By Eleanor Kazdan, November 5, 2020 — My eight-year-old grandson, Soleil … has been interested for a long time in money; saving it, counting it, spending it, and talking about it. I can visualize him being a banker in a family of hippies, like the character Michael J. Fox in the ’80s comedy Family Ties. It was a hilarious show about Michael J. Fox was this, you know, accountant type of child from hippie parents and it was very, very good.
So, I see Soleil with a clean-cut haircut wearing a suit and tie, trying to persuade his father, my son, to finally cut his more than shoulder-length hair. Sometimes when I go over to his house, he proudly shows me his stash of bills and tells me how much he has saved. Yesterday, he said he had $300. He saves every penny— he gets all these twenties. I guess birthdays, Hannukah, etc. One might think this interest would make him miserly, but it is the opposite. Soleil also loves to spend his money on other people.
The other day when I said I was going to the corner store to buy some potato chips, Soleil took out his money and handed me $5. He wanted to pay for it. A few months ago, he was in CVS with his grandfather and wanted to buy a model car with his own money. His grandfather Gary insisted on paying. Later that night, Gary opened the drawer of his night table to get something and to his shock discovered a $5 bill that Soleil had put there. As grandparents, our first response has always been to say that it is our treat and that Soleil should save his money, but I’ve begun to realize that this is depriving him the power and pleasure of paying for himself and of treating us.
A few months ago, Soleil announced that he wanted to buy me a present. Knowing what I like, he said that it would be a beautiful necklace with a gemstone. I was so touched. “Grandma, I’m going to spend $100 on a necklace for you,” he said proudly. I told him that was too much money and maybe $20 would be more reasonable. He agreed. Soon enough, he presented me with quite a lovely necklace with multi-colored beads with a white pendant. This child also has excellent taste.
Soleil has understood from an early age that offering to pay for things confers a grown-up status and adult power. I don’t want to deprive him of that, so I no longer protest. Leaving his house the other day, he shoved four singles into my hand. “Grandma, next time you’re at CVS can you please buy me Takis and a Gatorade?” He also has a good sense of how much things cost. The bill was exactly $4.
Soleil and his sister LuAyin, they just love to buy me and give me things. They’re incredible. We bought that Batgirl mask for her and she wanted me to have it because I didn’t have a Halloween costume so she gave it to me. LuAyin also wanted to buy me something and bought me another necklace. They know what I like. We had a girl’s shopping trip about a month ago. So she bought some clothes at Target and wanted me to buy something. She said, “Grandma, you’ve gotta get something for yourself!” So I looked at the clothes and I didn’t see anything, so I said, “How ‘bout a necklace?” So she said okay. We looked at these towers of jewelry there at Target. She picked out the one necklace that I would have picked, and it’s amazing. They’re so generous.
But it really has been a lesson to let Soleil pay for things because like I said in the story, it finally dawned on me we can’t deprive. It’s kind of like when you go out for dinner with friends and somebody always insists on paying. Well at first it seems kind of nice and generous, and then you realize that they’re taking away your power to give them something, and it’s actually a gift to someone to let them do something for you. So I have to always remember that.
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