We recently had a diversity and inclusion seminar at my office. At first, I thought the idea was kind of silly. Having a diversity seminar at my office would be like having a scuba seminar in the desert. Not that we discriminate in our hiring practices in any way, but we are in Grand Rapids, Michigan – a city with a population that is 67% white in a county that is 73% white. Statistically speaking, even if our employees were perfectly representative of the entire population of the area, we’d still be about as diverse as the PGA Tour. Unless of course you count some of our great-great-Grandparents being from Poland and some of our great-great-Grandparents being from the Netherlands as us being diverse. Which I don’t.

Then, about ten minutes into the seminar I realized something. Not about lack of diversity or my awareness of it, but about at how late of an age I became aware of my whiteness. I’m not The Jerk, I’ve always known I’m white, but I didn’t grow up knowing just what that meant. Being white wasn’t a topic of conversation any more than being a human was. We just were. I went to a school that just was, in a city that just was. Of course later I would realize that nothing “just was,” but growing up in it I had no idea. Things like redlining or the lasting effects of reconstruction weren’t taught in my social studies class. But we did watch the “I Have a Dream Speech” on Martin Luther King Day. So we got it, right?

The leader of the seminar asked us a question about how we talked about our own race and ethnicity growing up. I literally had nothing to say. My Dad is part Irish so we’d have corned beef and cabbage one day a year, and my Mom is part Polish so we ate kielbasa a few times a year. Thus ends my childhood education on my race.

I now wonder, when is the appropriate age to teach my kids about what it is to be white. To help them understand that they can’t possibly grasp the wide variety of human experience if they only view it through the lens of white suburbia. To let them know that empathizing with others starts with understanding them – both in what makes us similar and in what makes is different. Ignoring race – theirs or somebody else’s – won’t help the next generation overcome racism. Education will.

I don’t ever want my kids to feel entitled to anything, but I want them to be aware that we live in a world where white privilege is real. While they will still need to work for everything they’ll get in life, realistically they probably won’t have to work as hard as somebody who isn’t white. They will need to set and accomplish their goals, but nobody is going to move the goal posts. Honestly, my kids will probably have relatively easy lives. I’m not wealthy, and my kids weren’t be born on third base, but they will at least be in the lineup. Their lives will be a little easier than mine because mine was a little easier than my parents, and theirs a little easier than their parents. Each generation building up the next because the socioeconomic conditions allowed for it.

My grandparents lived in the white-flight-filled suburbs of Detroit and sent their kids to private school. My parents did the same. I went to the same high school as my parents actually. If I look through my parent’s high school yearbook from 1974, I bet I won’t see any people of color. I don’t have my yearbook handy, but I think there were three black kids in my graduating class in 2003. I guarantee you that in 1974 it wasn’t the case that minority families that just didn’t work hard enough, or want it bad enough to send their kids to a school that would set them up well for college or a career. Just like I guarantee you that 30 years later only three did work hard enough. Again, I’m not saying my school had discriminatory admissions practices, I’m saying the broader forces at play allowed for me to be fourteen years old before being in a class with somebody who didn’t look like me.

My know kids will grow up in a more diverse school system than I did. By the time my oldest daughter was in pre-school she had already been in school with more people of color than I had until I was in high school. I know this because she would come home and tell us she played with “Black Matthew.” Never just Matthew, always “Black Matthew.” On one hand, good for diversity. On the other, I doubt Matthew went home and told his parents he played with “White Lucy.” My wife and I didn’t make a big deal of it at the time, and the color of anybody in any of my kid’s classes has never come up again. Perhaps the next time race does come up with my kids it should be their own.

The more aware they are that while their race will probably never be an identifying factor the way it is for Matthew, it is part of their identity. It is part of how they will experience the world. Hopefully the more they understand their own perspective, they will be better suited to understand of perspectives of others as well. I mean, if they don’t understand their own comfortable whiteness, how can they possibly begin to understand the struggles of others? And if they don’t understand, how can they help? Not that I want my kids to have some kind of savoir or guilt complex about being white, but if I’m not raising them to be aware of and empathetic to the challenges of others, what am I doing?

My kids are still very young, and should probably master writing their own names before we tackle a topic like biases in the criminal justice system. But the conversations have to start somewhere. I’d rather introduce concepts to their young minds before they get ideas set in their old minds that everybody must be like them, or worse, they develop misconceptions about people who aren’t.

