A month or two ago I visited the little home in which I grew up. It was locked, but I found a window open and delicately placing my phone inside, took a picture of a shelf. The shelf was where a little glass bowl used to lie.
I don’t remember ever having to ask my dad or my mother money for my daily needs. All the money that was needed for the day lay in a small glass bowl. I can still see that bowl in my mind’s eye: It was made of delicate glass and had a simple painted design on it. Inside was the money which dad or mom put in every morning.
It met all the requirements for the day. It looked after bus fares, the loaf of bread for the evening, vegetables for the night’s dinner and all the other things needed to run the house. What was beautiful about the glass bowl was there was no accounting needed to be given for the money spent from it. Never did my dad call me and ask, “Bob what happened to the tenner I put in this morning?” or “How did the money get over so quickly?”
Nor do I remember spending anything unnecessarily from that bowl. Both my brother and I had quite a sweet tooth, but not a pie from that bowl went on sweets or chewing gum.
There was the kite season and the top season and the season to play marbles, which ran alongside the cricket and the hockey and the football season but not once ever did we buy kites of marbles or even a top from the money in the glass bowl. The glass bowl in our house was the symbol of trust. It was a silent assurance that a dad and mom trusted their two children completely.
How easy it is for us to be a little too careful. We don’t allow our children to handle our wallet thinking a few notes may disappear. What we need to do is to show them we trust them. Often it’s not just kids. The suspicious wife who doesn’t allow her husband a late night out with the guys; the man who stands outside his wife’s office waiting for the office party to get over; all need to practice the glass bowl effect.
Let your child handle your wallet; he’ll grow up to be an honest citizen. Allow your husband a late night or two with his friends; he may have a drink or two but the trust you have in him will prevent him from hiding and drinking and becoming an alcoholic.
Same with you suspicious husbands and boyfriends; build trust. The glass bowl in our house was the symbol of trust. It was a silent assurance that a dad and mom trusted me and made me want to be worthy of that trust..!
