Aesop (you may dare your own geo-political moral from the following exchange).
I was chatting with the children about the composer Brahms, and offhandedly mentioned that he was born in Germany. My son leaped in:
"I was born in North America!"
His sister, with the wise condescension of Mr. Miyagi, corrected him:
- "Actually, you were born in the United States of America."
His disgruntlement was enormous and public.
"No I wasn't! I WAS BORN IN NORTH AMERICA!!"
- "No...you were actually born in the United States of America," with accompanying facial expressions expressing the tolerant wisdom of the ages.
"NORTH AMERICA!!!!"
At this point, I could have United Nation-ed things and worked on brokering a peace accord, but I decided to let them learn some independent conflict resolving. Plus, it was immensely entertaining. So I stayed out, aside from sticking on a well-worn record of Brahms' Hungarian dances to score the proceedings.
I love maps, even though they confuse me too.