The Great Depression

Rohan and Casey have been making their Christmas wish lists. Rohan's list included a Wii, ping-pong table, numerous video games,  expensive Star Wars Lego packages and every day includes more big ticket items. Then yesterday he and Cecilie went out to buy new sneakers for basketball and Rohan informed her he wanted some expensive "Iverson" shoes. This prompted Cecilie to give him some straight talk about our current situation, namely: Dad is going to lose his job in the next few months, the stock market just crashed, and the last time it happened to this degree we had the Great Depression and so our priorities are about saving money and not spending it. She explained to him there is a reason we are using coupons and trying to be extra careful with our money while it is still coming in.

Today in church one of the speakers told the story of a mentor he had who had grown up during the Great Depression. As a boy this man had two paper routes and got up at 4:00 am to work three hours delivering papers before school. His brother did the same and between them they were earning 20% of the families income (he was 8 years old). Despite his efforts the family eventually had their electricity cut off, then the gas, and were finally foreclosed on and evicted from their home. Rohan was paying attention to the speaker and probably thinking about his talk with Cecilie the night before.

This afternoon we noticed that Rohan's list on the fridge has all of the items scratched out with a note below them that reads, "Rohan doesn't need presents cause of the Great Depression." It is nice to see Rohan growing up and being willing to do his part to contribute to the well being of the family.