My favorite fruit is persimmon.

Children love talking about their favorites more than anything.
Talking about favorites usually involves questions like, "What is your favorite food?"
The "favorite ~" question applies to everything, and it's not rare to be asked for an answer even in genres I don't particularly care about.

Dad, what's your favorite fruit?
Persimmon.
What's your second favorite?
Fig.
What's your third?
I don't really have one.
What's your fourth?
If there's no third, there can't be a fourth, can there? Everything else is tied for the rest!

It's like this every time. That's why it's a well-known fact in our family that I love persimmons, and I've even publicly declared that while I might give up other fruits, I won't give up persimmons.

By the way, my daughter loves grapes more than anything, so I feel like I've given up plenty of grapes to her. That's why I jokingly tell her that she should give up the persimmons to her father, but when it comes to food, she doesn't understand jokes at all.

She says things like, "That's not fair," or "Dad, you can't have it all to yourself." She even goes as far as to say, "You ate it all by yourself, didn't you?" I didn't eat it. When I say, "Why would I do something like that?" she replies, "I'm suspicious."

Hey, looking in the trash won't help. When I cover my tracks, I do it thoroughly. Well, I didn't eat it this time, though. My daughter is like this at six years old. This is a trait my son doesn't have.

When I say things like this, some people nowadays start talking about gender and whatnot, but there are definitely things that are fundamentally different between men and women. And that is by no means an individual trait, but a gender-based one.

Anyway, I've loved persimmons for a long time, but for some reason, my children have started loving them too, which is a problem. A while ago, persimmons shouldn't have been that high on their favorites list, but because I talk about how much I love them so much, the children have become persimmon lovers too. Thanks to that, even a persimmon cut into four pieces becomes a battle. The children stare with wide eyes, trying to pick the slightly larger piece.

I am so good at cutting things evenly that I'm called Mr. Equal Portions (not really). But since a persimmon isn't a perfect square or circle, there will always be differences. The children are desperate to spot those differences. They are truly gluttonous.

They finally pick a small piece of persimmon and stuff it into their mouths, shouting, "So sweet!" or "So good!" I love watching them like that more than anything. Even so, I just can't give up the persimmons.