My Kids Are Thieves

Kids take stuff from you. Part of it is inherent to their existence and dependence on you. They take your time because they need a lot of attention. They take your money because it turns out that keeping another human alive, fed, and in shoes that fit is pretty expensive. I think I was pretty well prepared going into parenthood for my kids time and money from me. Getting prepared for that is part of the decision to have kids in the first place – kids take your time and money because they need it. What I wasn’t prepared for is how much of my personal belongings my kids take. Not because they need it, but because they are dirty little thieves.

It started with little stuff, and mostly arts and crafts related. Pens frequently go missing. Despite the fact my kids have their own complete sets of any possible writing utensil they could need – they want the pen on my desk. Any kind of note pad or Post-It note isn’t long for this world. Despite the fact that our house literally has a whole closet shelf full of every color of construction paper of the rainbow (plus a few colors that don’t naturally occur in nature), my kids are compelled to take any piece of paper I may need to use for a practical purpose and turn it into a ticket for their imaginary play at their imaginary school at which they are imaginary teachers. Guess I’ll just make this grocery list on the lid flap of this old cereal box.

Pens and paper is annoying but mostly harmless. My daughters often abscond with my wife’s shoes in games of dress-up, which means nothing to me, but it sure does bother her. My kids use my laptop to play games on and I discover it abandoned with a dead battery – but at least not broken. All these little petty thefts have become commonplace, but lately the boost has gotten bigger.

My wife had had the Snapshot driving tracker from Progressive in her van for the last few months, and the time was up and we took it out. It was brought inside and set on the kitchen counter. When I went to put in back in the box and send it back, it was gone. It is a requirement of the insurance agreement to send it back, otherwise, we will pay a fine. Little higher stakes than a Post-It note.

I asked my kids where it went, natrually nobody could remember. Both my daughters said my four year-old son had it last. I know he had to have done something with it, because he didn’t come right out and say he didn’t take it. He stuck to his “I don’t remember” defense. I tried to jog his memory. Checked where he plays, looked in his room, followed a hot tip from my daughter that he had it in a closet when they were playing hide and seek. Nothing. The more I questioned him, the more inconsistent his answers got:

• He put it in his secret hiding spot (we checked what we claimed was his secret hiding spot, and it was not there)
• He put it in a pipe in the back yard (we have no pipes in our backyard)
• He thinks he might have taken it in the basement maybe
• He threw it in the trash

Sadly, I’m willing to bet good money that the one time he’s telling the truth there is saying he put it in the trash.

I’d like to take a moment to address the good people at Progressive Insurance.

Dear Progressive,
I’m going to be honest, I’ve never read any of the fine print in my policy and I’m not really 100% what my coverage is or what it means, so I’m going to assume there isn’t some kind of disclaimer in there about what happens if your kid throws your Snapshot in the trash. But maybe there should be. I’m assuming you insure a lot of parents with a lot of kids with sticky fingers. Could be an excellent good will gesture and some good PR to offer parents a one-time kid-related issue forgiveness. Maybe its a fender bender caused by a thrown stuffed animal, maybe a rear-end collision caused by spilled juice, maybe it could be anything. Who knows, kids are weirdos. So nevermind offering small accident forgiveness, how about small person forgiveness? Think it over. Could be huge.

When I asked my six year-old daughter why they would take something that they didn’t know what it was, but they did know it wasn’t theirs, her answer was: “Because it was out on the counter.”

There ya go. My kids need no more reason to take something than because it is there to be taken. No big deal, if it’s out there, it’s for everybody, right? Perhaps this is a teaching opportunity. I wonder how big of a deal it would be if I just take a toy that’s left sitting out. Make off with clothes that are left on bedrooms floors. Should I leave one of my son’s Matchbox cars up on tiny little blocks? If I took a snack that was left on the kitchen table, all hell would break loose to be sure.

For a while now, I actually have been taking any of my daughters jewlery that is left sitting out and not put away in their jewlerly boxes. I have a small container on my dresser that fills up shockingly fast with stuff I find here and there. The lesson I was trying to teach was that they need to take care of their things. Perhaps what I actually taught was that it is OK to take something you find sitting out.

Which brings up the fact that I have not seen my wedding ring in over a month. I took it off to work out, forgot to put it back on when I got out of the shower, and haven’t laid eyes on it since. I now firmly believe that one of my thieving children threw it in the trash. Why would they throw away something they took the effort to take rather than keep it somewhere? Maybe because they have no real concept of money? Who knows. Some kids just want to watch the world burn.

UPDATE: The Snapshot Has Been Found

About a week after I got the official notice of being charged the fee for not returning the Snapshot device on time – it was found. My brief initial feeling of “yeah, sure, now you find it” was immediately overpowered by the pure joy on my kids’ faces. My son was extremely happy and clearly very proud of himself. I’ve never won the World Series (shocking I know), but our little clebration rivaled any on-field rejoycing I’ve ever seen. We all came together from different parts of the basement, we jumped, we screamed with joy, we had a big group hug, I hoised the little fella up into the air. It was a magical moment.

So once again:

Dear good people at Progressive,
The Snapshop device is on it’s way back to you, albeit late, but on the way none the less. Finding that thing was really big win for my family, what do you say we keep that good feeling going? Rules are rules, I get it, but let’s not put a sour note on the pure joy we experienced when we found it by still having to pay for it. You want to take this joyful moment to the next level and lower my premiums, hey that’s up to you. Not here to tell you how to run your business, just here to try to keep the good vibes going. Tell Flo I said hi.

Still no word on my wedding ring, but now I assume one of them will bring it to me the day after I go out and buy a replacement.