I might have shot myself in the foot with this parenting plan, but please let me know what you think. For Leo’s 4th birthday, I gifted him a wallet. This may be premature but in what Bess Kalb refers to as the “How to Raise a French Child Who is Better Than Your Disgusting American Children” book, it’s assumed that children should know how to do all of the things of the home by the time they’re 7, so time’s a tickin’.
For the past few days, he’s been obsessed with buying some random batman robot transformer thing that he saw at a Walmart equivalent store. I don’t like the idea that he thinks I’m always going to say yes and that he can have whatever he wants whenever he wants AND as you may know by now, I HATE stuff, and his toys are starting to seep out of his closet (until I become so scroogey and throw stuff away when he’s asleep and then those things are the first things he asks about when he wakes up - I cannot win!) so I decided that I’m not buying him anything anymore unless it’s his birthday, Christmas, or it’s stuff he actually needs (or I need him to have to keep me sane). I’m not so mean, I promise! The kid can still have a childhood, okay?
Because he has his new wallet, I told him we’d start giving him a little money each week so that if he wants something big or small, he can buy it himself. I know that he doesn’t understand this at all, but some lessons have taken me years to learn so I figure we might as well start sooner than later. Also I’m just tired of buying him crap, and I thought this might give me at least a little bit of a break. Think again, because now he still gets the crap but I have to be goddamn preschool teacher about it, “ok Leo tell the guy you have 50 pesos and ask what you can buy with that,” and I hold my breath hoping the answer is nothing! We went to three different little toy stands in the centro this evening until Leo found a guy that would haggle and he bought a toy gun and dinosaur set.
Please tell me wise people who have children older than 4 - will he eventually understand that 50 pesos only buys cheap crap and he’ll never be able to save up for the batman thing he wants? Or did I just doom myself and his bedroom to be piled high with even more crappy toys that I have to throw away after he goes to sleep?
I feel like this is motherhood in a nutshell, a constant lesson for him and me. I think to myself, I know what will be so fun for us - making waffles together! Until he really only wants to make one waffle, and abandons me to make the rest OR possibly worse, he wants to do every single step himself making a 20 minute activity turn into my next birthday. A constant trial and error of making things better or more fun than they were and growing together as he grows and needs new lessons and challenges. As I write this, I see the beauty in it and feel the joy in it all and I’m reflecting on how cute and excited Leo was about it, and really patient analyzing each toy option, but ohmygod if I have to do the ring around the centro toy stands every week the second Leo gets his 50 pesos, while I silence all my deepest fears about consumerism and waste, the wallet might end up in the trash with all the disposable toys.