On birthday money, plastic Halloween cups, and the richest person I know
Holden got $20 from my aunt for his birthday a few weeks back. For three days, he asked me to take him to the Dollar Tree.
Three. Days.
Apparently, $20 cannot simply sit in the possession of an eight-year-old. It develops an expiration date.
I finally relented.
Naturally, we went to the toy aisle first.
Then we wandered around the store looking at random things. Then we went back to the toy aisle, because apparently the inventory may have changed dramatically in the three minutes since our first visit.
Eventually, we wandered over to the seasonal stuff. I picked up a four-pack of plastic Halloween cups and looked at them for the new house.
“Do you want me to get that for you, Mom?”
I looked at him.
“Yes. Thanks. That’s nice of you.”
“You’re welcome. How much is it?”
“A dollar.”
He considered this.
“Oh. That’s a good deal for a dollar.”
And just like that, the eight-year-old who had spent three days lobbying for access to his birthday money was apparently now my financial advisor.
Then he started looking around.
“Do you see any other cups you need?”
A few seconds later: “Do you need any of these lotions or anything for the new house?”
Then: “Let me know if you need anything. I have so much money.”
He had twenty dollars. Twenty dollars, and suddenly he was prepared to bankroll the household.
I laughed, because of course I did.
But underneath the ridiculousness of Holden believing he had recently acquired generational wealth was something so completely him that it almost hurt.
He had waited three days to go spend his birthday money. It was his.
He could buy toys. Candy. Some completely inexplicable Dollar Tree object that would be abandoned in his bedroom by Thursday.
And still, while we were walking through that store, he was thinking about me.
About our house.
About whether I needed cups.
Or lotion.
Or apparently anything else his vast financial empire could provide.
That is Holden.
He gives things away constantly. Food. Toys. Money. Affection. Compliments. Whatever he has, his instinct is to share it.
There is no calculation behind it. No pause to figure out whether giving something away means there will be less for him. He just sees someone he loves and thinks, Do you need anything?
I have known adults with considerably more than twenty dollars who have never learned how to do that.
Holden has always seemed to operate from the assumption that if he has something, there is probably enough of it to go around.
On the second day of third grade, he brought gemstones to his teacher, simply because she didn't have any and he has a whole collection.
He once started taking custom orders at school for 3D prints and somehow ended up making something for nearly everyone in his class, whether they were his friends or not. He even included the teacher. This was especially ambitious considering Holden does not own a 3D printer. Caleb does, which apparently made him the unpaid manufacturing department.
That generosity follows him outside the classroom, too.
At the book fair last year, he used some of his leftover money to help another kid buy a book. Then he bought pens for a friend and for his brother.
The other night, I watched him offer one of his chicken wings to my dad. This may not sound like a significant act of generosity until you understand that Holden loves chicken wings with the intensity most people reserve for their children.
Sometimes, though, that instinct to give people something extends beyond things.
Last year one afternoon, he came out of school at pickup visibly upset. A kid he had already been having trouble with had been making fun of him again.
As he told me what happened, he said something that broke my heart.
He had been trying to be nice to the kid anyway. He had handed him something, some little thing he thought the kid might like, because he hoped maybe kindness would make the kid like him.
The kid ripped it up.
I remember picturing that scene and feeling almost sick. Holden, still trying to offer something good to someone who had already hurt him, and this other child destroying it in front of him.
There are moments when his softness scares me a little.
Because kindness does not always get rewarded. Sometimes you give someone your chicken wing and they appreciate it. Sometimes you give someone your kindness and they use it against you. He does not really know that yet.
Or maybe he does, a little, and keeps offering it anyway.
Either way, his first instinct is almost always the same: What do I have that I can give you?
Eventually, he did buy things for himself at the dollar store. A toy car. Two building kits. Very reasonable purchases for a newly wealthy eight-year-old.
When we got home, he had six dollars left. I told him to keep it somewhere safe. He pondered it.
“I need a wallet,” he declared.
“That’s a good idea. I’ll order you one.”
“I’ll give you the money for it when you do.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ve got it.”
“But I know you’re saving money for the new house.”
And there it was again.
Six dollars left, and he was still thinking about what I needed.
He had already offered to buy me cups. He had wandered around Dollar Tree asking whether I needed lotion or anything else for the house. And now, he was offering what remained of his birthday money because he was worried that buying him a wallet might interfere with my savings.
He is eight.
He does not understand mortgages or closing costs or any of the thousand little expenses involved in buying a house. He just knows I am saving money for our home.
I don’t think he understands how much I have thought about that money, or how many numbers have followed me through this entire process. He doesn’t know what I have calculated and recalculated, what I have worried about spending, or how many times I have wondered whether I can really pull all of this off.
What he understands is much simpler: there is a house we are trying to make ours, Mom is saving money for it, and he wants to help however he can.
So, naturally, his six dollars should pay for his wallet and mine should stay in the bank.
By the end of the day, he had spent most of his birthday money on himself, exactly as he should have. But the thing I kept thinking about was the dollar he had spent on me.
I came home with four plastic Halloween cups purchased by a tiny benefactor who had recently come into money.
They cost him one dollar.
They are probably worth approximately one dollar.
But I already know I will keep them far longer than any reasonable person should.
Because someday he will be older. Twenty dollars will not feel like a fortune. Buying his mother plastic cups will probably not feel like an exciting use of his money.
But right now, he is eight years old, unimaginably wealthy, and walking through Dollar Tree asking me what else I need.
I hope some part of him stays that rich forever.
No comments