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Community Corner

Last Day of School Provides Proving Ground For New Parent Liberation Plan

Weary of being a walking ATM, A Las Lomas mom discovers a handy alternative that doubles as a learning tool.

Today may have been the last day of school for Las Lomas High School but it is the first day of liberation for this Las Lomas mom and dad. I know what you’re thinking. The last day of school for most parents equals the opposite of liberty. 

It means instead of reveling in the luxury of owning your time from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., your good thing has come to an end. It means constantly monitoring the goings-on and whereabouts of your teenagers, nagging them about cleaning their room and other chores, chauffeuring them all over the county and, above all, being barraged by demands for cash.

All parents of kids older than 5 become walking ATMs. It’s part of our culture and unless you move to Pitcairn Island, good luck fighting it. For teenagers under 16 — the age of summer employment — cash requests double. It triples if the teen is that pillar of the consumer economy known as the teenage girl. And it ratchets up to the tenth power as soon as she turns in her last final exam booklet and school’s officially out for summer.  

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“I’m going to the mall with Stacy and Lisa. Can I have some money?”

“Jackie and Cindy asked me to go downtown for crepes with them. Can I have some money?”

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“You said I could go see Super 8 with my friends. Can I have some money?”

“Carlie’s birthday party’s tonight and I need to get her a gift. Can I have some money?”

“A bunch of us want to go Waterworld. Can you drive us? And can I have some money?”

“Remember you said I could go to the city with Beth?  Can I have some money?”

What really began to rile me was when nothing but the best was good enough. If my teen daughter said she needed shampoo, facial scrub or tampons, heaven help me if I tried to save a few bucks by buying the store brand. Because there’d be hell to pay when I got home. Inevitably I’d trot back to the store and exchange the pathetic store brand for the pricier name brand item.

Serving as a walking ATM from the First Bank of Mom and Dad was wearing me down. It wasn’t even being like a bank, it was more like being a bottomless well, I thought to myself one day.

Bingo. I had a light bulb — fluorescent, of course — moment. A bank account is not a bottomless well. A bank account does run dry. And when it does, you cannot whine, wheedle and pout to coax more out of it. It will not cave in. When you scream, it does not hear you.  A bank account – what a concept!

Let’s open a little bank account for our daughter, I said to my husband. We’ll put some money in every month. A lot of money,really. But she’ll have to pay for everything with it. Clothes, lunches with her friends, birthday party gifts, BART tickets, movie tickets and all voyages to that exotic expensive realm known as Sephora. Even shampoo and facial scrub. Let’s see how quickly she ditches Sephora for CVS.

Warming to the idea, I added, we’ll continue to give her a roof over her head, meals, electricity and water, and of course we’ll pay all her medical expenses and the orthodontist. But anything else, she’ll have to pay for. And, I threw in for good measure, if she burns through her pile before the end of the month, too bad. She’ll have to wait until the first of the next month. What’s more, I said, we’ll tell her that we’ll expect her to save. We’ll expect her not to burn through it all every month. If she wants something big like an iPhone or an iPad, she’s going to have to save up for it.

With her own account for spending, I hypothesized, our daughter will learn about money management, budgeting, saving and taking responsibility for her choices. We’ll be out of the line of fire.

Because nothing is new under the sun, I ran this by other parents. To my delight, I discovered that many of my daughter’s friends already possessed debit cards for their own little accounts. A debit card! But of course. This was getting better all the time. Our daughter wouldn’t even need to traipse to a bank branch to get cash. She could just hand over her card, whether at Forever 21 or Chipotle. Hooray. According to the bank, I could even be authorized to spy on – um, monitor – the account online.

Deciding on the monthly amount took some thinking. One mom I talked to gave her daughter $40 a month but still paid for clothes. Another gave her daughter $100 a month. That seemed over the top. I settled on $80. That was enough to feel like a lot to a kid. Figuring the price per month of only one movie ticket at $11.50, one roundtrip BART ticket to San Francisco at $9.50 and one birthday gift at $15 already put us about halfway there even without buying shampoo, deodorant or tampons. So we went with it.

The new plan is already yielding terrific dividends. A couple of evenings ago, my daughter complained about her hair.

“My hair looks awful. I need a haircut!”

Her hair looks beautiful to me. I should have such hair, I thought. I know well enough to keep such thoughts to myself.

“OK. Should we schedule an appointment with Mandy?” I asked. Mandy is the 20-something daughter of friends who cuts hair at a chic salon in Berkeley.

“If I’m paying for my haircut do I get to decide where to go and how much to spend?”

“Absolutely,” I replied. And with that, we spoke of it no more.

So she’s already thinking twice about paying $30 plus tip to have an inch snipped from the ends of her luxuriantly long tresses. 

And today, the last day of school, my liberation was complete. Kids always like to do something special to celebrate the last day of school and my daughter was no exception. Today, she planned to take BART to go to Union Square with her friends. As usual, we discussed this at breakfast and typically I’d be digging into my wallet hoping for an old BART ticket and some cash. I’d be foraging in my husband’s dresser drawer for the same. I’d be rushing to an ATM or the grocery store to get her cash.

Not today. As she left the house, all I had to give her was permission.  Hallelujah.

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