A Five Year Old Gets It, We Don’t
May 4th, 2009 by Carlos
My wife went for a walk with a friend of hers yesterday and had a really interesting experience:
So we’re walking along the sidewalk and up ahead we see this cute little five-year-old boy standing there with a little table in front of him. On the table is a little plastic bag with some money in it and some construction paper of different colors. And he says to us, “Hi! Do you want to look through my drawings and buy one? I’ll take anything, but I’m trying to get a 20-dollar bill.”
He was so cute so we were like “Sure, let’s take a look at your drawings.” So we’re looking through his drawings and the whole time he’s talking.
“That one’s not very good, I wouldn’t take that one. This is the money I’ve made so far, but my sister gave me the coins. I’m trying for a 20-dollar bill. I’m not very good at selling but I’m working on it. My sister gave me all the coins.”
Then we realize that neither one of us has any money, so we tell him we’re really sorry but all we have is like 25 cents. I tell him, “Sorry but we don’t have any dollars.”
And the kid goes, “Oh. Really? Well, here, you can have some of mine!”
And he starts taking money out of his bag and giving it to us! He gives us each a dollar and we both smile and I say to him, “Thank you so much! Now we have a dollar to buy a drawing from you.”
And the boy says, “No, it’s OK. You can keep it. You don’t have any money, so you can take it. Now you have some money.”
But of course we gave him his money back. We wished him luck and as we walked away we saw his parents sitting on the lawn a few steps away and they asked us which picture we “bought.” We told them it was a Pokemon and that they had a very cute kid. They smiled waved at us goodbye.
Forget about the cute-factor of a story with a five-year-old boy trying to sell his drawings on the sidewalk for a second (I know it’s hard), and think about how his mind worked when my wife and friend said they didn’t have any money. His logic went something like this:
They have no money. I have a bag filled with money. I should give them some of my money.
He wasn’t interested in giving to make himself feel good. He wasn’t interested in getting something in return. He just figured he would share because these two girls didn’t have money and he did.
Why is it so hard for us to share our money with others? At what point does the little boy’s logic disappear and turn us into greedy, money-obsessed adults? Why do wealthy people get so angry when they have to pay more in taxes than poor people who have no money?
I don’t know the answers, but if a five-year old gets it, then it shouldn’t be impossible for the rest of us to get it too.
Photo by Orin Optiglot
This post was an Editor’s Pick at the Carnival of Money Stories. It’s the inaugural edition so make sure to check it out.
You could consider the five-year-old to be generous, but to me he seems more reminiscent of recent Wall Street bankers. “Don’t have money for that car? For that house you want to buy from me? Here, I’ve got lots. Take some of mine…”
“Why do wealthy people get so angry when they have to pay more in taxes than poor people who have no money?”
One reason is that the wealthy people who pay income tax are *earning income* — they are working. If you work to get something, you deserve to keep all of it. Taxes are a necessary evil — the government taking away what you have rightfully earned — that should be kept as low as possible for all people. The people are better at spending their money than the government is. Wealth redistribution robs people of their labor.
Second, if you talk to poor people, overwhemingly you will find that they are bad managers of their money. Some of them have legitimate health problems or circumstances that don’t allow them to work or that eat up all their income. But plenty of them piss their money away and then complain about being poor. I never want to pay for someone else’s irresponsibility.
I don’t think you can say that rich people are better at managing their money than poor people. Thay’s like saying the Yankees are better at budgeting just because they have more money to spend.
Beautiful post and good writing as always. There is a lesson in here but, with respect, I believe you overshot it a bit.
Nobody threatened to take this boy’s money by force (threat of violence or imprisonment) so they could redistribute it (inefficiently I might add) as they saw fit. Just because somebody makes more money doesn’t mean that they should be obligated to give to others who haven’t. Giving is a choice. Let it come from the heart and not out of fear.
BTW – if I risk everything I have to build an enterprise that makes me and my shareholders money, why should the rewards for my risk and hard work be forcefully taken away and given to those who haven’t done the same?
This boy felt something in his heart, wanted to act on it and did. He didn’t need somebody to force his hand. That is the lesson I see here. My $.02
Nut, rich people who aren’t good at managing money work hard. There has to be some quality that has allowed them to attain money and others not.
Sure there are some rich people who have luck or blood(Paris Hilton) on their side and probably shouldn’t have money. That percentage of people probably is roughly the same as the amount of poor people who are good at managing money/have bad luck, etc.
For the rest of us normal people, it’s hard work and brains that get us money. Why should people who work hard, have to pay poor people who use their brains for the sole purpose of figuring out how to get by with as little effort as possible?
-Nate
I think we’re getting away from the original idea behind this story. I didn’t mean to say that people “should” pay more in taxes to make up for poor people.
I was saying that this little boy had an innate idea of sharing because a couple of strangers said they didn’t have any money.
Essentially, what I was trying to get across is this idea of trying to help people that are less fortunate than ourselves. We aren’t obligated to help poor people, I was just trying to say that it’s a noble thing that we seem to have forgotten as we grow older.
I can see what you are getting at. There is a time when we didn’t allow money to control our lives. We knew that there is more to life than simply money.. then came a time (for whatever reason) that money started taking control of our lives. It is something that we accumulate and then choose how to use it.
Nut, what are you doing to help the poor? Do you volunteer your time somewhere? Have you started giving your leftovers from a night out to the poor? How often do you donate your clothes to needy causes?
Josh raises a great point: I don’t do much other than complain about how we don’t help others enough. I shouldn’t have used the word “poor” in the post because that wasn’t my intention when referring to the whole tax issue.
But being more charitable with my time and money is one of those things I haven’t done that all PF bloggers continually stress.
Baby steps…
[...] A Five Year Old Gets It, We Don’t – This story submitted by WC from the Writers Coin shares a story of a little boy that really get’s it: He understands the true value of money and of giving. Do you? [...]
Nut, I think you hit a hot button with the word “TAX”. If you are just looking at charity which is what the boy was offering, it is a whole different story. Most people, rich and poor alike, will donate a portion of their money willingly to help someone or something that they think needs it. If someone told him that every time he made a dollar, he had to give 50 cents to his big sister, he might not be so charitable.
Or at least it would be so with my children.
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