All five of my children are in school. Did you hear me? ALL FIVE OF MY CHILDREN ARE IN SCHOOL. This is a new world. I’ll have more to say about this when it has sunk in. My eldest is starting high school; my youngest is a first grader.
I was thinking about how, if I’d had my way, I’d still have one child at home, maybe a 3- or 4-year-old. I think that would have been nice, but this is also nice. I’m kind of tired, and there are still twelve years before Henry graduates high school.
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I’ve had a few interesting conversations with the older two boys recently. They are at just the right age to have fun with these subjects.
1. I found a $10 bill on the floor of McDonald’s. No one was nearby or fumbling with a purse or anything. Should we call out, “Did anyone lose a $10?,” and what did we think were the chances that someone would say, “Oh, um, YES, that’s mine!” when it wasn’t? Should we turn it in at the counter? But if no one came back for it (and it seemed highly unlikely anyone would notice a missing $10 and go back to find it), did it satisfy to think of McDonald’s (or possibly an employee or the manager) keeping it? Should we put it in the charity box on the counter, or would that just be making ourselves feel smugly as if we’d Done Good, without actually resolving the issue in the fairest/rightest way? Is it okay to spend someone else’s money like that and then take any credit at all? Could we keep it ourselves, or did that feel funny? If so, WHY did it feel funny? Considering we COULDN’T do the BEST thing (i.e., hand it back to the person who lost it), what was the NEXT BEST thing? How much difference does the AMOUNT of money involved (ten cents, ten dollars, a hundred dollars) make to such a decision? Etc. Really fun! (We ended up putting it in the charity box on the counter, and then continuing to discuss why that didn’t quite satisfy, why we still thought it was our best option in this particular case, what else we could have done that would ALSO have been fine, whether we could instead have sent it to a different charity, and what we might have done if it had been a larger or smaller amount of money.)
2. We were watching Bones (Netflix), and there’s an episode where Dr. Brennan’s overly-perfect boyfriend of a month quits his job, buys a boat, and wants her to take a yearlong sabbatical from her immensely absorbing and important job, right now, and join him. She declines. Much is made of this decision: she’s not emotionally available! she’s not committed to their relationship! she thinks too much and won’t let her heart take a chance! she’s spending too much of her life working instead of Really Living! she must be in love with Agent Booth! etc.! But here’s my objection: the boyfriend didn’t say, “Listen, let’s run away together for a year! Do you want to? Great! Where shall we go? What shall we do?” Instead, he made ALL the decisions and COMMITTED to those decisions, and THEN asked her to drop everything and join in HIS already-made plans. Even if I WANTED to take a leave of absence and sail around the world for a year, I would want to be asked BEFORE the boat was purchased and the route mapped out. I would want time to wrap things up at work, not get an “I’m leaving next week, are you coming or not?” ultimatum. So instead of seeing this as about HER issues, I saw it as being about HIS issues. I was mad. I paused the episode for a lonnnng time. …This one wasn’t so much a discussion as a rant-lecture.
Yes! Exactly my same reaction to that episode of Bones. Why were we supposed to feel that she was in the wrong? She was not. And she had only known him for a month–it would have been insane for her to QUIT HER JOB, not to mention leaving in the lurch everyone else (of whom there are many) who had emotional investment in her. Also, the thing about all the kids being in school? And all that time you think you’ll have to get all the things done that have been waiting until now? I did not do that so well. Please do it better than I did.
I once found 5 or 6 crisp ten dollar bills that had obviously been dropped accidentally on the sidewalk by one of three men starting to cross an intersection. I had my stroller with me and I was in a hurry. So I did my best to chase them down but here’s what happened.
Man #1 got into a bus before I could even beckon him.
Man #2 headed for the automated teller, so I _guessed_ it wasn’t his.
Man #3 was the first one I caught up to.
I asked Man #3 if he’d dropped some money. I wasn’t convinced by his answer but I asked him to describe it. “twenties?” he replied. But he really looked like he could use the money, down on his luck at the very least. So, thinking that the money was really no more mine than it was his, I just gave it to him and he thanked me profusely.
Not ideal. I had the same sense of maybe I did the best I could. Or maybe I just did better than “finders keepers.”
My guess is that the money belonged to Man # 1. I’m not sure how I could have gotten it to him. Waited around and see if he’d come back for it? Waited around and hoped for the next bus to come quickly enough that the driver could contact the bus he was on? and then what? was the driver supposed to see if there was a middle-aged middle-class-looking man who was missing some money? I had things to do and waiting around seemed like above-and-beyond. Maybe I could have split the money two ways between the other men? or three ways between them and me?
YES YES YES on that episode of Bones! IN WHAT WORLD is the rational thing to do to drop your entire (extremely successful) career to go traipsing off on a boat with a man you’ve known ONE MONTH?? if I did that my friends would slap me silly. (well, they’d at least express some concern.) There would be concern for my mental state / ability to commit if I DID go, not if I DIDN’T go. Harumph.
1) When I last worked retail, if we/someone else found money and turned it in, the manager would put it into an envelope with the date and time it was found. If nobody claimed it within a week or so, it’d get donated to whatever charity the store was promoting… cystic fibrosis or special olympics or whatever. People would come back for their money/change most of the time, even if it was a small amount. I thought you might be interested.
2) I had the same reaction to that “Bones” episode. It felt like yet another “women should be willing to give up their careers for a man’s life/career/whim/etc” thing. Some people are totally cool with taking a year off of school/work/etc and wandering around, some people aren’t. Bones obviously loves what she does, finds it fulfilling and satisfying. Why would she drop that for a year?
