Money, consumption, tulips, etc.
Today Dutch's school had a 2-hour snow delay, throwing a wrench into my plans for the morning. I took her and Skipper along on a multi-modal errand adventure, using as incentive for good behavior the promise that I'd take them to the big grocery store so Dutch could buy a toy she'd been wanting. She wouldn't tell me what it was, but she said she knew exactly what she wanted and she was confident that the $2.87 in her coin purse would be sufficient to purchase it. When we got there, the two toys she wanted cost $8.99 and $9.99. She frantically cast around for a few minutes to find something she could afford and actually enjoy, and came up with nothing.
Then we talked about fads. The toys she wanted are both currently extremely popular with boys in her class, who trade them and play with them after school. She wants the toys only for the social engagement to which they are a ticket. We talked about how the Pokemon fad in which she had been so eager to participate had ebbed recently (just after she finally got her own pack of Pokemon cards). I told her about the tulip bubble.* We talked about how if she's going to spend ten bucks on something, it'd probably be a good idea to make sure it's something she will enjoy playing with even by herself. She agrees, in theory.
*I also thought about how much fun it is to get to tell somebody about the tulip bubble. Parenting sometimes makes me feel, in a thoroughly enjoyable way, like I know an ENORMOUS amount of stuff. Of course, the flip side is that the kids expect me to be able to answer all of their questions. Like this morning's question, which was "How do clouds make rain?"
Then we talked about fads. The toys she wanted are both currently extremely popular with boys in her class, who trade them and play with them after school. She wants the toys only for the social engagement to which they are a ticket. We talked about how the Pokemon fad in which she had been so eager to participate had ebbed recently (just after she finally got her own pack of Pokemon cards). I told her about the tulip bubble.* We talked about how if she's going to spend ten bucks on something, it'd probably be a good idea to make sure it's something she will enjoy playing with even by herself. She agrees, in theory.
*I also thought about how much fun it is to get to tell somebody about the tulip bubble. Parenting sometimes makes me feel, in a thoroughly enjoyable way, like I know an ENORMOUS amount of stuff. Of course, the flip side is that the kids expect me to be able to answer all of their questions. Like this morning's question, which was "How do clouds make rain?"
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