“Where is your money? What happened to it?” Amelia and I took turns asking.
“I spent it on the playground,” a 6-year-old Zayley responded, frustrated we weren’t understanding her.
“How? With whom? Why?” we kept imploring. Was there a kindergarten bookie taking bets on foot races? More importantly, was there a bully making Zayley cough it up?
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, exhausted with how stupid we were, and managed, “It was on the sheet! Don’t you remember?”
Now we were really confused. But after a little more unpacking, we realized the school had sent home information on a fundraiser for – yep – a new playground. So, naturally, and without our knowledge, she gave her birthday and Christmas money – any money she knew was hers that she could locate – to the cause. Fair enough, I suppose.
This was eight years ago, and while in the time since she has grown and matured in so many ways, two things remain as they were: When she gets something in her mind, she’ll pester the warts off a toad until the thing is done; and she doesn’t keep up very well with her money.
Admittedly, she gets both those traits from me. Recently, the traits, along with a little peer pressure, collided into something of a solution for the money problem.
Our oldest and youngest daughters accrue money. They don’t see a need to spend it, so they sort of forget they have it. Zayley, on the other hand, can’t keep it. It burns a hole in her pocket, in her hand. Just knowing she has some that hasn’t been appropriated burns a hole in her mind. She can’t stand it.
Consequently, she never has any, even when she wishes she did. This results in a downtrodden Zayley watching everyone else have fun on the occasional, “Girls, we’re going to X store, and if you want something frivolous, you need to bring your own money,” outings.
Then at some point last year, our eldest Julia got a bank account with a debit card. Zayley started plotting.
“When can I get that?” she demanded.
“When you have $100,” I responded.
The road to $100 was long and the road pocked with pitfalls. From time to time, copious volumes of gum still need to be bought and stored in buckets in her room. Boyfriends need gifts for holidays – real ones as well as two- and three-week anniversaries (we’ve all been there) – and sometimes the school/class/neighborhood passerby is raising money for something.
But somehow, some way, she made it to $100 by January. Then came the regular, “When can we go to the bank?” Again, her money is made of fire, so it obviously can’t stay at our house.
We talked about banker hours and holidays (“You’re at school between 9 and 4” and “No, we can’t go on Presidents Day”). I kept telling her we’d go on spring break. Finally, on Tuesday, we made it.
The bank was great. The folks made a bit of a show of it and presented her an umbrella in the lobby. Zayley was excited.
We filled out the forms – I made certain we signed the sheet prohibiting overdrafts and ensured I could help her keep up with her balance online – and it finally came time to produce the cash. This showed as much proof as anyone needed that her struggle to keep $100 on hand for this moment was very real.
From her pocket, she produced three 20s, two 10s, two 5s, eight 1s and eight quarters. Mischief managed, I supposed.
When the newly-minted account holder got home, our youngest, 8-year-old Pfeiffer, knew what Zayley and I had been up to.
“When do I get a bank account and a debit card?” she demanded.
Here we go again.
Zack Plair is managing editor of The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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