Thought of the Day 07.13.09

No doubt about it, parenting is complicated. For instance, my wife recently discovered a stuffed cheetah on sale at a store which the boys desperately wanted. So she bought it. When I got home, after hearing about how the boys played with it all day, my immediate question was, “Did you consider buying two?”

Here’s why. If they become very attached to it and it subsequently gets lost, having a back-up cheetah could prove very useful. Several near-catastrophes with Spencer’s beloved, raggedy blue hippo taught us this lesson. But there’s another benefit to buying two: no fighting over scarce resources.

On the other hand, since we know they will fight over the one, maybe this is a better way to force them to develop social skills like sharing and getting along with others. Buying extras to avoid the conflict may not best serve their developmental needs.

In the end, we stuck with just one, and as such things often go, it turns out that only Spencer really likes him anyhow. As I say, parenting is a complicated thing.