Please take a moment and watch the following trailer. While I rarely post anything here that doesn’t have much to do with my son and our adventures, I make an exception in this case. And quite frankly, though I will not show this film to Caleb until he is older (only because some of the scenes are incredibly gruesome, NOT because I think he is too young to grasp the central premise/conflict), the issue is definitely one I will talk with him about right now.

I strongly encourage you to watch the documentary and talk about it with your children, friends and family. There are many issues covered that pertain to raising children such as health, visiting/supporting certain types of businesses (e.g. zoos, marine parks, etc.), and less directly, how our consumption directly impacts the world around us.

Learn more about the film by visiting thecovemovie.com.

Caleb, Nadine and I had a great Daddy Day yesterday. The weather was beautiful (sunny, pretty clouds, and in the mid 60’s) so we decided to go for a hike. We packed up a nice hiking lunch, filled our water bottles, and drove to Great Brook Farm State Park. Caleb nabbed his own trail map when we arrived, and chose a wonderful loop hike that meandered through the woods and also by several ponds and meadows. We had a nice lunch (snacks along the trail, and then a sit-down lunch by the big pond) and said hello to the farm animals. Unfortunately we could not find Nadine’s goat friend, but she didn’t seem to mind too much. Unfortunately, though we packed a great lunch, I forgot to bring a camera. So…

Instead of hiking photos, I offer this photo of “Dash” (from the Incredibles). Caleb was looking forward to Megan’s train arriving in West Medford and rather than giving him a much-needed trim, we decided to spike his hair. He insisted on being called Dash thereafter (yes, all night — he pretty much would not answer to “Caleb”) and could (almost, if you looked really quickly and have very sharp vision) be seen sprinting around the house for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

After dinner we decided to walk to Arlington since the weather was so nice and a bit of walking would be fun. By that point Caleb’s hair dried in a big spikey puff. It was fantastic.

Following are a few quotations (edit: OK, quite a few…) that I want to pass on to Caleb for one reason or another. While I am a big believer that words can be unnecessarily jumbled around any thought, issue, trial, or opportunity to make oneself sound fancy, I do like the clarity of certain quotations. Though the below list is fairly exhaustive, there are still many more not included that I think are worthwhile to think about every once in a while.

