Money Lessons

A neighborhood friend tried to teach his 11-year-old daughter a lesson about money but it backfired. We live in a working-class neighborhood, not especially affluent. Yet people tend to be generous, especially with children. I have heard of teenagers getting as much as forty dollars for washing a car or shoveling a walk.

So, when another neighborhood family asked  my neighbor’s daughter if she would feed, pet and visit their cat, Fuffy, once a day and promised her 25 dollars per day for what amounted to a half an hour's work, the girl was overjoyed. She ran home and told her father. But to her surprise he said that she couldn’t accept that much money. My friend called Fluffy’s owner, and told her that he could not allow her to pay his daughter 25 dollars a day for a half an hour's work, because she would get the wrong idea about the value of money. They settled on six dollars a day. He explained this to his daughter, saying that it wasn't appropriate for her to accept such a large amount.

“We don’t need money that badly,” he said, hoping that she would learn the meaning of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

A month later another neighbor asked his daughter to feed, pet and visit their cat while they were on vacation. She accepted. When my friend asked how much they intended to pay her, she replied, "Nothing. I told them what you said. We don’t need money. We have plenty of money."