What is it about the backseat of a car that seems to instigate bad behavior? Most parents would agree that they would prefer their kids to be on their best behavior in public and act out at home rather than the opposite. But what about the car? It is neither home nor out. They feel the freedom of the open road, and yet are confined in their seat. Mom and Dad are there, but out of reach. It is the wild west, where children seem to think that rules don’t apply.

A Backseat Turf War

My kids could be having great days, being nice to each other, and in great moods, until they get in the backseat of a car. Once they are buckled in, they suddenly feel the need to engage in a car seat version of trench warfare. Much suffering is inflicted, but there is nothing to be gained. The sacred space that is the two inches between their seats is never possessed, only fought over. On a few occasions I’ve told my kids to pretend there is an invisible wall between them, but it presents more confusion than solutions and it becomes a game to go through the wall. On the bright side, it stops them from fighting each other. However, they’ve stopped fighting each other because they are now united against a common enemy – me and my wall.

All things being equal, I’d rather they be against me than each other. The front seat can handle their aggression and is equipped to squash any rebellion, but a backseat divided against itself cannot stand.

The Worst Words You’ll Ever Hear

In my 7th grade history class it was permanently impressed in my brain that World War I was precipitated by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip (shout out to Mr. Coles). It is now permanently impressed in my brain that Backseat War to End all Wars is precipitated by three words – she’s touching me.

Physical contact, not matter how accidental, is not tolerated in the backseat. Never mind the fact that when they are playing they literally sit on each other, the page of a book grazing somebody’s hand is an indisputable act of aggression. Crossing legs is just begging to be kicked. Using somebody else’s arm rest? Get ready for scorched earth.

Short Trips: A False Sense of Safety

I understand kids acting out on long car trips, but I also prepare accordingly. Books, toys, and snacks are must. They still have their moments, and I completely sympathize with that. If you’re in the car for several hours, you can’t expect your kids to be good the whole time, just be glad you have modern conveniences that previous generations of parents didn’t have. What completely blows my mind however, is that by my calculations roughly 103% of all back seat arguments happen in the 10 minutes or less ride to school.

On most days, I have three kids to drop off at three different places. I drop my son off first, and his day care is 5 minutes from our house. It is extremely common that somebody is yelling at somebody by the time we are half way there. When I take my son inside, I leave my two girls alone in the car for 2 minutes. It is extremely common that somebody is crying by the time I get back. Apparently the four sentences they would have had time to say in that time period were very offensive.

Again, what is it about the mix of freedom and confinement of the back seat? They know Dad isn’t in the car so they feel they can say what they want, but they are strapped in their seat and can’t remove themself from the situation should it go south – which, of course it will. They aren’t home, so the rules of home don’t apply, but they aren’t in public so the social pressure of manners doesn’t apply either. They are neither indoors nor outdoors, so inside voices aren’t necessary.

Perhaps most importantly, they face no immediate repercussions for their actions. They can’t yet make the connection that once we get where we are going they will need to answer for their actions in the car. If they are being little jerks on the way to school, the threat of going to their room once they get home from school 7 hours later is too far off to matter. As popular of a threat that it might be, lets be honest, you are not turning this car right back around. You’re an adult on a weekday, you’ve got places to go.

I am sure they will grow out of this, at least I hope so. I’ve got three kids and none of them are big enough to sit in the front seat yet, so a vehicle big enough where each kid can get their own row is not practical. Would it be kind of fun rolling up to the pre-school drop-off in a limo – absolutely. Is preventing Operation Car Seat Storm worth getting a CDL – probably not. I guess I’ll just keep trying to achieve peace in our time, and if I can’t do that I’ll just turn up the radio a little louder.

Having two girls, I know that boyfriends would some day come into the picture. Part of me completely dreads it, but part of me really looks forward to intimidating the young suitors that they bring home. I completely understand that it is probably not the most mature thing, but I really think I’ll get way more enjoyment than I should from busting some 13 year-old dweeb’s chops. Turns out 13 years might be about 9 and a half years too late.

While me and my 3 year-old daughter were sitting at the breakfast table, enjoying some nice conversation over bowls of cereal, she told me about one of the grown up girls at church (a Sunday school aide) who has her very own cell phone. Not only that, but she uses that cell phone to send texts to her boyfriend. My daughter was very impressed. At first I thought he was struck by the fact that a kid could have their own phone, and I braced myself for her asking for one. I did not, however, brace myself for her informing me that she had a boyfriend too.