• › One who is firm of purpose in a just cause is shaken from his tenacious resolve neither by the clamour of this fellow citizens for that which is unjust, nor by the tyrant’s menacing scowl. ~Horace
• › The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he thought he would never be found out. ~Lord Macaulay
• › Even the tiniest initial deviation from the truth is subsequently multiplied a thousandfold. ~Aristotle
• › It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath. ~Aeschylus
• › If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. ~Winston Churchill
• › Patience is the companion of wisdom. ~St. Augustine of Hippo
• › Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. ~Marcus Aurelius
• › Forgiveness is the final form of love. ~Reinhold Niebuhr
• › Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth. ~Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort
• › It is easy for us to forgive a child who fears the dark. The true sadness in life is when men fear the light. ~Plato
• › Death tweaks my ear. ‘Live,’ he says, ‘I am coming.’ ~Virgil
• › This body is not a home but an inn, and that only briefly. ~Seneca
• › Why do you hurry to remove anything that hurts your eye, but if something affects your soul you put off the cure until next year? ~Horace
• › A cheerful heart is a good medicine. ~Proverbs 17.22
• › Plan for this world as if you expect to live forever; but plan for the hereafter as if you expect to die tomorrow. ~Ibn Gabirol
• › O how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living. ~King Philip II of Macedon
• › Pale death with an impartial foot knocks at the hovels of the poor and the palaces of kings. ~Horace
• › To wish to be well is a part of becoming well. ~Seneca
• › The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. ~Thomas Merton
• › Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away. ~Elbert Hubbard
• › Submit to love faithfully and it gives a person joy. It intoxicates, it envelops, it isolates. It creates fragrance in the air, ardour from coldness, it beautifies everything around it. ~Leos Janacek
• › True compassion flows fast, as if we were wounded ourselves, yet without diminishing our strength. ~Yukio Kurasama
• › If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. ~The Buddha
• › I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. ~St. Thomas Aquinas
• › A friend is one before whom I may think aloud. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
• › A mere friend will agree with you, but a true friend will argue. ~Russian Proverb
• › As yellow gold is tried in the fire, so the true bonds of friendship are seen in adversity. ~Ovid
• › A friend’s eye is a good mirror. ~Irish Proverb
• › You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others. ~Henry Drummond
• › I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. ~Albert Scheitzer
• › One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody. ~Mother Theresa
• › Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. ~Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
• › Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
• › No man is born hating another person… People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. ~Nelson Mandela
• › Open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread. ~Proverbs 20.13
• › If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
• › To seek all your applause from outside yourself is to have your happiness in another’s keeping. ~Claudius Claudianus
• › We have nothing to fear but fear itself. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
• › Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! ~Anne Frank
• › We’re fools whether we dance or not; so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb
• › I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. ~Thomas Jefferson
• › You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from lying over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair. ~Chinese Proverb
• › What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. ~Benjamin Disraeli
• › As long as a word remains unspoken, you are its master; once you utter it, you are its slave. ~Ibn Gabirol
• › The risk of an incorrect decision is nothing compared to the terror of indecision. ~Maimonides
• › You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand? ~Robert Louis Stevenson
• › Those who are always preoccupied with something cannot enjoy the world. ~Laozi
• › Before you take another step, step back into yourself. If you can govern yourself and be your own master, yours is the whole wide world and everything within it. ~Paul Fleming
• › Anger is an expensive luxury. ~Pope St. Gregory the Great
• › If you find a thing difficult, consider whether it would be possible for any person to do it. Because anything that is humanly possible, that falls within human capabilities – you too can accomplish. ~Marcus Aurelius
• › The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
• › One man with courage makes a majority. ~Andrew Jackson
• › One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds. ~Mahatma Gandhi
• › Consider how the suffering caused by your anger and grief is often much greater than the suffering caused by the very things for which you are angry and aggrieved. ~Marcus Aurelius
• › If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. ~Benjamin Franklin
• › Even while we speak, envious time has passed. Seize the day, putting as little trust as possible in tomorrow! ~Horace
• › First tell yourself what you want to be; and then do what you need to do. ~Epictetus
• › A great revolution in just one individual will help to change the destiny of all humankind. ~Daisaku Ikeda
• › By attempting the impossible one can attain the highest level of the possible. ~August Strindberg
• › Life can only be understood backwards: but it must be lived forwards. ~Søren Kierkegaard
• › A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. ~Abraham Maslow
• › Our plans fail because they have no aim. For the sailor who does not know where to set his course, there are no favorable winds. ~Seneca
• › Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. ~Lousia May Alcott
• › The endless road is the only one worth traveling. ~Modern Sufic Saying
• › Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~Mahatma Gandhi
• › If you see nothing to be thankful for, be certain that it is your won fault. ~Tecumseh
• › Remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for. ~Epicurus
• › Pleasure in the task puts perfection in the work. ~Aristotle
