Sharing Is Stupid
My boys once had a neighborhood friend we all grew to love. Notice how I said that: grew to love. It took a couple of years. When he was just a little guy, probably three years old, he would come toddling into our yard while my 1-year-old was playing with the big toy dump truck that one of his aunts had gotten him for his birthday. He would swiftly grab it from my son, who was a pretty laid-back kid. My son’s eyes would grow wide when he realized what was happening, and my son would snatch back the truck that he had been playing peacefully with for the last 30 minutes. The neighbor kid would look up at me and say accusingly, “Jay won’t share!!!” I would do what any good mother trying to teach her children valuable life lessons in a somewhat- functioning society would do: shrug my shoulders and suggest the neighbor boy play with a different toy or go home and play with his own. It didn’t take long for the neighbor kid to realize that he wasn’t ...