Now, I know that she in fact does not have a boyfriend because no chops have yet been busted, but I was curious to see where this was going.

“O yeah? Who is your boyfriend?” I asked.

“Hugo,” she responded with a smile.

After confirming that Hugo was also aware of this situation, I asked her what makes him her boyfriend.

“I stare at him,” she said. “We stare at each other.”

Never mind some kind of puppy love, this must be more serious than I thought. I mean, sitting there staring at each other is like 80% of marriage. Most of me knows that she had the concept of a boyfriend on her mind and she probably associated that a boy in her class that she happens to play with, but part of me couldn’t help but wonder if she really was developing a little crush this boy. Should we have him over for a play date? Should I greet him an overly aggressive handshake? What are his intentions with my daughter other than the apparent staring contests they’ve been having?

I was fully prepared to not think about it again, but as luck would have it Hugo happened to be right in front of us in the drop off line at preschool later that morning.

“There’s Hugo!” she said as she did a little wiggle in her car seat as if she was playing charades and was acting out the sound the “OOoooohhhOOOOohhh” sound the studio audience made when two sitcom characters kissed. A reaction like that made me think that perhaps this is a little crush.

“He’s your boyfriend,” her older sister chimed in.

So apparently Hugo has already been discussed between the sisters? Is this serious? Have her illegible scribbles been her way of trying to write “Evie + Hugo 4Ever?”

I needed to get a look at this boy. He was walking away from us so all I could see was that he has the same haircut that all 3 year-old boys have. Not a lot to work with. I did notice that his Dad was very tall. Or perhaps average height, he was standing next to a preschooler so its kind of hard to tell. He had a full head of salt and pepper hair, and based on the window stickers on his Subaru, he seemed outdoorsy. These initial five seconds worth of impressions made it clear to me that my kid could do a lot worse than Hugo.

“Are you going to marry him?” her older sister asked. Getting a little ahead of ourselves here, but ever since they were in their aunt’s wedding the girls have been very interested in getting married. Not to anybody in particular either. They have said they are going to marry me, their uncles, and their baby brother. Us not being hill-people, those clearly are not real options. But Hugo?

“No,” she replied, “I am going to marry Judson. He’s so handsome.”

Where the hell did that come from?

Less than a minute ago she was wiggling in her seat for the lad, and she’s willing to drop him like a bad habit for the handsome kid. The little Jezebel. I feel like I need to course correct this. If she is dropping a perfectly short kid with a perfectly average haircut now, what kind of a bitch is she going to be in high school? I can’t let my kid grow up to be a kind of person I’d hate. It is a slippery slope from here to telling a guy who asked to you prom that you’ll go with him, unless somebody else asks. Is she going to keep one eye out for a handsomer handsome guy right up until she says “I do?” What ever poor bastard she ends up with better have ugly groomsmen.

I had no idea what to say to that so I handed her her backpack and she walked into school. Probably to go string Hugo along. Poor little guy. What if he really does think she is his girlfriend? What if staring at my daughter from across the Lego table is the highlight of his day? Maybe Judson’s dad also has a wonderful salt and pepper mane, but I don’t think I care to find out. And if I ever meet this kid I am going to give him a knuckle crushing handshake. My daughter can make her choices, but I’m on Team Hugo.

Before you have kids you really have no idea what kind of a parent you’ll actually be. You’ll have an idea of the kind of parent you’ll want to be, but until it’s your job to stop a tiny baby from crying there is absolutely no way of knowing for sure. Over time you develop your parenting style – some of it on purpose, some of it on accident, and some of it out of pure necessity. For example, I purposely make the conscious effort not to tell my kids no when they ask if I can play with them or pick them up. I accidentally discovered that the best solution to calm down a cranky baby at bed time is with sad country music. Out of necessity, I discovered that my go-to action for stopping any dispute, correct any behavior, or implement any punishment is to take it away. Whatever it is.

It starts small enough, a baby slams their sippy cup on the table over and over again, so I took it away. Baby hits me with toy, I took it away. Baby rips pages out of a book, I took it away. It is effective for babies in that they have the immediate tangible consequence. They had a thing, they were mean with the thing, Dad takes the thing. A very straightforward way to train your kids to behave a certain way. Well, wouldn’t you know the damnedest thing happened – I trained myself.

