Kids

If you are like me, you are always wondering how to bring more money into your household. Should I get a supplement job? Change my lifestyle? Invest a little riskier?

I had a wealthy old man tell me once, it is not how much money you earn in life, and it is how much you save. When he told me that, I was a brash, 25 year old, running my own business, and thought- “Yeah, right.”, but the older I get, the smarted he looks.

Now that I have kids, I am on an endless treadmill of sporting events, new clothes, movies, video games- expenses I am sure my parents never had to contend with.

When I was a kid, the neighborhood sports league was either free, or $5 for a tee shirt, and I could walk to practice without supervision. I wore my siblings hand me downs, except for the occasional pair of shoes and a good set of church clothes. I rarely went to a movie (my teenage life was full of drama), and video games were unheard of.

My kids have somehow decided that Pokemon cards are something that they have to have to be complete, and they can never have enough. However, they can be $20 a pop, plus all the accessories to drag them around in… God forbid I should tell my kids “no”, and they slip from Adena Elementary’s social graces, but reality strikes and I am now faced with this option. After giving it considerable thought, I came up with a plan.

My kids can W-O-R-K. They are bored stiff and jaded by all the stimulation our society dumps on them anyway, so why not tell them to actually go outside and find something to do.

I took one to Costco and bought him a $12 box of the best candy bars they had to offer, and told him to go sell it door to door. Shawn cleared 20 bucks within an hour.

He was so proud of himself, he now had money to go out and independently do whatever he decided to do, he got to converse with grown ups on their level, he was exhilarated by running around in the fresh air, and he got to eat a giant candy bar in the middle of the day. He was in boyhood heaven.

Of course when he flew in the house waving $20 around, his brother couldn’t let Shawn get the best of him, so off we went, back to Costco so the “brothers for life” could see who the best candy bar seller was.

This was months ago, but little did I know how it would have played out. We have all discovered some new things about ourselves in the process. They are not little people who don’t matter; they are responsible for what they say and do; and they steer their life in the direction of what they have and don’t have. Mom doesn’t necessarily have the last word on their future events.

Watching each other perform and interact with friends and family, we have all realized that we really do need each other. The concept of helping out our neighbors is not just some nice thought handed around at Christmas time, it is a lifestyle that can fulfill and satisfy us like no other thing can. The benefits that have come from requiring my kids to get involved and participate go way beyond the scope of this article, if my editor likes it, maybe I will write more about it in the future.

Until then, take care and remember- kids are people, too.