Yeah, I love that it's impossible to tell if he's disappointed with the toy or not. And he is even honest about the color, while keeping a smile on his face.
Kids got emotional intelligence in spades. You can tell he knew maybe they couldn’t afford it or thought he wasn’t old enough and was grateful for the toy, or at least knew it would be the right thing to do to act like he was. Honestly points out he’s probably ready for the responsibility.
I agree with the other commenter here. Anecdotal, but I've heard from many how, as a kid, I was an extremely courteous gift getter. I've also been told, as an adult, that I lack emotional intelligence. Haha, and I DEFINITELY was not a mature kid. But I don't think I've ever been upset about a gift given in my life.
Honestly, you say that, but my house looked like this because my dad was strict with our budget. We never worried about the house being taken away or food not being on our table. My cousins got new dirt bikes every other year and their dad had to borrow money from mine. Just because it looks like you can afford it doesn’t mean it’s financially wise at the moment or at all.
I’m grateful I learned this lesson because I have friends who are struggling to get themselves out of insane credit card debt. A lot of people these days look like they have more money than they do. It’s called living beyond your means.
The term house poor exists for a reason, it's just a different kind of being bad with money. Like if you have a big spacious fancy house but can only maintain it by being extremely strict and scraping by in other areas of life that's not necessarily any more financially wise. That's still over allocating the budget to one area at the detriment of others, and technically still a version of living beyond your means. Financial smart would be buying a slightly smaller or less fancy house so that you don't have to stress over other areas of life to meet the needs of keeping the house
Like if you have a nice house but a car repair or a new pair of shoes for the kids or a trip out to a restaurant one night is gonna be stretching the budget because all your money is going to the house you have not made a financially wise decision.
Yes very good. That does nothing to change how much money you have in day to day life though (actually would reduce it even further via property taxes), which brings me back to the first thing I said: the term house poor exists for a reason
Well sure, but it's delayed gratification. Building networth by profiting on other peoples money you've leveraged is a great way to get ahead...eventually. It can be pretty painful for those first 5 years though, but the payoff can be life changing.
Plus the whole time you get to live in a really nice house, so there are two huge upsides to counterbalance all the downsides.
Plus the whole time you get to live in a really nice house, so there are two huge upsides to counterbalance all the downsides.
If "plus you get something cool out of it!" justified living beyond your means then living beyond your means would never be a bad thing because getting something cool out of it is exactly why people make those poor financial choices. Not any different for a house
Regardless of how you want to justify it, living in a house that you can only afford by sacrificing every other area of your life is living beyond your means.
Yeah I bought my first home right before the bubble burst in 07, lost big time. But all my current properties have appreciated a ton. I expect them to come down a little from here
So you can easily see that someone buying a house right now could very well see prices depreciate significantly over time. And that is just one consideration.
It’s possible they’re house poor, or it’s possible they’re just not spoiling their children. My parents made me wait a couple years to get the things I wanted and never acquired debt to go on vacation. Now they are both multimillionaires. I am grateful my parents were able to comfortably retire and that I don’t have to stress about that like a lot of adults will have to do for their parents. They can actually enjoy it.
If your house looked like this and your family had very little disposable income then it sounds like you might have been living a bit beyond your means
Honestly points out he’s probably ready for the responsibility.
Lmao this brought up a childhood memory. I really wanted a sword as a kid, and at some point my parents and I were at some shop or another and they had a decently cheap, small katana perfectly sized for me (I was 10 and ninjas were the coolest thing ever. This thing had no edge, pure replica). So my dad asks something like "hey wouldn't it be cool if we got you that?", and I just turn to him and I the most fed up tone say "ugh, dad, I keep telling you I'm not old enough!"
I instantly got a lump in my throat when I read this! Absolutely beautiful!
We miss my stepson every day. He was a beautiful little guy who was going to give this world so much. Please, give you kiddo a hug from us. He, and you, seem great
That was my first thought. Just the pure gratitude and appreciation for the toy version. So sweet and rare for a kids his age. I would buy that kid a dirt bike too
I think the parents knew he really wanted a red one, and they had the real one in red but probably couldn't find the exact one to match in the toy version for the set-up; probably asked about the colour so when he turned around and saw red it would hit that much harder.
Oh I think its possible lol, you can sort of see it right before the reveal... and then when he does see the actual bike how he yeets the toy to the floor.
I mean, if you just got an actual dirt bike in the right color, the one thing you apparently reaaaallllyyy wanted to have, what the fuck you gonna need a tiny dirtbike toy in the wrong color for? Obviously the real one exceeds the joy hundreds times over the toy.
I absolutely understand his reaction to yeet the toy dirtbike, even if he liked it. But as someone who pretended to still believe in santa clause because I knew it made my mom happy to organize everything, the kid definitely was disappointed it's not a real one. Kudos to him for still appreciating his gift, he very well deserves both dirt bikes.
To me the kid wasn't very happy with his initial present, but he didn't want to be ungrateful. He was prepared with his answer "red" because the bike in the package wasn't exactly what he wanted. This is why the mom likely said, "exactly?" to him as a response after he said it. Because she knew he was saving face and it wasn't actually what he asked for. That's incredible emotional intelligence at this young of age.
It also shows he knew that he could be honest about it not being his prefered color without hurting anybodys feelings. He got that mix of honesty and appreciation perfectly.
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u/dysonrules Mar 01 '25
His genuine gratitude for the toy version was lovely to see. What a beautiful child. I hope he has hundreds of glorious hours riding on that bike.