Author: Mollie T. Cox

Money

A Favorite Money Story

July 4th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

Jesus used the power of a story to help his disciples understand and remember spiritual truths. We can follow his example as we teach.

In Famer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the town has gathered for a 4th of July Celebration. A cousin dares seven-year-old Almanzo Wilder to ask his father for a nickel to spend on lemonade. Almanzo knows he will be denied, but he asks to save his pride. Instead of a nickel, his father shows Almanzo a half dollar.

It’s work, son,” Father said. “That’s what money is; it’s hard work.

He asks Almanzo to describe the process of raising potatoes. Almanzo complies.

That’s what’s in this half-dollar, Almanzo. The work that raised half a bushel of potatoes is in it.

Mr. Wilder gives the half dollar to Almanzo so he can buy a suckling pig—and raise a litter of pigs worth $4-5 each—or buy lemonade to drink. Almanzo returns to his peers who are envious when they learn that he is buying a suckling pig.

For a couple of years, “Suckling pig or suck lemonade,” was a way to remind our boys of wise financial choices.

Has a story helped you illustrate a principle?

Book Recommendations, Parenting

Protect the Colts

June 27th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

While playing with peers, my sons were exposed to inappropriate, harmful behavior. My husband and I made the hard—yet easy—decision that there must be adult supervision when our boys were with a certain child.

The day after we explained our unpopular stance, we providentially read aloud Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Young Almanzo wanted to train the two-year-old colts, but his father said,

A boy who didn’t know any better might scare a young horse, or tease it, or even strike it … It would learn to bite and kick and hate people.

When Almanzo persisted chapters later, he was told,

In five minutes you can teach them tricks it will take me months to gentle out of them.

Eventually, Almanzo went too near the colts. His father repeated his warnings.

That’s too good a colt to be spoiled. I won’t have you teaching tricks that I’ll have to train out of it.

We were accused of being overprotective, of taking mischief too seriously. We knew it was deeper.  Unexpectedly reading Wilder’s words—written over fifty years earlier—was encouraging. How much more valuable were boys than colts.

Have you received parenting encouragement from an unexpected source?

Homeschooling

Curriculum To Grow Into

June 20th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

The forty-something father held up a Christmas-present turtleneck and asked, “How do I know my mom gave this to me?” He answered his own question with “There’s room for me to grow into it.” We laughed even though clothes to grow into are never funny, not as children nor as adults—especially when our growth will not be in height.

He then told about childhood clothes that were worn out or ripped or not his interest by the time they fit. He felt like this happened too often until he was old enough to choose or buy his own clothes.

Along the way, I learned that curriculum to grow into was even worse than over-sized clothes.

By the time prematurely bought curriculum became age appropriate, it was forgotten, did not suit our current style, or something better had been published. Occasionally, I was simply tired of looking at it on the shelf and wanted something new. The money saved from snatching a bargain or planning too far ahead was not worth the eventual waste. Freshly purchased curriculum met needs better and boosted learning.

Are you waiting for something to fit? How is that working?

Friendship, Memories

Wound Openers

June 13th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

We all carry wounds we are unaware of until they are bumped, or worse, smacked.

After a church acquaintance discovered that she and I shared a hometown, she innocently asked, “Did you attend Grimsley or Page?”

“Smith,” I said. A thirty-year-old wound opened, and I wondered what my face revealed.

The wound? One Sunday morning, my sister and I scoured the newspaper pages announcing new high school boundaries. We rejoiced to find our street assigned to Smith. My sister could return, and I could join her.

Hours later, a fellow middle schooler slunk into Sunday School lamenting, “I have to go to Smith instead of Grimsley or Page. Students at Smith are stupid and wear overalls and don’t own shoes and are excused to harvest crops… my life is doomed.”  

My classmates commiserated.  My teacher consoled. I kept quiet. I did comfort myself with my knowledge: shoes but no overalls, a modern mall under construction nearby but no farms.

I didn’t fully understand that I still bore the wound until asked “Grimsley or Page?” which implied, “Surely, not Smith.”

PS Patricia liked Smith, and we became good friends during Algebra 2.

Any wounds being opened?

Decisions, Homeschooling

Homeschool Peer Pressure

June 6th, 2021
Mollie T. Cox

During decades of homeschooling and observing homeschoolers, I observed a cycle. We start by caring what non-homeschoolers think. Next, we bond with homeschoolers and arrive at a place where we don’t care what outsiders think. However, we care too much what other homeschoolers think—at times to the detriment of our family.

Homeschool peer pressure may keep us—or at least delay us—from taking a needed break from homeschooling, or abandoning a popular curriculum, or pulling out of group classes that do not meet our needs.

While being pressured to take advice from others, I came across a principle I still remember.

Decision-making belongs to the person who carries the responsibility for the consequences of the decision.

I needed that reminder.

During driver training, other drivers honked for our sons to turn right on red and into oncoming traffic. Honking encouraged other reckless driving. We told our sons, “It is your injury, and your regrets, and your court date, and our car, and our insurance premium if you have an accident. Not the person honking.”

Our family bore the serious consequences for our driving behavior, not hurried drivers. Therefore, our family made those decisions.

Anyone honking at you?