Money, Money, Moneee

How do kids view money? Mine view it as a means to get a toy or an an overly processed food. Or sometimes a nice homemade lemonade at the farmer's market. Now, that's nice. But, basically, my daughter and son only think about money when I tell them I don't have any. The conversation usually goes like this:

"Mom, can we stop at Chix-Fil-A?"
"No."
"But why can't we?" (daughter w/ a whine)
"Because you can't eat at fast food places very often."
"But why?" (this would be from my son. His favorite question)
"Because it's a treat and it's not good for you."
"But we never go to Chix-Fil-A!" (the daughter)
"Well, we just went there while you were still in school."
"No Fair!" (guess who that was)
"Maybe we'll go back soon."
"Promise?"
"Yes."
"Mom, are you broke?"
"Yes."
"Why are you always broke? Are we poor."
(I so want to say yes, we're so poor we can't buy anything fun ever again so they will stop asking me these questions and let me hear the new Dave Matthews CD!)
"No, we are not poor. Broke is different. Broke means I don't want to spend the money. Poor means we don't have any."
"Well, my friend "so and so" gets to go to Chix-Fil-A all the time!"
"Well, your friend so and so may not have a college fund acruing, so hush and let me hear the music."

Well, you know how that goes. The son (not yet 4) will start asking what college fund means and then he'll have to talk about UVA's football. Go wahoos. Then it will be on to when is it Redskins season?? And, well, I've had the Dave cd for a month now and still haven't listened to it!

The other day, as I posted, we started painting our house. My daughter asked how much it cost. I told her $6,000 (which for a 3,000 sf clapboard house w/ rickrack and 5 colors is a steal!). My daughter started wooping and hollaring, "We're rich, we're rich! I'm going to be a movie star. Can we go to Chix-Fil-A?"

"No."
"But, we're rich?!"
"We WERE rich."

(not that 6 grand makes you anything, but she'll never understand that!)