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PrintA valuable lesson
Teaching kids the value of money.
Our kids have a fairly firm grasp of what things cost, an insight they gained through what remains nearest and dearest to them: toys. Understanding what things cost, however, is not necessarily the same as understanding their value.
For example, our son recently went through a deeply impassioned flirtation with tiny toys called bakugon: clever little spheres that seem to magically transmogrify into a dragon or alien or some combination thereof — a draglien perhaps. They are just small enough that they are effectively equivalent in cost to a week’s worth of chores around the house: making the bed, helping wash the car, light gardening duties and the like.
While I cautioned him against throwing all his hard-earned money at a toy that, in truth, he seemed to get little actual enjoyment out of, I remembered my own earlier obsession with baseball cards and tried to remain neutral.
In time, of course, he grew tired of the bakugon. Its value was dropping, but its cost wasn’t, and he soon set his sights elsewhere: a Nintendo DS. This, he now knows, costs many multiples of a single bakugon, which has become his gold standard, the means by which he assesses the cost of an object. Someday, I feel fairly strongly, he will get to the DS on his own (if his grandparents don’t come down like a stimulus package, of course, and help him magically get there much sooner).
Our daughter, unlike our son, craves very little: She tends to absorb what others around her value, but she herself really cares almost nothing about specific toys or dolls or celebrities (someday she will inform us that this was because we deprived her of the Disney Channel, but for now, we’re still escaping blame, barely).
Of course, we consider her genuine lack of an acquisitive nature to be a healthy quality that should be encouraged.
On the other hand, it has also occurred to me off and on that this tendency makes it almost impossible to discuss cost and value. We like to think we provide all she needs and she herself doesn’t seem to want anything. Therefore, how do we get her to conclude that light gardening duties equals ______? She wants nothing, so to her, light gardening duties are exactly that, light gardening duties. They possess no transferable value.
Last fall, however, an opportunity suddenly presented itself in the form of an iPod shuffle. For a month, she was very diligent in her pursuit: taking on any extra chores wherever and whenever she could, even seeking out extra opportunities such as folding laundry and rinsing dishes.
All of this was extremely encouraging; the day we went to the store, there was clearly a new spring in her step, and she seemed to take it as further acknowledgement of her efforts that we picked up the tax and headphones.
And nothing, I am certain, can be cuter than watching your 7-year-old bop wildly around your living room while lost in his or her first musical reveries: to the driving sounds of Austin underground legend The Big Boys, no less.
Slowly, however, the wheels came off. First, the headphones broke, which put the shuffle out of commission, thus removing its value. Over the holidays, fortunately, a new set of headphones was, ahem, delivered and for a few more weeks, the ship was righted. But then, tragically, not only were the headphones lost but the entire shuffle.
My wife and I were prepared for paroxysms of despair. Only the most peculiar thing happened: nothing. Our daughter hardly batted an eye. As we kept trying to remedy the situation (she worked so hard!), searching high and low, she seemed only to stare at us, as though thinking, “It’s just an iPod shuffle; what’s the big deal?”
And she’s right, of course; relatively, it is no big deal. Relatively, it means nothing. But as a parent, how can you recognize the difference between a child’s ability to recognize the relative value of an object (in this case, a shuffle) and acting spoiled, whereby the child simply does not comprehend the value of any object?
Fortunately, she’s now 8, and we think we’re still in the early stages of the game. What’s more, there appears to be a new upcoming teachable moment: Miley Cyrus. She’s desperate to see her, and after another month’s worth of chores, who knows?
Personally, would I prefer she stick to The Big Boys? But if Miley can teach her a thing or two about cost and value, then I’m perfectly willing to let my wife experience that moment of growth with her.
