How do you say you're wrong in French?
My daughter turned 15 recently. In some cultures this is a big deal. In ours, it’s more like a way station on the road from childhood to driving a car. But it had me thinking – what do you get the 15-year-old who has everything? And the answer is, of course NOTHING! I’m serious. Nothing is the right answer. Look, in what is going to seem like 10 minutes, she’s not going to be mine anymore. Just writing that chokes me up. But it’s true. The window for me to teach her anything useful is almost closed. So here’s one of my final lessons, my dear… I love you enough to tell you the truth. People you encounter outside this home aren’t just going to hand you gifts or jobs or respect or anything for free. Everything is earned. We should start practicing that now.
Columnist Bari Weiss recently wrote, “American kids are the freest, most privileged kids in all of history. They are also the saddest, most anxious, depressed, and medicated generation on record.” Ms. Weiss’s reasons are many, but is it unreasonable to think that too much stuff would be high on that list? The French have a notion of noblesse oblige, that with entitlement comes obligation. It’s a beautiful idea. We have the entitlement part down pat in our house. The oblige part is…a work in progress.
So I have a new idea – when every single day of your life is pretty much like your birthday, how about we use your actual birthday as a reminder of your oblige? Instead of getting something, how about you give something. Instead of being celebrated, how about you celebrate someone else? And by someone else, I mean moi. I will have a gâteau au chocolat, s'il vous plaît.
As I sat down to dinner on her birthday, ready to inspire my adoring ménage with this proposal, my lovely bride handed our daughter a box. In it, a brand new iPhone. So much for doing without. But then something extraordinary happened. The kid gave me a hug! A hug. The first in years! Well worth the price of an iPhone. Next year I’ll probably buy her a car.
🤣🤣