I left that episode feeling really confused. I felt that Brennan was clearly making the right decision, but couldn’t understand why they couldn’t see that. I ended up coming to the conclusion that everyone around her is insane.
My sister found some money in a parking lot once. We turned it in to customer service and they wrote her name down, saying that if no one came to claim it, it would be hers. Then, ten minutes later, my husband, who was with us but hadn’t gone up to customer service with us, went and asked at the desk if someone had turned in money and gave the exact amount. (He wanted to see what would happen.) The same employee claimed that no money had been turned in. And obviously my sister never got it either.
OMG! That makes me so mad! I thought you were going to say you turned in the money not realizing it was your husband’s all along.
Without children around, that $ would so be in my pocket. With children….alas, I would have to do what you did and be something other than a miser.
Having the youngest one in school full-time is a real milestone. For me it was a good thing, it allowed me to work part-time, and to re-charge a bit each day. I get nostalgic sometimes for the days when they were with me all day, but overall, I prefer this life stage.
I usually leave things right where they are. I figure if someone retraces his/her path looking for what he/she lost, I don’t want to be the one who moved it. I know that’s a naive thing to do when it comes to money, because most likely someone else pick it up, but whatever. It’s not mine, so I don’t feel like I should make decisions about it.
Sometimes I miss having my two kids in school. I have to say, though, that those were the two most unproductive years of my entire life. It was so delicious just to relax.
I guess I should say, “my entire life so far”. This isn’t a comment from beyond the grave, after all.
Oh Swistle. The first part of the post hit the nail on the head: I too am kind of tired after this summer. I am, like, SOUL DEEP tired. I will still have two littles at home this school year but that is sounding wonderful compared to this past summer of complete and utter chaos. It was the two oldest always bickering and needing to be driven places, the two boys always running and shrieking and spilling things and PEEING EVERYWHERE, and the poor baby needing me but always getting the short end of the stick cuz the other kids are louder and more demanding.
I can’t wait to just snuggle little kids and go to toddler story time at the library, and not have to worry about too much video gaming and questionable music videos on YouTube and all that other big kid crap!
I am lifting a glass to you and we are toasting that we lived through this summer.
Oh my gosh- I totally agree with you about the Bones episode. I think it’s great you brought it up with your boys.
I totally agree about the interesting conversations with the older kids – their perspectives are so insightful into who they have become and, at least in my case, how funny he can be! But, with that being said, I do kinda miss when he was small and the snuggles.
Found money dilemmas are always so hard for me, for just these reasons. I worry that anyone I might turn it into would pocket it, that I’M the sucker for doing the right thing, that no one’s likely to come back for it, so why not do some good with it. But I never know the right answer. My husband and I found what I think was $5, but might have been more, at the science museum a few months ago, and turned it into the staff with the instruction that maybe if no one came for it, they could put it in their donation box. Hoping that’s what happened. But on the street or somewhere like Target, I might be more likely to pocket that amount. Certainly anything over $20 I’m likely to turn in, but again, to who? My BIL lost $200 at a restaurant once, he thought in the bathroom, and we were there for a while, but by the time we left, no one had turned it in. And he’s not someone who can really afford to be losing that amount of money. It was really disappointing to think someone had pocketed it, but even worse to imagine the staff lying about not having found anything.
Huh. I guess I’m of the opinion that if it’s not yours, you shouldn’t keep it. If somebody else pockets it, well, you’re not responsible for their actions, just your own. The charity box idea was a nice one.
“I am kind of tired and there are still twelve years until Henry graduates high school” made me laugh out loud.
it’s funny to me that this is the first time they are all in school! where i live 4 year olds go to all day Pre-K in the public school ;)
that episode of bones is rage-making. STFU, MEN.
Finding money is quite a chore sometimes! Finding $5 in a parking lot where hundreds of people have passed? Probably pocket it. Keep in mind, retail establisments usually have closed-circuit cameras. Whether they would use those tapes to try to find the rightful owner really depends on many factors. For instance, it’s not likely worth their time for a small sum of money.
We had two instances where we’ve found money and handed it in. One was just a couple bucks, but it was found poolside. Where exactly would I stick it? We gave it to the lifeguard. She probably pocketed it, but whatever. Another was a much larger sum of money stuffed in an envelop and left in a shopping cart. Definitely a panic-enducing amount of cash if you had lost it (>$200). Turned it in, retail establisment put it in a safe, and employees were notified that someone might be calling about it. They said they could use the tapes to verify when it was left behind.
Personally I think the most important lesson for the children here is “protect your money!”
Shut up, Rob is not in high school. He will always be knitting Rob to me. And the “I’m kind of tired” line made me laugh because I feel that way and I only have two and I have a full time job so I get a break from the chaos. I can’t even imagine your level of tired, or how tired I’ll be by the time they are in school. I hope you get to do you for a while now :)
Also, I feel like a dick compared to your other readers. Sans kids I’d probably pocket anything up to a $20 after looking around for the rightful owner. I worked at McDonalds long enough to know that turned in money just goes right to the pocket of whoever you gave it to, so I wouldn’t even consider it in that type of location. I haven’t found money in years though, so maybe I’ll be more charitable next time.
I find that I think I’m going to miss the kids when they are in school, and I DO, but then I adjust to my life of luxurious leisure pretty quickly.
I can’t believe Henry is in first grade.
I JUST read this last night and then today as I was walking into the library I found $40 on the ground. I opted to give it to the librarian. She took my name and number and said if no one claims it she will call me and it’s mine! So maybe I’ll be $40 richer, but maybe not. Either way I feel like I did the right thing here. :)