TodayThere’s a method to paying off your kids
But whether or not you do it can be quite the controversy.
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I had a Berenstain Bears moment the other day. No, I didn’t find myself covered in fur and walking around in my blue-polka dot pajamas (seriously, Mama, what’s with the ever-present shower cap?).
Instead, I felt like I was trapped in one of their books – “The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmes.” We were at the store getting ready for our upcoming vacation, and our son, Eli, age 3, had decided he wanted to get everything in sight.
“I want this and this and this,” he said, pointing to the different toys as he walked along the aisle. Finally he came upon what to golf-obsessed Eli must have seemed like the Best Toy Ever, a faux miniature golf course complete with a bridge, a castle and clubs. This, he decided, he really had to have.
He lugged the toy around the store begging for it. My husband and I consulted. At $25, the golf course wasn’t cheap, plus he had a bad habit of begging for toys one day and abandoning them the next.
So we agreed to let Eli get the toy, on one condition. He had to repay us for it. Hence Eli’s allowance was born.
Between the three of us, we came up with some reasonable chores for him to do. We nixed a few of his suggestions – playing with the cat, we explained, was not a chore, nor was playing on his swingset – and added a few of our own, like putting away the silverware from the dishwasher and cleaning his room.
For the past five weeks, Eli has been working off his new purchase. As we expected, his fascination with the golf set ended rather quickly; it’s sitting in a sad little pile near my desk.
Sometimes it takes a few reminders and sometimes it takes four hours to do it (put away a toy, play with a toy, put away a toy …). But chores and allowance have stuck around, at least so far.
To ensure that we were indeed heading in the right direction, I consulted Amy Nathan, the author of “The Kids Allowance Book” and the former associated editor of Zillions, a now-shuttered kids’ magazine published by Consumer Reports.
For her book, she talked to dozen of kids about their allowances. Some of her findings surprised me, including the fact that Eli’s way ahead of the curve age-wise – most kids don’t start getting an allowance until they’re at least 7.
“A lot kids get it from age 7 to 10,” she says. “Some started getting it as young as age 5, others not till age 12. The key is to give it when your kid is interested in money, interested in buying things.”
Eli certainly is – his Christmas list is already a mile long.
But Nathan also mentioned something I hadn’t thought of before – allowance can be a controversial subject. Only about half the kids in the country receive one, according to various studies, and of those who do, only about three-quarters get it based on their chores
Others receive a weekly sum simply as their due for being a member of the family. They still have chores, of course, but their parents prefer not to send the message that chores equal dough. They should be doing chores because they’re part of the family, not because they’re saving up for a light saber.
“Psychologists think it’s wise not to tie teaching about money too closely to chores,” Nathan points out. “Money is an explosive issue; chores are an explosive issue. They tend to recommend not giving kids a free ride but to do chores because every member pitches in and helps out.”
As to the history of allowance, though Eli may just now be becoming acquainted with the concept, it’s an old one, dating back to the early 1900s. Nathan mentions old issues of women’s magazines of the time with articles about allowance debating the same issues found in women’s magazines of today – whether to pay kids for chores.
The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same.
“I would not worry what the people down the street are doing,” she advises. “Set the amount you want to give your kids and the structure of the allowance. There are lots of different ways to do it. Do it in a way that seems to work best for your family.”
Or you could always handle a case of the gimmes the way the Berenstain Bears do – with a firm talk, a ridiculous cap, and some bad advice from Papa Bear.
Toni Fitzgerald is the mother of one. She welcomes questions for future parenting columns about kids, families and staying sane in the presence of both. You can contact her at tonifitz@yahoo.com
