Imagine that...

I heard a blip on the radio this morning…again on my way from Roeland Park office to the Kansas City office.
I think it was Dr. Dobson speaking about parenting. Anyway the blip I caught was saying that parents should respond to a child instead of reacting. The example that followed…
Johnny comes up from school and tells mom “I want a pony!”
If mom were reacting she might respond like…”A pony?? Well Johnny were did you get such a silly outrages idea? Who gave you such an idea, a pony? We don’t have the money for the money! We don’t even have any place to keep a pony!”
Or if mom were responding she might say…
“Oh well, imagine that…if you had a pony you could ride that pony to school every morning. You would pass all the kids at the bus stop and wave as you passed and rode to school. You’d tie up your pony outside the school, so he’ll be there when you come home. You’ll have to go out and check on that pony instead of going to recess to make sure he is still doing ok.”
Dr. Dobson’s point was that even a child can figure out that obviously ponies are expensive. Obviously a pony takes a lot of work. Obviously the pony would need to be fed. And obviously we have no place to keep a pony in the apartment. It just takes them a little while to compare their dreams with reality and you might as well just be gentle. I couldn’t help but compare this illustration to me and a few friends. There are people who still keep that dreaming part of little kids, they come up with all sorts of crazy ideas about what they want or could make or do. But they aren’t just crazy ideas they’re dreams. I’m a lot more of a ‘realist’ or ‘logical’ or whatever you want to call it. I dreamed of having a pony as a child but my 19th Birthday is coming up and I am not asking for a horse nor am I asking for a Ford Mustang. This year I’m not even asking for a new laptop or computer because…obviously we can’t afford it…the thought of a horse never even entered my mind when people started asking even though I would love to have a horse in more ideal circumstances. However dreamers (or whatever) tend to still think of these things…Dennis for example really does want a new gaming laptop this year and has mentioned a few times…he also wouldn’t mind a couple new sports cars, a new surround sound speaker system, Battlefield 2 with all the new expansion packs, a new concrete drill…etc. It isn’t like he constantly hounds for these things (like a child) these are just things he wants and he speaks of getting them like we have the cash in our pockets to go buy them. Now realistically Dennis knows we can’t really afford any of these things and has even said he doesn’t care if he gets nothing for Christmas but randomly we’ll be talking and he’ll say “I should just go to walmart and buy the new Battlefield 2 with all the expansion packs…” which unfortunately would be a weeks worth of groceries. Dennis doesn’t plan to go to walmart and buy Battlefield 2. He wants to, but as a dreamer he is just making a statement…..
Now as a concrete “realistic” person I tend to drift toward “dreamers” to pick as friends…I guess I just like torturing myself.

Even though Dr. Dobson’s advice was meant for parents to their children is sort of helped me realize negative it sounds when I say “Dennis, we can’t afford to buy more video games, we’re barely going to stay on budget this month!” He's just dreaming of owning a pony :)