Growing up, my family always spent Easter at my grandparents' house. They have nearly 6 acres of land in Hampshire with a pond, dogs, horses and a couple barns – complete with barn cats. It was a great place to spend my childhood. And an awesome place for an Easter egg hunt.
My grandparents would spend the night before Easter filling eggs with candy and money. The next day the aunts and uncles would hide them all over the property while the kids were quarantined to a windowless room to keep from peeking. They released us into the hunt by age – which sucked for me since I was the oldest of twelve grandkids.
Even so, I still made out with enough candy to last until Halloween and a hefty chunk of change for the piggy bank.
Now, the next generation gets to experience the thrill of the hunt. So far, there are only two competitors – Alex, who's five and Aric, who's soon to be four. My brother and his wife will contribute a kid to the game next year, but the rest of the cousins have yet to produce any players. This is just fine for Alex and Aric, who are both only children and not accustomed or interested in sharing.
The hunt this year was at my aunt and uncle's house in Johnsburg, which is almost as open and windy as Hampshire. Rather than a pond and horses they have a swimming pool and trampoline. But the hunt preparation was much the same – my aunt prepared the eggs the night before and the uncles hid them. Sixty of them. For two kids. Yeah.
Alex's competitive nature kicked into high gear. He quickly learned that the eggs that didn't make noise when shaken contained dollars, motivating him to run his little butt all over the yard finding, shaking and bagging the colorful eggs.
The hunt ended with Alex at 31 eggs and Aric at 29, which delighted Alex too much for my liking. I reminded him that Aric had so thoughtfully given him one of his eggs, so they would have been tied had he not done so. To which Alex said, "I told him to keep that egg – I didn't ask for it." Fair enough, kid. But don't take more credit for the win than you deserve.
After popping open all the eggs, Alex had racked up a total of . . . drumroll, please . . . forty bucks and fifty cents. Seriously.
At first I was a bit distraught about this. What precedent was this setting for future Easter egg hunts? Would this lay a foundational egg of entitlement and inevitable disappointment? As more kids joined the hunt over the years and the winnings were more thinly distributed, would this breed resentment among the cousins?
Then I stopped and thought to myself, "OMG Tonya, get a grip. It's an Easter egg hunt. Let your family spoil your kid."
I thought back to the lesson my parents taught me about "found" money. Save it. It's a lesson that I still value and practice today. With this forty bucks of Easter egg booty, we'll take Alex to the bank to open up a savings account and start teaching him about saving and budgeting.
Thanks, Easter Bunny, a.k.a Aunt Sue and Uncle Mike. You're the best.
Next on the parenting list? Nurturing a competitive spirit to create an ambitious, yet humble human being. Advice wanted.
Tonya Hudson
Growing up, my family always spent Easter at my grandparents' house. They have nearly 6 acres of land in Hampshire with a pond, dogs, horses and a couple barns – complete with barn cats. It was a great place to spend my childhood. And an awesome place for an Easter egg hunt.
My grandparents would spend the night before Easter filling eggs with candy and money. The next day the aunts and uncles would hide them all over the property while the kids were quarantined to a windowless room to keep from peeking. They released us into the hunt by age – which sucked for me since I was the oldest of twelve grandkids.
Even so, I still made out with enough candy to last until Halloween and a hefty chunk of change for the piggy bank.
Now, the next generation gets to experience the thrill of the hunt. So far, there are only two competitors – Alex, who's five and Aric, who's soon to be four. My brother and his wife will contribute a kid to the game next year, but the rest of the cousins have yet to produce any players. This is just fine for Alex and Aric, who are both only children and not accustomed or interested in sharing.
The hunt this year was at my aunt and uncle's house in Johnsburg, which is almost as open and windy as Hampshire. Rather than a pond and horses they have a swimming pool and trampoline. But the hunt preparation was much the same – my aunt prepared the eggs the night before and the uncles hid them. Sixty of them. For two kids. Yeah.
Alex's competitive nature kicked into high gear. He quickly learned that the eggs that didn't make noise when shaken contained dollars, motivating him to run his little butt all over the yard finding, shaking and bagging the colorful eggs.
The hunt ended with Alex at 31 eggs and Aric at 29, which delighted Alex too much for my liking. I reminded him that Aric had so thoughtfully given him one of his eggs, so they would have been tied had he not done so. To which Alex said, "I told him to keep that egg – I didn't ask for it." Fair enough, kid. But don't take more credit for the win than you deserve.
After popping open all the eggs, Alex had racked up a total of . . . drumroll, please . . . forty bucks and fifty cents. Seriously.
At first I was a bit distraught about this. What precedent was this setting for future Easter egg hunts? Would this lay a foundational egg of entitlement and inevitable disappointment? As more kids joined the hunt over the years and the winnings were more thinly distributed, would this breed resentment among the cousins?
Then I stopped and thought to myself, "OMG Tonya, get a grip. It's an Easter egg hunt. Let your family spoil your kid."
I thought back to the lesson my parents taught me about "found" money. Save it. It's a lesson that I still value and practice today. With this forty bucks of Easter egg booty, we'll take Alex to the bank to open up a savings account and start teaching him about saving and budgeting.
Thanks, Easter Bunny, a.k.a Aunt Sue and Uncle Mike. You're the best.
Next on the parenting list? Nurturing a competitive spirit to create an ambitious, yet humble human being. Advice wanted.