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Kids are fascinated with money. They covet and desire money. They need it, you see, to buy massive quantities of useless trinkets, action figures, bags of candy, and whatever their friends are waving around with an air of superiority reserved for "the first on you block to have one!"
Problem is, they really don't know how to get money. They know it comes from Mom or Dad. And they've heard (often) that it doesn't grow on trees. But that's about it. We tell them we "work" for money. But it doesn't seem to pan out for them.
Max: "But Mom! Just last month I cleaned up my room. And ZIP. NADA! I also brushed. My. Teeth. I don't recall seeing any cash as a result of THAT. What good is work?"
"Why don't you try washing the car?"
"How much will you pay me?"
"Depends on how well you do the job."
"Aw, nuts."
No doubt about it: Max wants the money. He is, In fact, willing to do anything (ANYTHING!) to get it. Except work.
I know this does not bode well for the future. (I was counting on one of those cushy four-star nursing homes!)
When I look at it from his perspective, though, I can appreciate the frustration. Outside of having to actually lift a helpful finger, there ARE other ways that kids have been known to lay their hands on a few bucks. It makes perfect sense, in a child's mind, to exhaust THOSE before turning to the least-attractive alternative.
These are the common methods Max turns to, in attempt to weasel money out of people, or out of the ether. Whichever.
• Have a birthday
• Set up a Lemonade Stand (10 minute patience limit, 0 budget for advertising)
• Toss the couch cushions, and look under Dad's car seat
• Shamelessly beg from grandparents
• Find money in storm cutters
• Find money in coat pockets
• Con or extort younger sibling or cousins out of their money
• Coax pennies from the piggy bank with a butter knife
• "Misplace" the envelope containing field trip money
• Check all the change return slots in vending machines
• Lose a tooth
• (This one just in!) Build a birdhouse, and charge rent.
Unfortunately, once Max gets his hands on some dough, his troubles are not over. All those TV ads have 800 numbers, but you have to have a credit card to complete the transaction. And no matter how many times you give them the number on your library card, it just doesn't work.
STORES are inconveniently distant, and require transportation; a point of some annoyance to a nine-year-old. If he tells me "I want to go to the pet store and buy a giant hissing cockroach", for example, chances are I'm not going to display the appropriate amount of maternal support and enthusiasm.
On the other hand, if he says "I want to go to the pet store just to LOOK at the hissing cockroaches, but I'm not going to buy anything, just LOOK. Honest. How do you feel about anacondas? Can you take me there today?" (whilst writhing a coin-stuffed fist in right front pocket) I'm ALSO not very likely to jump at the opportunity. It's a lose-lose situation, when one doesn't possess the worldliness to, you know, lie efficiently.
But it's a well known fact that even those with little social sophistication, can become landlords; thus the (possibly brilliant) birdhouse idea.
Maybe, through shrewd bird-business sense, he'll earn enough to afford a second birdhouse, and then a third! Before you know it, he'll own little bird tenements everywhere. And I'll be the well-kept mother of the first birdhouse magnate! (It would suck for the birds, but it could work.)
It sure beats being the well-kept mother of the primo Northern Hemisphere breeder/supplier of hissing cockroaches.
I think I have some birdhouse hanging to do.
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© 2003, Susan Kawa, All rights reserved.
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