"What's a pension?"

During a recent 'tucking in' routine, my daughter who was in senior infants, enquired about the exact nature of what I did 'at work'. "I know you help people by telling them what to do with their money, but how do you do that?

The reason the question was raised was because some of her friends were talking about what their Dads did at work. She had the basics of the answer but she was unsure as to how she could explain it to her friends.

Her sister had already gone to sleep, as she was bushed. Another busy day walking around in her Moms high heel shoes, carrying those over-sized handbags, pushing 'Baby Born' around in an undersized buggy while talking on a plastic mobile phone.

The 'thinker' was just lying there on the bunk retracing the events of the day and trying to reconcile things in her mind. So we had our little chat about the type of stuff that I do during the day and I happened to mention the word 'pension'.

"What's a pension?", she asked. "It's something that you pay money into, when you are working, so that when you stop working you can take money out of it to help you pay the bills." "Oh! So when my teacher left work to have her baby, she can get the money from her pension?" "Not quiet!"

Needless to say, the conversation went on for longer than anticipated. It ended when she had all the information reconciled in her head. She could now go to sleep, safe in the knowledge that if she needed to draw on this information at a later date, she could do so.

I love these little chats with her.