One of the greatest things about parenting is simply watching them growing and learning and discovering the delights and wonders of life. The heartbreaking side of that is knowing that they will also be discovering the flip side of those delights and wonders, like rejection, bullying and not always winning.
It can be a struggle to stay on that fine line of preparing her for life’s disappointments without casting a negative light on life itself. This is a particular issue with Lyd, she has a knack for seeing the inner glow in nearly everything. I’d kill to wear “Lydie Goggles” for a day!
One little disappointment that I can prepare her for is gross profit versus net profit. One of the great shocks in life is getting that first paycheck from that first job. Ten dollars an hour up front does not translate to ten dollars an hour on the back end. After being a member of America’s Work force for roughly a quarter of a century, I still feel a bit deflated as I stare at a check stub.
We decided to try and brace her for that initial shock through her allowances. We are approaching her chores as if this is a part-time job for her. Here’s how we have set up Lydia’s allowance:
She has two jars, one labeled “to-do”, another labeled “done”. We ordered a package of blank wooden nickels and wrote a different chore on each one. Every time she completes a chore, she takes it from “to-do” and drops it into “done”.
Each chore is worth twenty-five cents. One nickel from that quarter goes into a jar labeled “family tax”, another nickel goes into a jar labeled “savings”. The remaining fifteen cents goes into a jar labeled “FUNd”
Savings is pretty obvious, put it in and forget about it. Hopefully she doesn’t touch this until she needs a down payment on a house!
The FUNd is her spending money (Ugh. I can’t stop you, it’s your money, go ahead get the cheap little trinket!)
Family tax is a symbolic contribution toward family activities, like the zoo or museum. It also gives her voting power. If I want to go to the zoo, and Annie wants to go to the museum, Lydia has the official tie-breaking vote.
Our faith plays a significant portion of our life, and after Lyd receives her First Communion, a “Church” Jar will be added. We’ll give her a slight raise as well. That’s mostly because I don’t want her FUNd to be obliterated. I don’t want her net profit to stop looking like it is worth the effort.
Once a week, we tally the tokens in the done jar and pay her the amount earned. If the done jar is totally empty, then she will get a bonus, one whole tax-free/savings-free quarter added exclusively to the FUNd jar. Accomplishing this is very unlikely. She might as well be a scullery maid! However, it is not impossible.
During the week of her birthday, we have an “employee review”. She may request a raise, and she must convince us as to why she deserves this raise.
For the most part, we do not require her to do any of her chores. Rarely do we compel her. Her income is based off of her effort. She does not get paid for doing nothing.
When she turns fifteen, we will send her off to find a part-time job and hopefully the shock of that first earned paycheck won’t ruin her. With that job, her allowance payments will end. Her chores however won’t. At that point in her life, her chores become “rent”.
She is slowly starting to get it. Occasionally we give her a little nudge, “You know, perhaps this is a good time to earn a quarter.” That usually sends her digging around in the to-do jar. Occasionally she does it on her own. She’s getting better at it.
Teenaged me is about to groan in exasperation when I say what I’m about to say: there really is great satisfaction to be found in hard work. While I cannot prepare her for every hiccup life will throw at her, I can instill a healthy work effort in her. At the very least, I want her to have a willingness to work. I want her to understand that she can, to a point, control what she gets out of life through effort.