We Bought A Town

Newsletter 2021-10-18

I told my eleven-year-old, Betsy, that she could pick any reward she wanted. She chose time travel.

Under our old system, whenever one of our kids accomplished something good—like winning an award at school or defeating an evil Jedi in single combat—my wife Lola and I recognized them by letting them pick where we would go out to eat. Invariably, they chose the least healthy food you could imagine. Picture deep fried milk shakes, but worse. More like Pixy Sticks in syringe form or doughnut burgers dipped in fondue. Recently, it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be associating high achievement with ingesting literal poison. I changed the reward system to let my kids pick out a fun experience instead. They could select any outing they wanted. It could be a park, a museum, a movie, or something along those lines. We could go as a family, or they could choose to just go with me or their mom. Sometimes excluding your sisters is its own reward. Betsy was the first to take advantage of the new s…