Show Me The Money
So we’re trying to teach our little dudes the value of a dollar. Mostly this means we’re being stingy, especially considering the whole economy is tanking and everybody’s feeling the pain. I mean, it’s not like I’m dipping into their savings accounts that much. (Kidding. Kidding. Exaggerating for effect. Seriously.{Just don’t ask the little dudes about it.}) Anyway, we set up savings accounts for the little dudes when they were born and have been contributing money to them on a regular basis.
Recently, I pulled out the bank books and bank statements and started making the little dudes take a look at them. I want them to understand just what a bank statement says, what it means, and why I’ve been sneaking a few dollars out every once in a while how much money they have. I mean, the older little dudes are going away to college in a few years (God, does that make me feel old) and I want to make sure they don’t turn out like one of my aunts. She went to college and, I swear I’m not making this up, she started bouncing checks. When my grandfather called her on it, she said, (again, not making this up) “I can’t be out of money. I still have checks left in my checkbook.” Oddly enough, she seems to have kept that sort of attitude into adulthood. Not something I want to pass along to my little dudes.
So, my youngest little dude and I have been talking about his savings account and we decided it was time for him to take some of the allowance money he’d been saving and put it into the savings account where he could start earning interest. He was fascinated. People would pay him money just for keeping his money in their bank? Oh, yeah, baby! He was all over it.
Over the weekend we set things up. We took out his money jar, grabbed some of the folding green and started counting. Then he took out his savings bank book and wrote down the deposit slip. He did everything and I could see him swelling with pride at doing it all on his own. But the best was yet to come.
We went to the bank on a Saturday. The only thing open was the drive through. We had a choice of the teller window lane or the *woosh* lane, in which you put your deposit in a little container and a phenumatic tube shunts it to the teller. Of course, the little dude choose the *woosh* lane. He was bouncing up and down as he grabbed the container, slid the money and deposit slip inside and then pushed the send button.
“Are you too old for stickers?” the teller asked.
“I’m never too old for stickers,” the youngest little dude replied.
He got back a receipt and three stickers. It’s been four hours now and I still can’t pry any of them out of his hand. He’s been running around to his harem girl friends, his brothers and everyone else who’ll stand still and showing them what he did today.
“This has been the best day ever,” he told me.
It’s amazing how wonderful the little dudes feel when they’re doing something they thinks is adult. Soon enough (too soon for me), he’ll be on his own and doing his own banking and paying his own bills and feeling the pressure of adulthood. But I’ll still be smiling, remembering the first time he deposited money on his own and how much he was smiling.
– Richard
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