Do you get angry at your kids when they break something expensive?
If you do, can you pin down why? Like, what’s the rationale, or how will getting angry fix the broken thing or teach a lesson?
Yesterday, I did get angry.
Growing up, money was tight. We did have a decent house, cars, and went to a private Catholic school. There was never a financial plan set in place though. When my Dad passed ten years ago there was only debt—not a big one though.
A consequence of this is that money was never discussed at home. Because of this, eEmotions could run high on the few occasions we did talk about it, or when someone broke something expensive.
Cut to me at twenty-five, leaving Opus Dei. Not only did I have zero dollars in my bank account, but I had to start paying my college debt soon.
Astrolab officially started in 2013, and by 2015 Gabriel was already there, ...so again not a lot of time to design and execute a financial plan.
Eventually, Astrolab started to grow and only until recently have we started to save. Money is still an issue that stresses me out from time to time, especially now with the prospect of moving permanently to the US—and realizing that Gabriel is heading to college in eight years.
Back to yesterday.
We had Gabriel’s birthday party in the morning, and then headed out to watch the Fifa Club World Cup final at a bar with some friends. After having lunch inside, Gabriel and two friends went to sit at a table outside the bar just a couple of feet from where we could watch them.
Thirty minutes later, Eva came inside and told us that Gabriel had hit a parking car with his chair. We could see the dent from inside the bar.
Gabriel came to sit with us and collapsed emotionally. Nobody shouted, but we were angry. I was angry for sure. He has this thing of balancing on chairs, a harmless habit—except when it dents a car.
He said something sad:
Please stop trusting me. That was just dumb of me.
We told him the usual:
You should’ve been more careful, it was just an accident, we have to pay for it, etc.
Because we couldn’t find out whose car was it, I wrote a small message on a napkin and my phone number:
Hey, this happened. Call me and we’ll pay the repair.
We went home. Before falling asleep at night, Gabriel said:
I don’t know if today was a good or bad day.
(Nerd comment: I thought about Kratos and Atreus in God of War, and how the former withholds warmth thinking that showing love might hurt Atreus in the long run. A complex topic, but probably an incorrect way to parent.)
I had forgotten about the incident until I got this message in the morning:
Hello, I’m the person whose car the chair hit on South st. Thank you so much for leaving a note, that was so kind. It was a rental car and Enterprise said not to worry about it, so you don’t have to worry about it either! Just wanted to say thank you again for the honesty. Have a great day.
I forwarded the message to Vivi and asked her to read the message to Gabriel. She said:
His whole face changed!
Then, I texted the person back sharing the whole story.
I guess I can also learn something about thinking long term and letting things like these go, faster and with less drama.
#day195