My Dad's Idea of Allowance? Allowing Us to Enjoy the Comforts of Home

Growing up on the East Side of the 1950s and 1960s, I knew very few kids who actually got an allowance. Oh, I had heard about it and had timidly mentioned the possibility, but my dad's response was I already got plenty of allowance. I was allowed to sleep in a warm bed in a secure house. I was allowed to eat food someone else bought and prepared. I was allowed to wear the clean clothes that he bought and my mom washed. And I was allowed to be a contributing member of a household. My parents provided us with all that we needed, and more.

You haven't really mowed a lawn until you've used one of these.

If there was anything special I wanted, I had two choices: I could work for it, or I could save my money.

Now, saving money was a little harder than you might think, since I rarely got any. Oh, there was the occasional dollar in a birthday card from an elderly relative or a few coins found on the sidewalk or fished out of the coin return in a pay phone, but that was it. (I was trained as a child by one of my grandmothers to never pass a pay phone without jiggling the coin return lever, because every once in awhile something would come out. Same thing with checking the slots in gum ball machines.

And whenever I did get some money, there were priorities. First, some of it went into the collection plate at our church on Sunday. Then most of the rest of it (if not all) went into the bank day envelope that I brought to school each week to add to my little savings account. Back in those days one of the banks (First National, I think; my Grandpa Harvard Ray was a vice president there) sponsored a program through the elementary schools where kids brought their envelopes with a nickel or a dime in it to school and the deposits were handled that way.

Entitlement had no place in my upbringing. The idea that I was owed something would have been a foreign concept. My siblings and I were expected to pitch in and do whatever we could to help out at home. We each were assigned age-appropriate tasks, and they increased as we got older. One of my earliest memories of helping was standing at the kitchen sink on a chair washing dishes. I also recall my sister and I sitting at the table polishing silverware. That was a fun job - smearing the paste around was almost like finger painting, and it became a game to see who could get their piece shiny first. The boys took out the trash, and we took turns watering the flower beds. Now THAT was a task we fought over on hot days, because it meant you got more on you than on the flowers. Moving the sprinkler around the lawn to water the grass got similar results.

We four older kids would accompany my dad to the grocery store to help fill the cart and carry the groceries. Once we got home we were expected to put them away, including the canned, boxed, and paper goods that went in our emergency stash in the fallout shelter in the basement. (Actually, it was just an old root cellar, but my dad referred to it as a fallout shelter. You have to remember this was back in the days that the threat of nuclear war with Russia was real. The Bay of Pigs incident was part of my childhood.)

And we mowed the lawn - with a rotary mower. No easy task when your front yard was a hill. We raked leaves in the fall, pulled dandelions in the spring, and shoveled sidewalks in the winter. Occasionally those tasks turned into money-makers when we found a neighbor without kids who would pay us. I babysat for kids around the area from about 10 years old on. I was expected to take at least one of my younger brothers or sisters with me wherever I went, and my inquiring about the possibility of getting paid to do that fell on deaf ears. But the kids I played with all had younger siblings they brought along, too, so it was just a part of life.

Before I was in kindergarten I was making my bed in the morning, right after getting out of it. I know I was in grade school when I Iearned to sew a button on and darn a sock with a light bulb stuffed in the toe. Household chores were the norm, and it was the same thing at all my friends' houses.

You might argue that giving kids allowances teaches them to manage money. From my perspective, I believe it teaches them to expect something solely by virtue of their existence. I think the best way for kids to learn about money is to have to earn it.

We DID learn to manage money, and manage it well, since it was so hard to come by. Perhaps it was due to my dad's Scottish heritage, the Scots being notoriously parsimonious. Or maybe it was because his father was a banker and something of a tightwad. But for whatever reason, I grew up understanding the value of working to earn something. My parents also taught us to plan and budget as well as prioritize our spending. The church came first (giving to others), saving came second (putting away for the future), and if there was something left over, you were very, very careful about what you did with it. Nine times out of ten I put that in the bank, too. And it paid off. My freshman year in college, that little school savings account paid for my first year's tuition, books, and fees.

From time to time something special would come up, and my siblings and I would have to come up with a plan to pay for it. My dad was given a bumper pool table without balls or cue sticks, and us kids had to earn the money to buy them. When we wanted an aquarium, we started our 'fish fund.' And the year I turned 15 my dad had the opportunity to go to Anaheim for a business convention. The company would pay for air fare for him and my mom and lodging at the Disneyland hotel, since it was close to the convention center. They even provided park passes. The only catch? Us kids had to come up with the air fare for all five of us. And that meant working together so our trip fund covered all of us. No small task since the youngest was 5.

Dad gave us plenty of notice about the trip, and so we began our war on poverty. As the oldest, I was expected to spearhead things, but we brainstormed together. My brother put in his paper route money, and we helped him fold his papers so he could get done quicker and do other things. We did our regular snow shoveling and babysitting for the neighbors, but we had to come up with more than that because it wouldn't be near enough We needed to sell things!

At Christmas Dad brought home the bow maker machine from the 3M company store, along with rolls of ribbon and those little push pins (cost to be deducted from whatever we sold). We took turns cranking the machine and bagging up the bows. Then we went house to house selling them. My youngest sister Suzanne rode in the plastic toboggan and stood at the door smiling, holding out the bags. I think we made lots of sales because she was so adorable.

Cindy taught Suzanne to use those metal looms and fabric loops to make pot holders in rainbow colors. I think every kitchen on our block at a few of those. The moms had heard about our project and were doing their bit to help. Of course, nothing we sold cost very much, which is probably why we were successful.

And then there were the pet rocks. Back in the early 1970s painted rocks as paperweights and door stops were popular. My brothers went out rock hunting, and my younger sister Cindy and I painted them (cost of paint, of course, deducted from the profits). Suzie washed paint brushes and helped us clean up.

We even scoured the area for empty glass pop bottles we could turn in for the deposit money. That one did cost us though, because in one scavenger hunt behind an old dumpster, my brother stepped on a rusty, dirty piece of metal that pierced his shoe. He had to get a tetanus shot, and we were expected to contribute to the cost of the doctor visit.

In spite of our occasional expenses, when the time came for the trip, our big glass jar held more than enough for 5 kids' airplane tickets plus plenty left over for snacks and souvenirs at the park. It was the best summer ever! There was quite a bit of satisfaction in knowing we were there partly because we had earned the right to be. My dad figured that since we had worked so hard to get there we deserved a little extra, and so we went to Knott's Berry Farm and drove to San Diego to go to the zoo and Sea World.

Giving kids an allowance? I'd say my dad allowed us plenty - to experience the realities of life as well as the satisfaction of success. Thanks, Dad.