I have come to the realization that my immediate reaction is to take the thing from my kids. Whatever it is. Looking back, there was a time when I removed the bedside table and all its contents from my daughters’ room when they were being too silly at bedtime. So a table, radio, lamp, humidifier, water bottles, and books were placed in the kitchen until they woke up the next morning. I also went through the house and collected every bottle of lotion and put them out of reach. Because they were taking it when they weren’t supposed to, five bottles of Aveeno took up residence on top of my dresser for a week. When my daughter lied to me and told me she finished her dinner and started eating her dessert, I literally took candy from a baby. Took her roll of Smarties and fired them into the trash can as she watched in horror. Though, to be fair, Smarties are trash candy anyway and I was actually doing her a favor.

I am sure there are a thousand more over the years, and they were all done without a second thought. Last week, I finally recognized and overcame this impulse when it reached, what I realized, was a new level of absurdity. After the full bedtime routine of getting in jammies, getting stories, and getting tucked in, my two daughters refused to stay in their rooms and go to sleep. At one point, they got up and changed out of their jammies into the clothes they wanted to wear the next day. About two hours after their bedtime, they finally got to sleep. The next day was a school day so they couldn’t sleep in, and wouldn’t you know it, the next day at bed time they were over-tired and worse than the night before. They did the exact same thing of changing out of jammies and into their clothes for the next day.

Quick two things. One, how stupid is it that kids get over-tired? If you are tired, shouldn’t it be easier to go to sleep? Shouldn’t rest be a desirable thing if you can barely keep your eyes open? Two, if my kids can change out of jammies and into their clothes in the middle of the night (and by middle of the night I mean 9:30 PM), then why do they beg me to help get them dressed each morning? They showed their hand. Fools.

Anyway, I decided enough was enough. If they didn’t want to stay in their pajamas, then not only would I not help them change into them, but they wouldn’t even have them. I was going to take the jammies. While they were gone at school I was going to go into their drawers and take all the jammies. That’ll teach em! Wouldn’t that teach em? I mean, it seemed like a good idea at first and definitely in line with the kind of disciplinary measures they’ve come to expect. And I was honestly very curious to see how’d they’d react when they’d get ready for bed that night. But then I thought, what if they were fine with it? What if they just started sleeping in their normal clothes? If they developed that habit now, would they ever get out if it? Do I want my kids to stay in their jammies at night? Yes. When they get older do I want them to be the weird kid at the sleepover who goes to bed in jeans? Absolutely not. Slippery slope from there to swimming in a pair of shorts rather than a real bathing suit.

I decided to leave the jammies be. But what is it that has become so ingrained in me to take things from my kids? Is it the remnants of the primitive instinct to be the hunter/gatherer/provider and the flip-side of that is the taker? I provided them with that 24 pack of markers, so it is in my nature to take it back. Is it some innate sense of God-like power that comes from the fact that I created them, and as such, have the power to givith and taketh away the construction paper? Is there a better way to handle these situations where I end up taking something from them? Surely there is some wisdom I can give, some discussion we can have to articulate expectations of behavior and the consequences of when those expectations aren’t met.

The next day at dinner my wife and I explained to our kids why it was important to go to sleep at bedtime, and let them know why the way the had been behaving wasn’t right. They agreed. They understood. They acknowledged that if they got out of their beds for any reason other than to go to the bathroom that there would be consequences. That night they tried to sneak out of their beds at least three times. I took all of their stuffed animals.

There is no sweeter sounds to a parent’s ears that the first time they hear their baby laugh. A tiny little coo or a bubbly little giggle, these are great. The first time they give you a solid belly laugh, the stuff dreams are made of. A kid’s genuine laughter is almost magical. Emphasis on genuine, because a child’s feigned cackle is the exact opposite. Well, maybe not the exact opposite. I suppose the exact opposite would be crying, though I honestly don’t know which one is worse.

Of all the difficult things a parent needs to do, making a kid laugh isn’t that hard. Between funny words (never underestimate the inherent comedy in the word “underpants”) and a good old fashioned tickle, a parent doesn’t actually need to be funny to make their kids laugh. Which is good news for parents, because trying too hard to be funny is where the infamous dad joke comes from. Crappy dad jokes aside, real laughs from a kid are plentiful, yet somewhere along the line they break out a guffaw as fake as it is annoying.

