Are You Freaking Kidding Me?

Parenting can be tough! Wow, there’s an understatement.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by work, and paying bills, grocery shopping, laundry, birthday parties, book orders, and lunch money. There are too many opportunities to mess up, to make your kids feel bad, out of place. There are too many times where you console your children for things that seem unfair, even when you’re not the culprit or the bad guy. There are too many times where you come across a situation, and you are just trying to hang on for dear life, and then afterwards, you realize you may have missed an opportunity to teach your kids something valuable in that moment.

And then sometimes you’re reminded that you are getting it right.

A recent nightly ritual that has popped up in our household is K and I watching Stewart and Colbert reruns (usually from the night before) while I clean up the kitchen and cook dinner. Is it somewhat inappropriate for a twelve year old? Certainly. My son, however, has become increasingly cognizant of current events, and well, I know the straight news can bring ME down. I can only imagine the impact it would have on a moody tween.

At least Stewart and Colbert make you laugh!

Ant is usually doing his own thing, doing what seven year olds do to decompress after a long day at school. It usually involves Ben Ten action figures.

Yesterday I was bringing my A-game to the dinner routine. I had the kitchen cleaned up and Greek pizza in the oven in record time. I had everyone sitting down at the table before the Colbert rerun was over. (I had incentive; it was the new Alcatraz episode of Ghosthunters at eight.) K begged me to allow us to finish watching the episode while at dinner, although I usually turn off the TV.

That’s when I saw Kwedit, and thought to myself, “Are you FREAKING kidding me?”

In case you missed it, Kwedit is a website that allows minors to pay online games, and pay for them later. If they don’t pay their bills, it gives them a bad Kwedit score, and doesn’t allow them to buy more items. They can emails friends and family and beg them to pay their bills.

If they don’t spend money in the online games, they can’t play. This isn’t for game extras, like in FarmVille. This isn’t to buy the game itself. This is to buy virtual crap in order to continue to play the game.

This site is completely legitimate, and parades itself as something that teaches teens fiscal responsibility.

Except that the games aren’t really geared for teens. I don’t know a tween in my life right now who would be interested in playing FooPets, much less a teen. Just who is this really geared to, then?

Ant was the first to speak, “Oh, Momma, that’s bad news! You don’t use money online if you’re a kid! They will get kids in trouble everywhere!”

Very astute, kid! What parents need now is another unexpected bill to pay! Like the text messages on the cell phone bill aren’t scary enough.

K was a bit more upset, “ That’s total crap, Mom. They’re not teaching you to be responsible. They’re teaching you to use Kwedit to buy more stuff.”

This is my opinion as well. J and I did everything we were supposed to do: we saved money and got a 30 year fixed rate FHA mortgage, we made down payments on cars, and paid the monthly statement, we had credit cards for emergencies, and then ended up being maxed out when the emergencies struck.

It just kept getting worse from there.

Now we are digging out, and we’re awfully darn proud of ourselves for the way we’ve been able to handle it. We were able to do it under our own terms, and it feels good. We know just how lucky we are—others have not been as fortunate.

We also have serious doubts about using credit again, at least in the near future. I’ve never felt so physically insecure as I did when we were trying to sell the house and pay the bills on just my salary alone. I don’t like that feeling of being trapped under a weight I can no longer carry, with no safety net.

People out there have done the wrong thing with their credit cards. This is not to say I’m blameless, because we had done it as well. We didn’t need to go out to dinner, we didn’t need to buy the new skirt, we didn’t need to do this, or that, or the other.

Children playing games online don’t need to do these things either. The best thing Kwedit may be teaching children is that you can dick around buying stuff you don’t need, but you will still have to pay your bills. Unless you pass the duck, of course.

More likely, the lesson is more insidious. Perhaps it’s just another marketing gimmick to make children consumers at even younger ages. All under the guise of, “Learn how to manage money in a real world scenario.” Maybe it is to teach the underpinnings of our current consumer economy to younger and younger spenders. Get them indoctrinated young- it is the backbone of our economy we’re talking about here, after all.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it is the way I feel. Children should not be overly concerned with how they spend their money. They should not be allowed to dig themselves a whole that they cannot get out of—and when you can buy a virtual doghouse for $400, and then pass the duck, well, that’s a pretty big hole!

Whatever happened to saving your allowance or babysitting money to buy yourself something you really thought you wanted, to realize you didn’t want it so bad after all?

And yet, this is what our current culture concerns itself with at the moment, and in that way, Kwedit is an extension of the cultural transmission passing from parent to child right now. Perhaps this is why I find I to be so very frightening…It’s so very real, and rings so very true…