• › Everyone needs to work. Even a lion cannot sleep, expecting a deer to enter his mouth. ~Hitopadesha
• › That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › There is no heavier burden than having too many desires. ~Laozi
• › Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. ~Mark Twain
• › Greater happiness comes with simplicity than with complexity. ~The Buddha
• › It is better to be seventy years young than forty years old. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
• › Choose a job that you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. ~Confucius
• › Far and way the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. ~Theodore Roosevelt
• › Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t,bleed, like colored dyes, onto the whole of our existence. ~Balzac
• › One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. ~Helen Keller
• › You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ~Mahatma Gandhi
• › What we think, or what we know, or what we believe in, is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do. ~John Ruskin
• › Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within you. Therefore, make your own future. ~Swami Vivekananda
• › To be always intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it – this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed. ~Walter Scott
• › Gold dust is precious, but when it gets in your eyes, it blurs your vision. ~Xitang
• › If you must begin, then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind will haunt you for all time. ~Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
• › It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. ~Erich Fromm
• › Concentrate all your thoughts on the task in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. ~Alexander Graham Bell
• › They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ~Edgar Allan Poe
• › Whatever we perceive in the world around us reflects who we are and what we care about most deeply, as in the old saying, "When a thief sees a saint, all he sees are his pockets." ~Robert Frager
• › The reality of the other person lies not in hat he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say. ~Kahlil Gibran
• › It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive. ~Charles Webster Leadbeater
• › They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. ~Francis Bacon
• › Power without wisdom collapses under its own weight. ~Horace
• › One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. ~James Russell Lowell
• › Don’t break your shin on a stool that is not in your way. ~Irish Proverb
• › To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it. ~G.K. Chesterson
• › Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law. ~John Milton
• › What strikes the oyster does not damage the pearl. ~Jalal Ad-Din Rumi
• › The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. ~Thomas Jefferson
• › A donkey with a load of holy books is still a donkey. ~Traditional Sufi Saying
• › How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~Leonardo Da Vinci
• › A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. ~Plutarch
• › Children need models rather than critics. ~Joseph Joubert
• › Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time. ~Chinese Proverb
• › It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer. [Occam's Razor] ~William of Occam
• › If you want to see what children do, you must stop giving them things. ~Norman Douglas
• › The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard
• › Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. ~Winston Churchill
• › Inches make champions. ~Vince Lombardi
• › We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. ~Samuel Smiles
• › The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. ~Thomas Carlyle
• › The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others. ~Francois, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
• › If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. ~Ludwig Wittgenstein
• › Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge. ~John Wesley
• › Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~Confucius
• › The little reed, bending with the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed. ~Aesop
• › Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. ~Francois, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
• › Never stop because you are afraid: you are never so likely to be wrong. ~Fridtjof Nansen
• › We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. ~The Talmud
• › Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth. ~Benjamin Disraeli
• › Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to your span of life? ~Matthew 6.27
• › A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. ~Harry Truman
• › When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. ~Alexander Graham Bell
• › The best, most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. ~Hellen Keller
• › Positive anything is better than negative nothing. ~Elbert Hubbard
• › Our chief affliction is that we live not according to the light of reason, but after the fashion of others. ~Seneca
• › If you live according to the dictates of nature, you will never be poor; if according to the notions of humankind, you will never be rich. ~Seneca
• › Who reaches with a clumsy hand for a rose must not complain if the thorns scratch. ~Heinrich Heine
• › When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. ~John Muir
• › The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
• › Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. ~Chief Seattle, Suquamish Nation
• › I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ~John Muir
• › Glance at the sun. See the moon and starts. Gaze at the beauty of the green earth. Now think. ~Hildegard of Bingen
• › Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard. ~Chief Standing Bear, Ponca Nation
• › Under cherry blossoms there are no strangers. ~Issa
• › Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see Beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see Beauty never grows old. ~Franz Kafka
• › It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petroleum dump. ~David Ormsby-gore
• › The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war. ~Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
• › Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~Italian Proverb
• › I think the king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me. ~William Shakespeare
• › He that is kind is free, though he be a slave; he that is cruel is a slave, though he be a king. ~St. Augustine of Hippo

