conuly: (Default)
conuly ([personal profile] conuly) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2020-04-05 04:14 pm

Judge John Hodgman on Making Children Save Up for Lego Hogwarts

Dana writes: Our kids really wanted the big Lego Hogwarts set. So my husband and I bought it, planning to stash it away until they saved enough money to pay for it. It’s four months later, and they haven’t saved any money. But now we’re sheltering in place. I suggested that Lego Hogwarts could be deployed in case of emergency boredom. His response? “They’d better start saving money.”

First of all, I hope you are all safe and healthy. Even your husband. I also hope by now your husband has agreed, either by reason of decency or claustrophobia, to let the Lego bricks fly. It is very difficult right now for anyone to make money, never mind children who are forced to earn their toys. Kindness, patience and productive distraction are as vital right now as paid sick leave, stimulus checks and rent forgiveness. I use my executive powers to vote for an immediate Lego bailout.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/magazine/judge-john-hodgman-on-making-children-save-up-for-lego-hogwarts.html
cimorene: Grayscale image of Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont in Rococo dress and powdered wig pushing away a would-be kidnapper with a horrified expression (do not want)

[personal profile] cimorene 2020-04-05 08:31 pm (UTC)(link)
SERIOUSLY, husband?

(It's a cliche, but, like... maybe divorce him. WTF.)
green_grrl: (Default)

[personal profile] green_grrl 2020-04-06 03:33 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, there’s an even worse one in the Hax chat from Friday:
https://live.washingtonpost.com/carolyn-hax-live20200403.html#5948407

There will be so many divorces when this ends...
ashbet: (Tentacle)

[personal profile] ashbet 2020-04-06 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
That Hax one -- JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE >:(
green_grrl: (Default)

[personal profile] green_grrl 2020-04-06 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
As I believe one of the commenters said, no woman juror would convict her.
cynthia1960: cartoon of me with gray hair wearing glasses (Default)

[personal profile] cynthia1960 2020-04-06 05:13 am (UTC)(link)
I'm paywalled out of the story, but yeah, I sure as shit wouldn't convict her. Now, I'm going off to take a potty break humming "Cellblock Tango" from the musical Chicago.
"he had it coming..."
cynthia1960: cartoon of me with gray hair wearing glasses (Default)

[personal profile] cynthia1960 2020-04-06 06:16 am (UTC)(link)
Oh dear sweet jumping Jesus on a Segway...that woman should not be convicted, she should be canonized.
oursin: C19th engraving of a hedgehog's skeleton (skeletal hedgehog)

[personal profile] oursin 2020-04-06 09:18 am (UTC)(link)
The only problem is how hard it would be to dispose of a body in the present circumstances...

(I was thinking only last night that surely these times are the set-up for a plethora of new allotrope of the 'country-house cut off from the rest of civilisation'/delimited group of suspects type of murder mysteries.)
cimorene: Grayscale image of Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont in Rococo dress and powdered wig pushing away a would-be kidnapper with a horrified expression (do not want)

[personal profile] cimorene 2020-04-06 08:18 am (UTC)(link)
Holy shit... and she's trapped in there with him until this is over! Quarantine is a definite exception to the idea that it's better to find out you can't trust someone sooner.
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)

[personal profile] lannamichaels 2020-04-05 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
1) kids need to save money
2) there is no indication of how the kids gain money

Ergo, LW, increase their allowance by just giving it to them. Or you could hand them the money as allowance and immediately take it back to pay for the toy you decided to buy for them.
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)

[personal profile] lannamichaels 2020-04-06 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
Forgot to mention: Lego Hogwarts is extremely expensive. Two of my niblings are slowly accumulating a lego harry potter collection from various gifts and earned rewards and they still don't have all of it.

Considering how much money I got from chores + money from relatives growing up, it'd take me several years of not spending any of that money to pay for something like that.

Did the kids agree to this at any point? If they did, what was the agreement they made?
shirou: (cloud)

[personal profile] shirou 2020-04-05 08:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Eh, I'm of two minds here. Why haven't the kids saved any money? I'm assuming they agreed to save money for the purchase. If the parents are in the habit of giving in, then that needs to change. However, the middle of pandemic may not be the ideal time for such lessons.
angelofthenorth: Two puffins in love (Default)

[personal profile] angelofthenorth 2020-04-05 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I want to know how old these kids are - that's kinda critical information in this. If they're little kids, how are they supposed to earn money in a pandemic, if they're a bit older, have they enough to be able to save?
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2020-04-05 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
It sounds as though all this -- the decision to buy the set and tell the kids to save up for it, and the kids spending whatever money they had, rather than saving it for that -- was pre-lockdown. So maybe they're now getting an allowance and, with nothing else to spend it on, have been saving. Or maybe "save money for it" means "don't spend all your birthday and Christmas money on other things."

There being more than one kid seems relevant: if Kid 1 is spending all their money on candy, Kid 2 might do the same rather than be the only one sacrificing for a toy they're going to share.
cynthia1960: cartoon of me with gray hair wearing glasses (Default)

[personal profile] cynthia1960 2020-04-05 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm going to go with the judge for the Lego bailout. In pre-pandemic times, I might have been more supportive of the parents teaching their kids to save for things they want; however, right now when I see our capitalist economy melting down and hopefully transforming into something fairer, I wonder if that old lesson plan is worth hanging on to at all. There are more important lessons to learn about work and money going on all around us.
rosefox: Green books on library shelves. (Default)

[personal profile] rosefox 2020-04-06 12:59 am (UTC)(link)
There's also a difference between telling kids to save and teaching them to save. I suspect Blithe Dad has not done much of the latter.
cynthia1960: cartoon of me with gray hair wearing glasses (Default)

[personal profile] cynthia1960 2020-04-06 02:11 am (UTC)(link)
+1000
rosefox: Green books on library shelves. (Default)

[personal profile] rosefox 2020-04-06 12:59 am (UTC)(link)
Is there anything more capitalistic than "We bought our children a toy but we won't give it to them because we give them money every week and told them to give some of it back to us and they haven't yet"?
cynthia1960: cartoon of me with gray hair wearing glasses (Default)

[personal profile] cynthia1960 2020-04-06 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
Your phrasing shows how deeply fucked up that attitude is. And yes, I really think you're right about the core thoughts behind this. LW uses the word "save" which has all kinds of virtue signaling, but the husband thinks of this in a very transactional way. Truly, those Legos are not a gift at all! The parents are actually another layer of retail making the kids buy the toy. Now, if the parents put a markup on the price they paid at the store for the kids to pay, that would be even more fucked up.

I really wish the judge had used your formulation instead of "forced to earn their toys". He should have been hella blunt and said, "Your capitalist transactional deal with your children gives them such a damaged idea of what a gift is and does not teach them any life skills about mutual aid. After the pandemic ends, your children will not be able to function well in a post-capitalist society." But, of course, he'll never come right out and say such horrible commie anarchist stuff because the column is in the NY Times!
green_grrl: (Default)

[personal profile] green_grrl 2020-04-06 03:32 am (UTC)(link)
Something tells me husband is not bearing as much of the “keep the kids entertained” load as wife is. Wake up and smell the stir-crazy, dude.
cynthia1960: cartoon of me with gray hair wearing glasses (Default)

[personal profile] cynthia1960 2020-04-06 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
He can't smell, he probably douses himself with that nasty Axe body spray.