I was reading this post at American Digest about how kid's view their parents giving them things, even a limited number of things, and it brought to mind something our pastor said last Sunday. He pointed at his Dad in the congregation and said, "I was spoiled growing up! My dad told me I could have anything I wanted....as long as I bought it myself."
And Willard leaned over to me and said, "That's what you always say!"
Kids need to learn as early as possible to work for the things they desire and until they do so, they have little idea of the value of the things they do have or what it took to get them. Our children begin to appreciate us and their gifts from us at about the same rate they begin to understand our struggles, work, and decision making process. As adults, we do not desire something and immediately consider who we could ask for the money. We make a plan for earning the items on our want list and when we find we can't have everything on the list, we prioritize. Kids need to learn it as well.
Willard, who is 12, wants some new-fangled gaming system. He asked me if I would buy it for his birthday and I said, "Well, I don't like the things in the first place and I never spend that much on anyone's birthday. If you want it, buy it yourself."
So he sat down with a piece of paper, wrote the asking price at the top, and listed jobs he can do, their respective pay outs, and their frequency to calculate the purchase date of his want list thingy. In an effort to earn more quickly, he asks to do odd jobs around the house to accelerate his earning and move up his purchase date.
Yesterday, his 14 year-old sister mowed a neighbor's yard in order to go with friends and pay for an entrance ticket at the local waterpark today. This brought on a discussion of opportunity costs. Willard wanted to go and asked if I would pay. I explained that I was not paying for his sister to go. His sister had worked for her ticket, he had plenty of saved money from his own work, and he would have to decide if he wanted to go along and put his plan back a week, or stay home and stick with his original plan.
Braces yourselves, readers! That was the end of the discussion. He said, "Okay."
And note that yesterday when I discussed the waterpark plan with his sister, Vision, our conversation did not begin with can I have some money? She said, "Will it be okay if I mow Tom's yard to earn enough money to go to the waterpark Saturday?"
Parents with few funds have little choice but to implement policies such as the above and ironically, their children are often way ahead of their better-off peers concerning money management and discriminating between wants and needs. I, myself, have stumbled over this principle in recent years and finally Mr. G administered a much needed, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife? We don't hand our children things even if we can. They need to work! What are you thinking?"
I'd erred in focusing on the fact that we were now able to pay for neat things for our children, instead of considering the wisdom of doing so. And I knew better. The hard part comes when the parent could easily purchase the immediate wants of the child, but refuses to do so as a matter of principle and more importantly, for the kid's own good.
Happily, all the kids are working now at various jobs, either at home or in the community. Veritas is serving donuts and saving for a car, Vision is working 3 days a week to pay for her cheer fees and an additional morning of babysitting to earn fun money, and Willard is mowing the yard and working around the house for his game sphere station cube. Everyone has a better attitude and the question is gradually turning from can I have to how can I earn?
It's a good thing.
