Tuesday, December 15, 2009

To Spend or Not to Spend

Jack surprised me.

After Christmas Jack often has a case of the Christmas blues. He is sad and doesn't know why or how to put it into words. I try to explain to him how it is normal to feel blue after Christmas, after spending all of your hours surrounded by family and laughter only to have to start thinking about going back to school, after getting to stay up late almost every night and have every day bring something special, after waiting for weeks to open your presents and suddenly it's over.

So the other day he came to me and said, "Sometimes I feel bad after Christmas." I started to delve into my Christmas blues talk but he stopped me. He said, "I know that, but I feel bad because I think you spend too much money on me and in these hard times we should be saving money. Maybe you shouldn't get me so much this year."

I was glad to hear that Jack correctly relates the presents he gets under the tree to the status of our bank account. I'm glad that he has a feeling of financial responsibility, but I don't ever want him to feel responsible for our finances (at least not until he is a top-paid major league baseball player).

I thanked him for his concern and assured him that we were doing fine and that there was no need for him to worry about money.

Then he added two things to his Christmas list.

5 comments:

MamaOtwins+1 said...

Wow - such deep thoughts from a child.

Unknown said...

Ohhhh. How sweet of him!! You must be doing something right with that boy. Could you tell me what it is? I have some seriously selfish kids this year.

MollyinMinn said...

I just found your blog today and, as a fellow mom of three boys, have loved reading through it.

Unplanned Cooking said...

It's so nice to know your life lessons are resonating. What a sweet, sensitive boy.

Kathy said...

That is really sweet, glad he understands. Leave it to a child to then add to the list though!