30 Ways To Strengthen Your FamilySample

Connect Ownership and Privilege with Work

Two young girls each wanted an American Girl doll.

Amy wanted Samantha because she liked her big brown curls and her stylish early-twentieth-century clothes. Karina wanted Felicity for her cute hats and puffy dresses. Both girls asked their mothers in fourth grade if they could have the doll they picked out.

Amy’s parents, though they could have easily afforded to buy her every doll, told her they would need to think through a way that she could earn the doll. After a few days, they sat her down and told her that she had been a very good girl, with a good attitude, always completing her chores and homework. She had earned the right to earn the doll of her choice.

They told her that if she could memorize and recite every state capital city in the country, Samantha would be hers. They were very clear that a doll like Samantha was expensive and a very special treat, one that does not come without some work. Interestingly, each American Girl doll has a correlating set of books and stories telling her story. In Samantha’s story, she, too, asks her grandmother for a beautiful doll. Samantha’s grandmother tells her that if she dutifully does her piano lessons, she could earn the doll.

So Amy, feeling just like Samantha, eagerly memorized her state capitals. On the day she recited them, her parents bought her the doll. Amy treasured the doll, took excellent care of her, and felt deeply appreciative of the opportunity to have her.

When Karina asked her mother for Felicity, on the other hand, her mother immediately bought her the doll. Karina had to do absolutely nothing to earn what she wanted. After a few weeks, she got bored with Felicity. So she asked her mother for Molly, another doll. At first her mother resisted and suggested they just buy some more accessories for Felicity, but Karina persisted and her mother caved. A year later, Karina had every single doll. And she was still not satisfied.

Karina did not have to lift a finger to get five very expensive dolls. Amy, on the other hand, spent countless hours laboring for one and never felt a moment’s yearning for anything more than what she had earned. Not only that, but she learned something valuable along the way!

Such is the way with children and possessions. And such is the way with adults and satisfaction. Humans are hard to satisfy. But we feel much more satisfied when we know we have earned what we have. Teaching your children that profound sense of satisfaction is a lesson that cannot be learned too early in life.