Red Oktober

Halloween teaches one little boy a horrifying lesson about markets

Last night was Halloween.  In these matters, I practice laissez-faire parenting. It goes like this.  While I’m busy doing something else, the kids shout at me that someone is picking them up.  Where and with whom they are going doesn’t register.  And as long as whatever they say didn’t sound unfamiliar enough to shake me from my walking slumber, I carry on without inquiry.  It’s not great.  But here’s the thing, I really don’t want to be involved with my kids in that way.  It’s not that I don’t care.  Well, I guess it really is that I don’t care.  But it’s also self-preservation.  My wife spends hours with other local mothers sorting out the “whiches”. As in WHICH kid is doing WHICH activity with WHICH other kid and WHICH kid was left out by WHICH kid from WHICH activity and WHICH kid owes WHICH kid an apology for the oversight.  You get the picture.  It’s chaos.  Thousands of text messages fly over these important details. 

This year my oldest four scattered like fall leaves in the wind, leaving my wife and me to take our 3- and 5-year-old trick or treating.  Two parents, two kids.  So this is how normal families function.  How very sane.  We hit about ten houses and lured them back home with promises of watching a Halloween movie.  Incidentally, they chose a kids’ Halloween movie from the 80s.  It was rated G but it was a lot scarier than Halloween movies are now, so they made me turn it off.   As we’ve covered many times, kids in the 80s were made of sterner stuff.

One by one, the older kids returned.   Each had collected a reasonable little stash, except the 8-year-old who brought home a bushel.  The pride on his face said it all.  I outworked all of you.  And now I shall feast as you gaze in envy. 

What happened next was a painful lesson in economics.  I told him to choose his three favorite pieces and set them aside.  Those are his.  The rest are going into a single giant container, combined with the proceeds of his siblings’ meager forage.  This candy co-op will be run by mom who will dole out the Reese’s to the community in accordance with her good graces. 

Tears.  And I do not mean the soft whimper you get from the usual petty injustices of a large family.  I mean real tears. As in you-screwed-me-so-badly-on-this-and-I-will-NEVER-forget-it tears.  Reflecting later, that may have been the single worst parenting mistake I’ll ever make with him. In this miniature Cuban Revolution, I may have ruined every lesson I try to impart about hard work. But you know what else isn’t fair?  That I alone will bear the weight of his dental bills.  And that’s another important lesson. Principles are downstream of economics.