I find that most often these faux laughs come out in response to their own behavior. As if pretending to laugh is the signal to everybody else that what they did was actually funny. Like a sitcom laugh track, it is almost convincing enough to pass as genuine if you don’t actually notice it. The best purpose it can serve is white noise, however, unlike canned laughter used to que you in that what Balki just said was meant to be funny, a small child is incapable of being white noise. Their noise must be front and center. It must be noticed and acknowledged. So when my child says something they they really want to drive home as being a funny, they suddenly change from a kid making what they think is a joke to Ray Liotta busting a gut while Joe Pesci amuses him.

What is that? Where do they learn that? Even if I accidentally stoop to the level of a dad joke, I never follow up with an over the top hardy-har-har. I follow it with a moment of shame and deep disapointment in myself. I wonder if that is how they feel after fake laugh? Do they panic and think “Oh no, what have I done? I better cover this up by slapping my sister!” Actually, I bet it isn’t far off. If there is one thing parents learn, is that over the top laughter (be it fake or real) is inevitably followed by tears because nobody can ruin a child’s fun like themself.

Perhaps they learned it from school. One day a kid walks into class and does his best Jerry Lewis impression and the next think you know there are 25 kids all yukking it up at themselves. If that really is the case, then for no other reason teachers really are underpaid for their efforts.

If it isn’t a learned behavior, is it instinct? Some primal reaction based on a deep seeded need to make the people around us happy? Do animals do some version of this? If so, it has to be responsible for half of cases of animals eating their young. When a child cries, our natural instincts kick in and we become caregivers. When a child genuinely laughs, we get a true feeling of purpose and our own joy in what we’re created. When a child spews forth a harsh cackle so over the top that Janice from Friends sound normal, in a very instinctual way, you want to tell them to shut the hell up. Sure, it might make them cry, but I honestly would take real anything over fake laughter.

As Chris Rock pointed out, the least you can give a Dad to eat is the big piece of chicken. While mostly true, the actual least you can give Dad to eat is a half-eaten chicken nugget. Oddly enough, this is mostly what Dad eats. Like any other kid, I ate my fair share of chicken nuggets growing up. I don’t know how many nuggets I ate in my life before I became a parent, but I am pretty sure I’ve eating ten times as many sense. Sometimes there are bites missing. Sometimes they are completely untouched. Sometimes they’ve been sitting in a puddle of honey for an hour. Every time they are not originally prepared for my consumption.

Dads Hate Food Waste

In fairness, I couldn’t let good food go uneaten before I had kids. Or even average food for that mater. If a doughnut from Friday was left in the office over the weekend and come Monday morning it had the consistency of a hockey puck, you better believe I’m dunking that rock hard sumbitch in my coffee and calling it biscotti.

However, my attitude has shifted from one of “somebody should probably eat that last bagel” to “I paid good money for that bagel.” Its amazing how your perspective on food going uneaten changes when the groceries are going on your credit card. A cold chicken nugget that previously had parts of it in and around a toddler’s mouth becomes much more palatable when you bought them yourself and they weren’t even on sale. Slobbered on or not, somebody has to eat that nugget, and Dad is that somebody. Nuggets with bites out of them, abandoned pizza crusts, nibbled on hot dogs, previously melty but now re-solidified grilled cheese – these are the staples of a Dad’s diet.

A bit of Dad advice: invest in dipping sauces, they are the key to revitalizing your kid’s abandoned scraps. An hours old nugget is a perfectly acceptable vehicle for some quality barbecue sauce.

Uneaten Kids’ Meals Cause Dad Bod

There are many contributing factors to dad bod:

• Time previously available for going to the gym is now spend keeping small people alive.
• Playing actual sports have been replaced by athletically themed drinking activities – softball and golf.
• Leonardo DiCaprio is totally pulling it off.
• You’re a dad, who are you trying to impress?
• An entire kid’s meal (minus five bites or less) is eaten as a dessert to your actual meal.

We try to take our kids out to restaurants as a means to introduce them to the world they live in. To teach them how to act in public. To get free crayons. We gave up on the idea of taking our kids out to eat for them to actually eat when our daughter didn’t eat the moderately over-priced mac and cheese we got her because she said it was (I shit you not) “too cheesy.” Fret not, the mac and cheese did not go uneaten.

