Teaching your child about fun

*You want to have some fun Billy?

Yeah Daddy! What do you want to do?

*First you need money, so here’s $20.

Wouldn’t it be more fun to earn the money? Maybe we could start a lemonade stand!

*No, no, no son. If you are earning money you are doing something wrong. Here take this $20.

But what about pride, honor, and a sense of accomplishment and of a job well done?

*Those things take too long, and you have to think about them to understand them.

Oh, OK. Well, what do we do with the money?

*We’ll go buy a shirt!

But I have shirts already. I was thinking we could buy a model and put it together, or some seeds and plant a garden. Oh I know, I saw a great paint set at the store!

*No son you don’t understand, we’ll buy a special T-shirt with the name of the local sports team on it.

Or we could make one! White T-shirts only cost about $3 each and I could get some markers and we could draw all over the shirt! A dragon eating an eagle!

*No, Billy, you don’t understand. We HAVE to buy the shirt, because we have to have an OFFICIAL shirt.

What makes it an official shirt?

*There is a tag on it with a hologram.

What do you do with the tag?

*Cut it off and throw it away.

What do we do after we spend money on the shirt and cut the special tag off and throw it away?

*That’s the best part. We get a bunch of friends together and sit in front of the TV while we watch that team play.

But Daddy, wouldn’t it be infinitely more fun to be outside playing with a stick or something rather than sitting on our duffs watching people you don’t know play a game that we ourselves could be playing at that very instant?

*Oh no Billy, that would get our shirts dirty. Besides, when you get older, you’ll establish an emotional connection to those strangers, their coaches, and the teams they play on. Your mood and happiness will hinge on whether they win or lose a game even though their success has no real meaning to your actual life. You will begin to identify with one set of sports teams and actively discriminate against those that wear official shirts, or even just clothes with the same color as those of another team.

Here’s your $20 back. I’m gonna go outside and play with a stick.

Even though this happened again and again, Billy’s dad was never
brought up on charges of child abuse.