This is a completely unrelated post as it is about Lumiere Imaging (Megan and my photography company) but I include it here for a few reasons.

First, I love the archival aspect of blogs. Megan and I have redesigned our photography website about 10 times since we launched our business in 1999. Many of those designs are long since forgotten. Some can be found online in various historical archives while others we more diligently preserved on our own. With a blog, however, content is almost never lost (within the blog, on an internet archive, within various server backups, etc.), so I tend to post things that I want to remember.

Second, Megan and I care deeply (very deeply) about making travel a constant presence in our own lives, and more importantly, in Caleb’s life. He loves to travel and we love to travel with him. Accordingly, we are opening our business (lumiereimaging.com) up to take on more exclusively travel and documentary photography commissions, whereas previously we would only take on wedding or small portraiture work.

Third, in looking at our photographs (granted, the following is a bit awkward to point out about one’s own work), our travel and documentary images represent very honestly a lot of what makes Megan and I tick. And indeed, whenever we travel as a family, or on our own, we always come home changed in some mild or noticeably profound way. Caleb shows the same growth during our adventures, a result we strive to maintain by committing to take a healthy number of trips every year.

So, click on the below to browse through a few of our new home page images (they appear with a randomizer script on the Lumiere homepage) which are focused on documentary and travel imagery. We’ll be updating our portfolios in the next month or so and will also start to pursue this type of work more actively. (Shameless plug: If you happen to stumble across this post and want nothing more than to secure us immediately for a documentary or travel project, please contact us on the Lumiere Imaging contact page. – Thank you!)

Here’s an interesting magazine spread I saw a few weeks ago. The article on the left instructs parents to lead by example when it comes to nutrition — more fruits, vegetables, and similar “foods” — and the ad on the right makes the claim that a glass of brown liquid is better…

Merry Christmas from the Begley family!

In an effort to save a bit of paper, fuel, and postage, and selfishly to capitalize on the posterity of a blog post to combat our disappearing memories (where ARE my keys?), we have opted to post our holiday update/letter here. Plus, as you’ll see below, it allows for a bit of extra features that a low-tech letter simply cannot handle (…yet). Enjoy!

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Winter.
2008 began with snow, snow, snow! We had a cold January but the snow made it delightful and (almost) enjoyable. The North End was beautiful covered with a foot of puffy, fluffy snow…that is until it turned to cold, hard, dirty, ice. We had many opportunities to dig our car out of a huge snow drift only to have it buried again the next day. Oh yes, and you haven’t really experienced parallel parking until you do so in the middle of winter in the North End (rock your car into an icy hole of a “parking spot” with negative inches of buffer between the cars in front and back much?) In February, to escape the cold and get our fix of what we remember Mexican food really tasting like, we traveled to Cancún, Mexico for 10 days where we met up with our friends Mike, Monica, Erik, and Thomas (more here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). It was amazingly beautiful and we had a great time building sand castles on the beach, exploring Isla Mujeres, and being with our friends. We all loved the vacation and Caleb in particular announced that he loves and wants to live at the beach. (Us too Caleb!)

Spring.
Spring started off with a trip to the emergency room for Caleb. We spent Easter in Connecticut with Nonna and Boppa and enjoyed a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Straughn during, unfortunately, the rainiest week of the season. Travel highlights were a train trip to Washington D.C. for Aunt Katherine’s graduation from George Washington University, and a car trip to Pennsylvania to attend a birthday party for Caleb’s second cousins, Giovanni and Vincenzo. Also this spring, Megan joined the Park Street Church Green Initiative, an effort to make the church more environmentally sustainable. Her “assignment” was to build a website for the initiative and she, along with her partner for the site’s development, Abigail, completed the site later in the year. Caleb also finally broke down our resolve and became the proud owner of a skateboard, confirming to all onlookers that he is indeed a California boy at heart.

Summer.
Busy, busy, busy… Peter, Caleb, and Nadine took their first camping trip together while Megan traveled for work. Despite the rain and mosquitoes, the “boys” (and Miss Nadine) had a wonderful time — in fact Caleb noted it as the best thing he did this summer. Near the end of June, Megan started a new job at the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). She is working in Development designing their communications collateral and assisting with the Capital Campaign, the Maine Woods Initiative. She is really enjoying her new position, and as you will read about below, we’re all enjoying the benefits that come from working for AMC. This summer also took Peter back to California for his annual MBA reunion trip during which he and his classmates spent a long weekend camping in Sonoma and having fun in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, and a few spots in-between. In August, Caleb turned 3 and we spent a week in California to photograph a wedding in Santa Monica, empty out our Santa Maria-based storage unit, and visit friends in Santa Barbara. Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Straughn for helping us get all that done! Over Labor Day Weekend, we traveled to AMC’s Highland Center in the White Mountains where on his own feet, Caleb summitted his first mountain, Mount Willard. Oh yes, and how can we forget all the feasts that took place in the North End throughout July and August (basically a two-month long party complete with marching bands, saints, more marching bands, street vendors, and more marching bands)!

