tied to them their whole lives, just like mommies! (Just kidding; I didn't say this).
The scene where the father says to the boy that he can't swim out of the house half naked because das schickt sich nicht ("That is not appropriate") also led to some banter about how funny humans are compared to animals with regard to clothing vs. nakedness. We tried to think of other ways of saying das schickt sich nicht and came up with das gehört sich nicht, das macht man nicht, and went from there to coverall non-explanations like das ist nun einmal so, so ist das halt, das ist eben so ("That's just the way it is"), and suchlike.
Age 4.12.11
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