The other morning Nicky was sitting very quietly in the living room, staring and thinking. I didn't bother her but thought it a tad strange. After awhile she came in the bathroom where I was readying myself for the day and matter-of-factly said,"Reagan has more toys than we do."
It sort of took me off guard but I admitted that Reagan probably did. I said that there would be plenty of times in her life where she would notice that someone had more of something than she did. Then she said,
"Maybe Reagan's family isn't buying a new house so they have more money to spend on toys."
I just laughed and thought I'd heard the end of it. Not so. I overheard Nicky and her friend Olivia playing yesterday. Nicky was asking Olivia all sorts of prying questions.
"Olivia, does your daddy buy you the good cheese?" (She's referring the the Cracker Barrel extra sharp cheese that Jeff likes.)
Olivia was clueless and didn't answer.
Then it was, "Olivia, do you have Barbie Swan Lake?"
Olivia said yes. She's the fourth girl in the family and I don't think there is going to be much along the lines of Disney Princess or Barbie that she doesn't have.
Nicky continued to prod hoping to find that it wasn't the same thing she has, "Oh! Well is it a movie or a book?"
When Olivia answered that it was a movie, Nicky asked, "well do you have Barbie Rapunzel?"
This line of questioning went on for some time. I can't remember whether she found anything besides Daddy's good cheese that Olivia didn't have.
So I did what any good parent would do. I went to Target later today and bought Nicky the Sleeping Beauty dress up that Reagan has that she wanted. We bought the authentic Sleeping Beauty hair/wig (which Nicky calls "earwig") at the rummage sale. I guess I need help on dealing with this one. I wasn't expecting such an outburst of coveting.
6 comments:
Yeah, my kids covet. I just say, well, you have a lot of stuff that other people don't have. Especially when the thing other people have is like a 4-wheeler. I just tell him we'll NEVER have one of those, and just forget it. But actually, I can deal with the coveting. I CAN'T deal with the gloating. I hate when Jeffy says, "We have a Wii, do you? WHAT? You don't have a Wii? Mommy, they don't even have a Wii!" Silly brat.
Haha get used to it this is just the beginning. I figure it is a good lesson that the material things are not the important thing in life and we can';t go buy everything we want cause sos and so has it. We have almost daily meltdowns of everyone else has...blah blah blah...but even when I point out the things we do have it is isn't enough. Oh well some lessons take time.
Kids are so funny sometimes! What a good mom you are to go buy her that cute dress and wig! If your next one is a girl, she'll be all set!!
Hey, at least it is something you can do something about. Asha wanted blond hair and blue eyes. I couldn't do anything about that one.
Ahh kids have to learn that you can't have everything you want in life. It's a tough lesson but teaching them financial responsibility is soo important and along with responsibility comes - not having everything that your neighbor has!!
Material things are not important in life. You can probably remind her that she has mommy at home rather than going to daycare like most other kids do!! That's soo much more important in the long run than toys anyway!
It only continues until they get older. I had one son as a young teenager ask me why he couldn't have his own computer like all of his friends did. I reminded him that we had a much bigger family and only one income and we chose to spend our limited budget differently. He then made some comment about how I should have stopped having kids, (and gave me what he thought was an appropriate number), so that the kids could have some of these things he felt they needed - like his own computer. I proceeded to tell him that maybe I should have stopped after one and then we wouldn't be having the conversation we were having. He shut up right then. Thankfully he outgrew that stage before he graduated. The funny thing now is the young teenage boy who thought we had too many kids that hampered the lifestyle he wanted is now wanting 6 kids of his own because he has wonderful memories of growing up with a large family!!!! :) He is now expecting #2 while attending law school and all of his class mates think he's crazy!!!
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