Fall.
Fall found us taking several trips to New Hampshire to hike, enjoy the changing seasons, and escape the noise and chaos of Boston. Megan took a 2-day course to be certified in Wilderness First Aid and CPR at Pinkham Notch, while Peter and Caleb played, hiked and did a bit of exploring. In September, along with Peter’s sister Rebecca (who basically did everything), we planned a successful surprise 60th birthday party in Philadelphia for Nonna and Boppa which included friends and family from throughout the country. Also this fall, we moved out of our wee apartment in the North End to our new place in West Medford (roughly 10 miles northwest of Boston). We absolutely love having more space, a yard, parking, in-unit laundry, and all the wonderful things that are hard to come by in the North End. During the week, we take a 12-minute train ride to/from Boston — Megan and Peter to their jobs, and Caleb to preschool in the North End for his “work,” as he likes to call it. We were also able to squeeze in a trip this fall to see Grandma and Grandpa Straughn, GG (Megan’s grandmother Straughn), and friends in Minnesota. November 10th was Megan and Peter’s 6th wedding anniversary and we spent 2 nights in New York City ALONE (thank you Nonna and Boppa for taking care of Caleb and Nadine, and thank you Nora for letting us stay in your awesome apartment!). It was a much-needed and wonderful getaway. We spent Thanksgiving with Nonna and Boppa at AMC’s Highland Center in the White Mountains (New Hampshire again!) and enjoyed fresh snowfall and a lot of late fall/early winter hiking.

~~~~~~~~~

Finally, we’ve made it to December and we are starting to see the first snowflakes of winter (enough, in fact, to make a snow hut…). We kicked off the season with a live Christmas tree (aka: uncut; the cut trees were very upsetting to Caleb – us too, now that we think about it) and a gingerbread house decorating party with some of Caleb’s classmates from school. The kids had so much fun! We look forward to the adventures that 2009 holds (Florida and Costa Rica, here we come!) and wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

~ Peter, Megan, Caleb and Nadine

Megan and I were recently exposed to the above video and both found it quite powerful. Coincidentally, we were strongly considering a material giftless Christmas this year before we saw the video, but are now set on following through. We have given donations or Heifer International gifts in past years, but never 100% exclusively to all recipients. To each other and to Caleb, we typically give something special or homemade, or material but with a strong connection to the recipient. We’ve already given Caleb an early present (a sweet Erector Set, which he has really taken to) and are dabbling with ways to make a donation less of an abstract concept to a three year-old.

This year we are considering our old favorites (Heifer International as well as the Humane Society), but may also throw Megan’s organization and some volunteering opportunities into the mix.

I am particularly interested in hearing what non-Christians think of the video. It is extremely well done (music, editing, content, use of text and movement, etc.) and I am curious how broadly the message might be received.

Those of you who know me well know that I tend to have fairly strong feelings about money, investing, debt, and all other finance-related subjects. Misconceptions abound but I think on the whole, “financially conservative” would be a fair label that encompasses my approach (at least from my perspective…).

So, naturally, the topics of money, Caleb, and financial responsibility have come up many times between Megan and I since Caleb came into our lives — indeed, even as far back as during the pre-ultrasound days. Thankfully, and perhaps miraculously (per the track record of most couples), Megan and I are basically on the same page about how to introduce money and responsibility into Caleb’s life. We’ve discussed many times the various options from an allowance, money for chores, no money at all (he would only get what he earns), money for specific needs, and many other options.

I don’t think we have yet firmly determined what option or combination of options we prefer to try with Caleb, but we have come to an agreement that financial intelligence, responsibility and education are extremely important. And, for better or worse, the sooner the better…

Without going on too much of a rant, it amazes me how little financial education most kids receive. Why is it that saving is a foreign concept to most 20-year olds, and most people consider it healthy to use a credit card as a convenient mechanism for, “buy it now, pay for it later?” What about investing? Saving for retirement? The notion of compound interest? Opportunity cost? Return on investment? Risk levels and what investment options are accordingly appropriate? Bonds? And on, and on, and on…

