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The Source of Isaac's Mystery Money
By STEPHEN KREIDER YODER and ISAAC S. YODER
STEVE: Three Mason jars with money inside sit on the floor by the head of my teenage son Isaac's bed. I noticed them there several weeks ago when I went looking for him.
He wasn't there, and I haven't yet asked him where this jar money comes from. Maybe I'm tired of asking: I know from experience what the answer will be -- and that it will still leave me wondering.
You see, the Mason-jar money is just the latest incarnation of the Teenage Mystery Wad.
Since he was about 13, Isaac has always had a stash of cash somewhere in his room -- sometimes in a box, sometimes in a drawer, often in a simple wad with a rubber band around it.
The first time I saw his mystery wad I asked him where it came from. "Allowance and stuff" was the answer. But that didn't explain how he came to have, on one later inspection, nearly $100. Later, an even bigger wad was "band money" that he and his buddies had pooled to buy a bass guitar, and then a used drum set, for their band.
Yeah, but where did it come from? "Allowance and stuff."
It's not just Isaac: His older brother had a mystery wad, too, and his younger brother has one in his desk drawer.
I did an unscientific poll of a few parents I know. My conclusion: There's a proliferation of mystery wads. Sometimes it's hidden. But often it simply surfaces on its own.
"I don't bother to look for it because I don't even want to see it," reports one mother. But she can't help it: "It's on the dresser, or in pockets, or in the laundry, or in backpack pockets."
I'm sure there are parents out there who have succeeded in teaching their teens to account rigorously and defensibly for every dollar of income and expenditure.
Yet, fairly universally, parents I talk to don't have a clear idea of where all of the mystery money comes from. Some suspect a diversion of school-lunch money, or of hoarding unreturned change the kids technically owe their parents. Another mother wryly jokes that her son may be "selling something."
In many cases, there doesn't appear to be anything nefarious about the wad -- it's more a sign that kids haven't learned to take care of their money and perhaps don't value it quite enough.
Maybe that's another reason I've largely stopped demanding to know the source of the mystery wad: Its continued existence is unwelcome evidence that I've failed to inculcate generally accepted accounting principles in my son. Or maybe I worry about hypocrisy: I was a poor accountant of my own money stash as a teenager, yet I became a fiscally responsible adult.
I probably don't have anything to worry about. In the end, the biggest reason I don't ask about the wad's provenance is that I want to trust Isaac. Still, I feel I have the right to know where my teen's money comes from.
Well, better late than never. Let's find out now. Where, exactly, does the Mystery Wad come from, Isaac?
ISAAC: I had nearly forgotten about these three Mason jars when my dad brought them up. So I decided to dump them out on my bed and see what exactly makes up this so-called mystery wad.
Out of the first jar came a pile of small change I had collected in middle school: $14.78 in total. Spider webs covered the forgotten pennies, nickels and dimes, and two dead spiders laid among the coins.
The second jar was what my friends and I used to call "The Jar," a place to keep the money we collected together for band equipment. After using the money for equipment, it has been reduced to two rolls of quarters worth $20 in total. Not much to worry about there.
The third jar was possibly the least mysterious of all, stuffed full of gift cards, foreign currency, bank statements and an old camcorder cassette from years ago.
Not a single American bill was in any of these three jars. It's as if my dad is quick to jump to conclusions of foul play anytime something is a little unclear.
That said, my dad's suspicion isn't entirely off base. Though my own "wad" has always been from allowance or jobs, the band money wasn't always obtained through legitimate means. In a well-planned diversion, my friend and I channeled all of our lunch money into "The Jar." By packing plenty of food for myself and secretly packing a second lunch for my friend (who was given money for food only if he didn't bring lunch to school), we were able to collect hundreds of dollars, over the course of a year, for our cause.
But that was years ago, and I can't for the life of me think of another time when I've had money that came from a mysterious source. So why is my dad so suspicious anytime I have money stored in my room?
Sure, I know plenty of kids at school who, if I were their parent, I would be suspicious of illicit activity anytime they had more than $20 stored up. But it seems like it should be pretty obvious where I've gotten my money, considering how many summer jobs I've had, and all the paid umpiring I've done over the years -- not to mention my regular part-time job.
My advice to parents: If you can trust your kid, don't worry about the wad -- it's probably nothing all that mysterious or all that illegitimate. But go ahead and ask your kid where the money is from; if it's legitimate, they'll be able to tell you so.
As Ronald Reagan loved to say: "Trust, but verify."
(Oh, all right, I didn't think of that last sentence myself: My dad suggested it.)
Steve Yoder is chief of The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau. His son, Isaac, is 17 years old and a senior in high school. |
