tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37095225.post-73432220149159213462008-04-23T12:07:00.000-04:002008-04-23T12:07:00.000-04:002008-04-23T12:07:00.000-04:00My kids are older, and have NEVER been big sports fans. Our 'solution' has been to spend *effectively* on their choice of hobbies: computers. One wants to be a computer animator, the other wants to run websites. (They're 15 and 13 now.) <BR/><BR/>To make them aware of the cost, we tallied up their last birthday, New Year, and miscellaneous presents and told them that IF they chose not to have the spread-out gifts, we could get them a fairly good secondhand computer and ONE fun program each, but that was it. <BR/><BR/>They thought about it, and have been INCREDIBLY happy with the solution. They don't nag us for the lastest gizmo or game, because they KNOW the money isn't there, and as a result they've consistently chosen games with LOTS of replay value. <BR/><BR/>When my oldest's laptop was stolen while he was taking a class at the community college, he was *devastated*, and *FURIOUS*. He kept ranting, wanting to know how someone could steal his college class assignments, his reference notes, and all his personal files, especially his in-progress animation. <BR/><BR/>Even when we can afford to replace his laptop, he knows that the most valuable properties on it were intellectual, not physical. His brother asked for a 16-gig thumb drive *instead* of a game as a result. <BR/><BR/>It hurts *me* that we can't afford to replace the laptop straightaway, because he was the victim of *theft*, of someone else's greed.dialectically_yoursnoreply@blogger.com