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been actively involving Caleb in our regular daily “commerce” whether that involves purchasing food at a grocery store, or consolidating loose change. There are still many subjects that are far too detailed to broach at the moment (for instance, how many people really know the true definition of money? Hint: It’s not just the currency you might put in your wallet…), but there are also a fair number that can and should be taught, practiced, stressed, and explored at his age (just shy of 3 years old).

The first is the concept of buying things. If you think about “goods” from the perspective of a 2-year old, why wouldn’t the refrigerator magically always be stocked with food? Absent exposure to the reality of shopping for food, paying for it, and restocking the shelves of the refrigerator, a 2-year old has little reason to believe otherwise. Accordingly, the exercise of shopping (selecting a store, picking out goods, and then exchanging “money” for those goods) is an excellent first step. Things do not just appear — we have to find resources, select them, and exchange something of value to take them into our posession.

Caleb is regularly by my side picking out groceries and paying for them (I more or less always let him hand over the cash or a credit card [yes, we use credit cards, and heavily, but never carry a balance. If the interest is there, sometime I'll broach the subject of arbitrage, credit, healthy leveraging of "float," and how credit cards and other short-term debt instruments are actually phenomenal tools for those with their eyes open and finances in order.]). When we are missing something at home, apple juice, for instance, Caleb will declare that we need to go to the store and buy some more. Excellent — lesson 1 accomplished.

But now we have to deal with the more abstract concepts: what is money, where does it come from, how do we obtain it, what happens when it runs out, and what is its value? Sweet. Those are some pretty meaty concepts for a 2-year old (and again, at least from my perspective, evidently most 20-year olds).

The other night Caleb started talking about sharing with his friends “Mommy and Daddy’s money.” While this is a fairly innocent extension of the concept of sharing possessions with friends, I saw it as an excellent opportunity to start imbuing on Caleb the differences between “money” and toys, and why sharing the former is a bit more multi-layered than sharing the latter.

He and I had a short conversation about how Mommy and Daddy’s money was not for him to share and that it came into our possession as a result of the two of us working and earning wages and that we use it to pay for our house, our food, and a few other concrete items. He seemed to be staying with me so I told him that if he wanted to share money with his friends that he would have to earn his own, and to do so he would have to do a job of some kind. (Here’s where methodology, intent, teaching styles and so many other factors get muddled. Just bear with me — I know this is not the perfect approach though I will say that based on how Caleb internalizes things, I think it is absolutely the right approach for him.)

He seemed to quickly grasp the concept that if he wanted his own money he would have to earn it through some type of job. He did at one point suggest that he could borrow our money and I quickly squashed that idea with a very firm, “Mommy and Daddy do not borrow money Caleb, we only buy things if we have enough money and always try and save as much money as possible.” (Truthfully, we do borrow for specific items but are again very conservative about debt. We’ll only borrow for things like an education or a home, and always with the goal of obtaining the best rate and paying off the debt as quickly as possible. And technically, using a credit card, even when you never carry a balance, is also “borrowing” but again that gets into arbitrage, float, etc.)

So, the concept of earning money was broached and Caleb was ready to grab it by the horns. Megan and I let it sit for a day and discussed privately what kind of jobs we could give him and how much was reasonable for him to earn as a result. We agreed that we pretty firmly did not want to compensate him monetarily for “chores” or those tasks which he should reasonably be expected to complete as a normal responsibility (e.g. cleaning his room, putting things away that he uses in the house, etc.). But realistically, how many tasks are there that are not chore-based that you can give a 2-year old?

After discussing options for a while, we settled on giving him the job of feeding our dog Nadine. Megan noted that he is already pretty good at it (doesn’t make a mess, more or less gives her the right amount of food, can open and close the bag himself, etc.). Moreover, it is a task that can only be done twice a day, must always be completed, and needs to be done with relative care. Plus, he loves Nadine so it is a good choice regardless.

