When I picked Jesse up from his friend's house yesterday, I found he had traded away all his Pokemon cards (clearly worthless) and all his Yu-Gi-Oh cards (a sizeable stack) for 8 Yu-Gi-Oh Elemental Heroes cards. I hemmed and hawed...we had encountered this situation before, with another friend, only that time we felt Jesse had taken advantage of his friend and made him undo the trade. After that incident, Randy and I had a long discussion about the value of letting the kids learn their lessons from trading, about whether a bad trade would ruin a friendship, etc., but I couldn't remember our conclusion. I didn't know the relative value of the cards, but I was pretty sure Jesse didn't either.
However the aunt of Jesse's friend was visiting, and she wasn't as conflicted as me. "All of his cards, for those few cards? That's not right. Give him back his cards." But they're all mixed up, the boys complained. So let's sort them out, I chimed in.
It ended badly, with Jesse crying behind the couch and threatening not to leave. But I waved my magic wand (loss of electronic privileges) and he followed me out to the car, where he promptly castigated me with language most effective for punishing an economist:
"Why did you make us undo the trade? That was a fair trade. We were both happy. It had nothing to do with you, but you made us undo it, and now we're both unhappy."
It wasn't quite true that it had nothing to do with me--I buy the cards--but still, I was incredibly proud of my budding economist.
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A similar thing happened with Jakob last year; he traded away his entire book of Pokemon cards for something of considerably less value (I can't even remember what they were traded for at this point, although Jazlyn tells me it was Yu-Gi-Oh cards). His reasoning?...
"Pokemon cards aren't cool anymore, Mom."
It took me a few days to get over that one, as it seemed outrageous to trade so much for so little. Later, when he got into the Yu-Gi-Oh cards, we decided to be a little more watchful while still allowing him to use his own discretion - especially with older boys who had no problem "ripping off" the younger ones for their valuable cards.
I don't think I even had a point here(?), aside from sharing a relatable story and to tell you that we're very much looking forward to seeing you all next week!
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