Chapter 25 - What poor meant
The money wound took longer than the slap.
Caleb stopped asking whether we could afford food.
But he remembered:
paupers.
One day at seven, he came home from school.
A boy had told another child:
“Your shoes are from Walmart.”
Caleb said:
“I told him my shoes are from Target.”
I laughed.
“That’ll show him.”
Then he became serious.
“Is Walmart poor?”
“No.”
“Then why did he say it?”
“Because kids copy weird status ideas from adults.”
“Like Aunt Vanessa.”
There it was.
“Yes.”
He asked:
“Why do people care?”
I thought.
“Money affects real things. Housing. Food. Safety. Opportunities. So people pay attention to it.”
“Then?”
“Sometimes they turn having more into believing they are more.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Yes.”
“But you like getting paid.”
“Very much.”
He laughed.
Good.
We did not teach:
Money is meaningless.
False.
We taught:
Money matters.
Human worth is not priced the same way.
Vanessa learned a version too.
She stopped mentioning prices around Mom and Dad unless practical.
Mom noticed first.
At Christmas:
Vanessa gave Dad a new drill set.
He said:
“This looks expensive.”
Old Vanessa would have said the number.
New Vanessa:
“I got a good deal.”
May you like
Dad nearly dropped it.
Progress.
