I look at my daughter and I see an entrepreneur. Okay, it is all in my head, but I want it with all my heart. Because entrepreneurs are the ones who find their passion, do something about their passion, rake in all the money and success and (have the potential to) make the world a better place.

I want that for my daughter. So I transferred her to another school.

It was a summer and I was learning about and loving finance, and the idea of a different school for my 9-year old daughter kept growing (gnawing) in my head – an entrepreneurial school that would give her a love of finance and help her find and inflame her passion. The next day, I started interviewing other schools. She was, at that time, enrolled in a traditional school – rigorous daily classes, heavy assignments, a bag with wheels that would make her shoulder stoop, teachers that taught but did not really teach. She had the burden to understand concepts that were taught to her in 30 minutes or less, and the burden to ask mother for help, yes, me, while I also tried to remember and understand concepts that I already buried in the annals of my memory. We were a mess. Well, me mostly.

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I always knew that I will be having 2 children. But child number 2 took a long time in coming. Nine years in fact.

I do not know why we waited but economics figured prominently in our decision to postpone having a second child. How much does a child cost? More than ten million pesos or some USD$266,698. That figure is daunting. Add to this the fact that our financial planner is saying that we have to have an obscene amount for the college funds of child number 1. Consider too that Filipino children stay in the coop for much much longer (say, forever). Thus, for a long while, child number 2 seemed a distant possibility.

But then, every time I looked at babies, I looked at them wistfully and felt the pang of wistful.

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I admit. I just recently read worldwide phenomenon Neil Gaiman and the first of his Sandman series.

I do not know if it was because I was pregnant, but my reading of it was occupied by vivid, haunted dreams. I am not sure if I will be able to read the rest of the series (sorry, Gaiman fans). Just wrong timing maybe. And hubby says he (or his artist) has since has developed the graphics for it. Because that was what made it a little horrible for me. Okay, the ideas it germinated too.

But having that comic book in my hands made me think of the comic book that launched dreams of riches in my head.

Richie Rich.

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I could not believe it.
We were at a store. I knew she needed shoes. I knew she has been needing them every now and then because her feet are getting big at least every two days. I led her to a store, with prices ranging from $30 to $40. I told her, “Choose whatever you want, hon.” She looked around, tried some on, looked at the prices and then sat down by me. “I don’t want to, mom. They’re too expensive.” I looked at her aghast and wondered what I would have said if my own mother offered me a buffet of shoes. I would probably have 5 in hand in 5 minutes. It’s just that it never happened. And now I have here my own daughter who can have every shoes she wanted, at any price, and then she tells me no.

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I’m easy.
I mean if you tell me you will not buy from me, I’m cool with it. I will not pester you or badger you. You will hear the end of it right there and then. Promise.
But (sigh), these are not the traits of a master sales (wo)man, traits that, Robert Kiyosaki assures me, will make me very rich.

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“What? You will not give each other any gifts for Christmas?!!!”

I had to laugh at the incredulous look on my sister-in-law’s face as I shook my head from side to side. She could not imagine that we would want no surprises or take no surreptitious trips to the market to find that certain something that would delight a lover.

We have taken the same route with my daughter, who chose her Monopoly game board, Here and Now Edition (electronic banking instead of paper money!), with care, over a coveted Baby Alive (she thought it was too expensive – I am so proud of her). We bought it and wrapped it together and I do not think her excitement waned or was lessened because she still waited for “the day” until she could play with it and play with us (she lost during our first game and wanted to cry but won during the second and got her confidence back – we do not believe in letting her win just because she is a kid).

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I remember a time long ago when “going green” was not yet the “in” thing but just “the right thing to do”.

Circa 1980’s.

We would wait patiently by the side of the road in front of our house for a faint cry: Dyaryoooo! Boteeee! (newspaaaaaaper, booooottles) And when we hear it, we would rush to our house, get all the old newspapers, put them in a stack, get our hands on old glass and plastic bottles – of fish sauce, vinegar, shampoo, softdrinks – and wait for a vision of an old scruffy man pushing a kariton (pushcart). He would waive to us and soon as he is “parked”, we would help him haul the newspapers to his weighing scale. He would then count the bottles, do some math in his head, give us some money (a few cents, some paper) and he would go his merry way. We would waive to mom (asking her for permission but vaguely so she could not say no) and go our merry way too – to the store where we would buy candies and ice-cold soda with the bounty. Such was the life.

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the power to dream of riches and making it come true lies at the core of one’s life – in one’s childhood. His views about poverty, about money, his poverty mindset (money does not grow on trees) and his wealth mindset (money grows on trees) start at that time which is at the root of all his memories.

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