I am pretty sure the only kids’ meals that I’ve not ended up finishing are pancakes with happy face whipped cream. I wonder what would happen if I put a whipped cream face on a burger? Actually I don’t, I know exactly what would happen. My kid would lick off the whipped cream and peel the cheese off, and I’d end up eating a wet bun and a cheese-less meat patty. Its no big piece of chicken, but I paid good money for that meat patty.

Don’t Make a Kid Clean Their Plate

One reason I end up with uneaten kid food is my own doing. In our house, we don’t make the kids eat all their food. They have to take at least a bite of everything, and they do need to eat as much as we say to get dessert, but we don’t make them sit there and force down their food. If my kid tells me they’re full, that’s fine. If they tell me they don’t like their chicken nugget because its “too spicy” even though it is the exact same brand of chicken nugget they always have but this one just happens to be in the shape of a dinosaur and apparently dinosaur nuggets are spicy, that’s cool. I may not be able to tolerate food going uneaten, but I’m not going to be a dick about it. Just pass me the buffalo sauce.

Though it is amazing how motivated my kids are to eat if they know what dessert lays ahead. On the rare occasions my daughter actually does eat all her dinner, it takes her roughly three hours. However, once we told her she could pick the big brownie, she threw down her dinner in the blink of an eye. I may be entitled to the big piece of chicken, but if it means my daughter will eat her peas then giving up the big brownie is a small price to pay. Plus, odds are she won’t finish it anyway and I’ll get to finish it. Might even got to have a few bits of it as floaties in orange juice. Yum.

My daughter is five and getting to the point where she knows that things exist because she has heard about out them or seen them in a movie, but doesn’t quite understand what it is. Money falls into this category. I know this because she thinks we have “so much” of it.

For the last two weeks or so, we’ve been doing a little exercise at dinner where we write down three things that we are thankful for that day. So far she said been thankful “that we have so much money” at least three times. I don’t know where she got this idea, but I guess I’m glad she is pleased with this lifestyle that she’s become accustomed to. I also don’t know about this “we” stuff. To paraphrase Cliff Huxtable, her mother and I have money, she’s broke.

She doesn’t get an allowance. Her only concept of money is that when we go to the store we have to pay for what we buy, and when we go to the drive-up ATM at the bank we put money into the machine. So I get that as a matter of fact in her mind, it is true that we have money. It is the “so much” part that throws me. I don’t know if you know this, but a part-time side gig as dad blogger really doesn’t pay all that well. Or at all. It actually costs me money. Why the hell do I do this again? Anyway, I suppose from her perspective, we do have so much money.

A friend of mine once said that he’d never wish to have a certain amount of money, but would always want to have enough in his pocket to buy what he needed at the moment. To my daughter, that is what we have. Granted, the things that she wants at any given moment is mostly donuts, but anytime we’ve told her we aren’t getting something, not being able to afford it has never been the reason. Is that where privilege begins? Am I raising my daughter to be some kind entitled brat that will contribute nothing to society? The next time she asks for a treat from the store should I tell her that if we get that then she won’t be able to go to college? Of course I’m just kidding, I wouldn’t tell her that. I’m not going to help her pay for college regardless. Can’t let three kids get in the way of my retirement more than they already have. An important financial lesson for her.

Should I be teaching her more financial lessons? She has a chore, I suppose we could start giving her an allowance. What’s the going rate for putting the recyclables in the recycling bin? Then again, what does it matter? I could give her ten cents a month and she’d be thrilled. Probably think it’s so much money. Though, if I am teaching lessons, I should probably take rent out of that ten cents. Let’s see how she gets by on seven cents a month.

Now I wonder, when will her concept of money reach a pivot point? She is in kindergarten now making friends. What if she makes friends with a kid who really does have so much money? Then again, those kids are in private schools so never mind. But there will come a day when she’ll want something we can’t afford, or at least won’t want to pay for, and she’ll need to learn the value of a dollar. Perhaps there is no time like the present. She told me she wants a puppy for Christmas this year, so I think I’ll tell her that puppies cost a million dollars. I’ll get her interested in saving and investing her seven cents each month, and we won’t have to get a dog. Win-win!

Ultimately, if my kid thinks we have so much money, then I think I must be doing something right. She isn’t into having more and more stuff, and she seems to be happy with what she has. If she can carry that with her through life, she’ll be in good shape. And she certainly won’t mind my charging her rent.