Econ 101

Last night's dinner conversation revolved around the library books that K had checked out from the school library since beginning Kindergarten three weeks ago. Last week she brought home a wonderful book titled Pictures from Our Vacation, a Newberry Award winner. I was telling her how proud I was of her that she could read so many words, even some of the big words, all by herself.

We then got onto the topic of motels.

The family in the story stayed in a motel called the Shangri-La. The sign out front said it had a pool, which I am certain the children in the backseat were very excited to see, but they soon found out that there was no water in the pool.

This talk about a motel began our Econ 101 lesson for the evening.

-What's a motel?
-Well, it's a place you stay when you aren't camping but you aren't at home. We stayed in a motel in Oregon when we went back to visit 'Amma this summer.
-Oh, that wasn't a hotel? I thought that was a hotel.
-No, that was a motel. It was a nice motel but it was still a motel.
-Well, then, what's a hotel?
-Well, a hotel is where you go and a person is there to take you luggage to your room and there is food that you can order room service and it is all fancy-schmancy and everything.
-Oh, well, what happens if that person takes your things and doesn't bring them to your room?
-Oh, that person is paid to bring our things to our room, and usually we give them a tip, a little extra money, to make sure that our things get to our room safely. But I don't like to go to hotels because only rich people can afford to stay at hotels and I don't feel very comfortable around rich people.
-Yeah, we're not rich, are we?
-No, we're not rich.
Then K stopped, thought a moment, and said,
-Boy, Sheila is rich.
I looked at K and asked, -Why do you say that?
-Because they have all those toys.
-Oh.
-Yeah, I bet if we were rich we'd have a lot more toys than we do.

Instead of immediately jumping to the defensive as I would normally do, I simply let the issue lie with that basic economic observation. Personal choice versus economics--how could she possibly understand that I might not actually buy her all that her little heart desires even if I had the monetary resources to do so? I hope she might come to understand so as not to feel deprived. She has toys, she has books, and she has a fantastic imagination that permits her to discover fun inside or outside without necessarily having any toys with which to play. That was a parenting choice that I made, and every single parent makes different choices. The respect for the different choices is important, but my hope is that she can look back on her childhood and see riches of a different kind that she was given.