TwitterMar 01 2010
Monopoly, my Children, and Parenting. . .
Children. My children. I love them, one and all.
They are some of the brightest parts of my life.
And then there’s moments…
Like yesterday.
Grace, Cal, and Zac were on the floor in front of my computer desk, circled around a Monopoly board. There were giggles, laughter, bribes to keep one or the other from buying a certain property, and shouts of delight over the acquiring of certain properties, and devilish laughter when one got all four of the railroads because, “Now whenever someone lands on a railroad it’s gonna cost ya 200 bucks! Ha ha!”
My children play Monopoly a lot. This would be because of Grace. She is determined to be as rich as Trump and become his apprentice on her way to her wealth. She will be 12 March 28 and has watched this man’s shows for years with every bit of addiction as my mom had with her soap operas as I grew up. I learned all this one night as we lay in the dark of my bedroom and talked waiting for sleep to overtake us.
How is it that Monopoly and Trump go together?? She heard him say that he played it all the time as he grew up and it had an influence on his success today. Ergo Monopoly playing. And her Monoploy board has seen its share of pieces moving round the board. She also knows a bit of Monopoly trivia as well… They were discussing the pieces and how boring most were and she informed her less knowledgable siblings, that the game was created during a time when people had very little money…
Most of the time my face was broad with a girn as worked and listened to them exchange their wins and losses. But then as time clicked past and more and more wealth piled up, in the form of property cards and fake money, the words “shut up” and “stupid” began to pepper the air. Know these are all my children. I don’t see any as “stupid” so I’m always compelled to jump in and correct such ridiculous comments. In response to “shut up” I was encouraging a nicer choice: be still, be quiet, oh hush, don’t say that… I wasn’t telling them to not let the other know that their comments weren’t wanted, just find a better way to express it. I even encouraged them to support each other in trying to redirect their word choices.
Dan, who was stationed behind my lap top, laughed at this a good bit but offered no imput. The others? Well, all suggestions to both corrections received eyes rolling, sighs, and statements such as, “What? It’s not a big deal, we’re not mad at each other”. “You’re too sensitive.” “What’s the problem, we don’t mind.”
So much for parenting. For attempting to give positive direction to their growing minds and intellect.
Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
It’s effective because it makes you address life as if it’s a game. You don’t take risks, you don’t reap rewards.
Use your real life money as if it’s monopoly money. It’s the mindset it fosters, and it fosters a very limited skillset, namely the cost/benefit analysis and working within your means (budgeting/planning)while dealing with the expected or unexpected.
Well, honestly that’s what I and my partner have been doing. So success must be right around the corner.
I know that there will be a break through on our business. We are in only seven months in from the concept forming and we’ve been moving along with it seeing where it takes us. We are in a very organic business and over time there has been solidification to take us from the what to the how. There will be some cool things soon and I hope that they increase awareness of what we’re doing and create some flow of money.
Theresa Jane