As an aside, one of the things I like most about it is that he can ONLY do the job twice a day, so his earnings are limited. When I was 5, my parents decided to pay me to pick up sticks in our yard. The pay rate was based on the number of sticks I picked up and not tied to any other metric. So I did what any other enterprising 5-year old would do. I gathered all of the biggest sticks I could find, plopped myself on our front porch, and quickly broke them down into hundreds of small twigs. Needless to say I made some pretty good money in those 10 minutes. …and my Dad, his wallet considerably lighter, was stuck picking up the sticks I left remaining in the yard…

While I want to encourage the same out-of-of-the-box thinking in Caleb, I want it to come healthfully and through a desire to be more strategic about his finances. At this point, as he is just now starting to dabble with the responsibility, I don’t want to move him along too quickly. And in watching him spend his earnings, I think the caution is entirely warranted…

After two days of feeding Nadine, Caleb amassed 40¢! We decided to pay him a dime each time, choosing the rate to ensure that he would make enough in a short enough time to actually be able to spend it (and thus further cement the concept of earning and spending, and hopefully thereafter, saving) but not so much that he would feel as if the task was easy (e.g. “I’ll just feed Nadine one time and now I can buy whatever I want”).

I put the 4 dimes he had earned into a zip-lock bag and took him to the neighborhood store. I told him that it was his money and he could buy whatever he wanted with it (we’ll eventually need to set boundaries, but for the moment, I tried to make the experience fun and not overly complex so as to maintain his interest level). Unfortunately, there is not much one can purchase at a store for 40¢, and most of it is laden with high fructose corn syrup and obscenely name-contorted chemicals. Nonetheless, after scouring the store for something healthful in the sub $1.00 range, I took a deep breath, put my strict rules about sugar to the side, and guided him to the bins of lollipops, mints, and peanut butter/chocolate treats (15¢, 10¢, and 10¢ per unit each, respectively).

To his credit, when we first arrived in the store Caleb went straight for a bottle of water, but unfortunately would have had to feed Nadine another 10 times to be able to buy one. That said, it was a great opportunity to teach him that even though he had money, his purchasing power was limited. So after explaining that concept and scanning the shelves some more, I resigned myself to showing him the candy bins in the front, as mentioned above. We discussed asking the clerk how much everything cost, which Caleb handled like a champ. After asking how much a lollipop cost, he said “WOOOOW!” when offered the reply of 15¢.

Caleb and I discussed things for a few moments playing out what combination of treats he could buy with 40¢, and upon my guidance, he settled for one of each to the tune of 35¢. He handed over his earnings and received 5¢ back (which prompted another “WOOOOOW!”). Beaming, he carried his goods and change back home and went straight to Megan to proudly relay the experience.

As expected, and against my very uptight and normally firm notions about sugar (especially sugar in the evening), he wolfed down all three of his sweets. As was his right — he earned it.

I am sure I come across as many things through this blog but a computer geek and an economics/finance junkie are probably not at the top of the list. Well… I stumbled across an incredibly creative website this afternoon while reading one of my favorite economics blogs. (Click on the image to the right to see the various images I created.)

The site, Wordle, creates an image based on a block of text you provide. The resulting image can be manipulated some with rough controls that allow you to alter the color palette, general arrangement of the words, as well as the typeface used. The text you submit is parsed using a number of criteria and then individual words are pulled out and arranged according to some logical order, and given weight based on frequency of use.

In looking at the images I created (see them all by clicking on the above image), I clearly have a recurring emphasis. Caleb’s name is consistently prominent as are a few select other words. Rather than blather on about what I see in each image, take a look for yourself.

I was writing an email this morning and Caleb came over to me to announce that he made a “nest.” I assumed that he was talking about a drawing — he had been drawing skateboards for a bit — and got up to go and check out his artwork. Boy was I wrong. He made his nest out of a pack of Happy Birthday candles. (Caleb, your imagination and creativity amaze me!)

Here’s a closeup of the nest he made.

And now a photo of Caleb proudly sitting next to his creation! He added two birds to the nest before I took the shot (the two rectangles).