When I'm Rich

Recently, the Mom of No decided it was time to become the Mom of Eating Healthier, and I subscribed to a cooking magazine that promised healthy and tasty recipes that my entire family would enjoy.  After perusing the recipes in the first issue, I realized that these might be healthy recipes, but they were also the kind that often require trips to more than one grocery store.

Nevertheless, I decided that I would persevere, especially since I'd already acquired some of the ingredients at grocery store #1. The Son of Never Stops Eating and I started roaming the aisles of grocery store #2 looking for 9 oz. frozen artichoke hearts, and it was then that he decided it was time to initiate an intense philosophical discussion about wealth and what one could accomplish with it.

Son: Mom, would you like to be rich?
Me:  I'd like to have enough money so that I could take care of everyone I loved.
Son: But what would you buy?
Me:  I don't know, maybe a new car.
(I had a feeling this was a "teachable moment", but I was hyper focused on finding the artichoke hearts in the freezer- were they with the broccoli? The edamame? the French-cut green beans?)
Son: I'd like a giant tortoise for a pet.  When I get rich and have my own apartment, I'm going to have a pet giant tortoise.

I've told my kids that there are different kinds of rich and while we might not be rich in money we are rich in love for each other, or rich in friendships, or rich in the community that we've created for our family. When I'd tell the Teenager (who was then the Elementary School Student) this in response to questions about being rich, she'd usually roll her eyes and say "Mom, not that kind of rich. I mean the kind of rich where you can go on cruises every year".

Unless you're a parent trying to impart valuable life lessons about what should and should not be important, I suppose "rich" generally means money. Not just some money, but rooms full of money. Driving down the freeway tossing dollar bills out of cars money. 

Except, of course, for the Son of Never Stops Eating.  His definition of rich is apparently having enough money to have an apartment and a pet tortoise. I'm not actually sure that you can legally own a giant tortoise, or that  a landlord would agree to rent an apartment to someone who owned a pet giant tortoise, and I have no idea what would happen to the giant tortoise if it outlived its owner, which it would probably do since they live for a very long time.  The Mom of No is definitely the Mom of We Are Not Getting a Pet Tortoise.

Maybe he could be convinced to stick with hamsters. An apartment with a pet hamster seems like an achievable wealth-related goal, and we already own all the hamster-related equipment.

I decided to ask more questions, since we still hadn't located any frozen artichoke hearts (although by this time, we'd acquired some cookies we probably didn't need, and some potato salad; the healthy eating experiment was not really off to a promising start). Also, I was really curious as to what he considered "rich". 

Me: How much money do you think you need to be rich?
Son: Well, right now I have $50 in my change jar.
Me:  So, is that rich?
Son: No. I need $100. Then I'll be rich and I can go to the Lego store and buy anything I want!
Me: How do you plan to get rich?
Son: I haven't figured that out.  Mom, questions are closed. Can we go home now?

Since we were both done shopping, I opted to go with canned artichoke hearts instead of the frozen ones that apparently exist nowhere, and we left the grocery store.  It's all going in the crock pot, anyway. Canned, frozen, does it really matter?

Apparently, however, the conversation was not closed even if questions from Mom were. 

Son: Mom, are you rich?
Me:  I'm rich in love.
Son: But I can't have a pet tortoise, can I?
Me:  Ha ha, no. Good try, though.
Son: (deep sigh).