A frugal gene?

Is there a frugal gene in our DNA? I'm beginning to wonder. If there is no such gene, then my son has certainly learned from his environment. It is a good thing, I think. Here are a couple recent examples from Kellen, soon to be 9.

He is doing market rabbits for 4-H. When we bought the rabbits, we made Kellen help pay for them. He spent $25, and he was alright with that because he knew he would sell the the offspring at the fair, and make his money back. The first round of breeding did not go well. Only one doe got pregnant, and we lost her whole litter. We now are under a time crunch to get rabbits that will be big enough for market come fair time. Kellen is upset, not that the babies died, and not that he may not be able to show rabbits at the fair. He is upset that he spent $25 and may not get any return on his investment.

Another example. I was getting frustrated with telling Kellen over and over to do the same things. How many times does a child have to be told, "Put your dirty clothes in the clothes basket. Hang your towel on the hook. Did you brush your teeth?" The reminders were never ending, and one day I was brainstorming for new ideas to motivate him to do those things without reminders.

One I thought of was he would have to pay me a quarter every time I had to remind him to do something that he knows he needs to do. That hit a sore spot, and he was adamant that I could not do that. That it wasn't fair. That is when I knew I had the perfect parenting tool!

I gave him a few freebies; reminders with the add on, "You need to do this without a reminder, or it is going to cost you $0.25." I don't think he believed me. Then came time for the freebies to be done, and I asked him for a quarter for the reminder. He had a fit, and dug his heels in. He was not going to give me a quarter. He ended up choosing to go to bed an hour early, rather than pay me $0.25. Had he crossed the line from frugal to miserly? Later when he calmed down we talked, and he realized he had acted a bit foolishly over a quarter.

I am glad the he is growing up learning to be frugal. Was it born in him or is he learning as we are learning? I don't know, but if it keeps him from being burdened with debt in his adulthood, I'm all for it!

frugal, parenting