I have a coffee mug on the window sill in my closet where I throw loose change at the end of the day. It was just about full, so my wife emptied it into a larger jar. No big deal, right?
Well once my four year-old daughter discovered my coffee mug was empty, she started acting faster than Congress with a bailout check. Olivia ran into the living room, where I was watching football and muttered something about change and a coffee cup. I had no idea what was going on. She ran up to her room where I heard some banging around, her incessant rambling, and the sound of loose change pouring in to the floor. Then she ran past me and into my closet.
This process repeated itself about 4 or 5 times until she finally came downstairs with her whole piggy bank. That’s when I realized what was going on. I walked to my closet to find her sitting in the floor, shaking out her piggy bank, and filling up my coffee cup. Moved by her generosity, I told her that she didn’t have to give me her money.
Her reply was, “No daddy. I have enough money and you don’t have any. You can have some of mine.”
I almost told her to stop emptying her piggy bank and keep her money for herself, but didn’t. Here was a simple, honest act of generosity. Who am I to stifle that? I thanked her for giving me her money and let her know how nice it was for her to give me something without me even asking for it.
Usually parenting involves taking the time to teach valuable lessons to our children. Sometimes they are the teachers.
