Another teachable moment goes astray

Posted Jul 28, 2009 by Mike Winter

Updated Jul 30, 2009 at 08:31 AM

  I’m a meanie. I’ve known this for a while now. My daughter tells me at least once a week. I’m mean because I don’t let her eat handfuls of chocolate chips for breakfast. I’m mean because she’s not allowed to wear her fairy costume to school. I’m mean because I don’t accept “but I’m a fountain” as a valid excuse for spitting a high-pressure jet of bathtub water at the cat even if I do secretly admire her precision.
 
  So it was with no real surprise that I was declared a meanie after refusing to give a large, sweating man toting an empty gas can enough money to fuel he and his family’s trip back to Georgia so they could attend the funeral of his great-grandmother who “died from the cancer in her head.”

  It’s hard to explain to five-year-olds the concept of a scam. To them, anyone who’s gone through all the trouble of stashing his bicycle behind a bush, crossing a hot parking lot, turning out his pockets (all the better to see he was indeed broke), saddling up to a guy strapping his kid into a car seat and waiting patiently two feet behind him until just the right moment to spring a polite “excuse me sir, I was wondering if you could help me out?” has to be worthy of immediate assistance. As my daughter pointed out later, the poor man didn’t even have a shirt long enough to reach below his belt. “His belly was just hanging out. Was there a baby in there, daddy?” (My daughter’s understandings about such matters are still – thankfully – vague.)

  “No, honey. He just had a big tummy.”

  “Is that why you didn’t give him any money?”

  In a way, I’m grateful Tess is such a font of unconditional compassion. It would have been disconcerting if instead of chastising me for my “meaness” she had chided me for not snatching away the guy’s gas can and hitting him over the head with it. Violence, after all, has never solved anything. Unless by “violence” you mean “repeatedly throwing a shoulder into the front of a vending machine” and by “solving” you mean “dislodging a bag of barbecue Fritos.” In which case I plead the fifth.

  Still, an explanation was called for. I couldn’t let my daughter grow up thinking I was a heartless cad unmoved by the plight of the less fortunate.

  “The reason I didn’t give that man money is because, first of all, I didn’t have any to give. (True enough. Thanks to the prevalence of debit card transactions, I’ve long ago transitioned to a cashless system. The move has dramatically reduced my consumption of vending machine snacks and spared my shoulder further abuse.)

  “Secondly, he didn’t really have a funeral to go to. He probably would have used the money for beer.”

  “Because he’s thirsty?”

  “I suppose.”

  “From having to walk because his car was out of gas?”

  I decided to take a different approach.

  “Look, honey. Sometimes people make up stories to get something they want. Stories that aren’t true.”

  “Like when you told Mommy the grocery store was out of pita chips and that was why you had to buy Cheez-Its instead?”

  My teachable moment was quickly slipping away. How could I foster a healthy sense of skepticism in my daughter without implying most people were dishonest shysters intent on bamboozling you out of your last dime? Time for the big guns.

  “It’s like this, Tess, Mommy and Daddy have to be very careful that we only help the people who really, really need it, otherwise we’re just throwing our money away. And we should never throw money away.”

  “Unless we put it in the recycling bin, right?”

  It wasn’t the lesson I had planned to teach, but at least it was a lesson.

  “That’s right. Everyone should recycle. It’s good for the planet.”

  “When I get home, I’m going to recycle my piggybank!”

  “Oh no your not.”

  My daughter slapped her thighs in exasperation. “See, Daddy, you really are a meanie.”

  “I know,” I said with a nod. “I know.”