Stealing from His College Fund to Pay for His Future

No, this isn't the story of how I robbed my child's 529 so I could buy him a hockey kit in the hopes that he'd one day become a famous NHL player (although I'd totally do that). This is the story of a walk to the train station that I took this week.

On my way to work, I always have a buck in my pocket for my paper guy. He hangs out outside my coffee house and sells the local homeless newspaper. Now, I don't like newspapers. I don't like the extra paper waste or the fact that I only ever want to read a few pages anyway, and then I grump at the wad of stuff I have to carry around until I find a recycling bin.

But this guy is great. He's cleaned up his life (he went sober on his birthday one year, making the anniversary an easy one to remember) and he works for a living. But that living isn't much--I've never asked him if he's still homeless, but that's not really my business anyway. He's doing his job and he's lucky to have one (as am I).

So one day, after weeks of him greeting me happily and shooting the occasional breeze, I said to him "I don't want a paper, but I'll buy one off you anyway." I gave him a dollar and I let him resell the paper I just bought.

Yes, I do realize that what I did was just give him a dollar (which didn't make it back to the paper, and frankly, wasn't supposed to), but it was the thought of the thing. I didn't want the paper, but I wanted him to get paid--for being a genuinely cheery person, if nothing else.

I "buy a paper" from him fairly often. I also give money to other people who ask for it when I have an extra buck. It's not hugely often because I always give dollars, never coins--loose change, I keep for my son's college fund.

When I was younger, I asked my family for money for Christmas one year. It was to buy my own new shiny computer. Imagine my surprise when my eldest brother gave me a gigantic pink piggy bank. Now, this could have been the sort of gift that says "stop begging money off the rest of us and save it yourself, Peace," but it was stuffed with a $50 bill, so I didn't complain.

I did, however, keep the pig. Have for 25 years. And I use it--I usually collect a couple hundred dollars of spare change in a year, which is a nice wad to use for a birthday dinner and whatever I'm into at the time. But once we started trying to build a family, that pig became ourchildren's college fund pig. All spare change goes into the pig and, once a year the pig donates its innards to a savings account that is never touched.

So any spare change is our son's, and we joke that, when we spend change, we're stealing from his college fund. Except that, a few days ago, it was amazingly windy and cold and just miserable. And there was a guy outside of one of the convenience stores I pass by on my way to work. And I didn't have a dollar, but I did have about 75 cents in change. I dropped my son's college fund into a street guy's paper cup.

Am I a bad parent? Well, probably, but not because I gave away that money. One problem I find with the world--especially in big cities, for some reason--is that everyone thinks everyone else is out for something. Everyone's got an angle, right? That homeless guy? Probably not homeless at all. And if he is, he's probably only using the money to get high or something.

I don't think that's always true (I'm not naive enough to think it's never true). I think sometimes, people are just down on their luck. And if you have 75 cents, is it that bad a thing to give it to them?

What does this have to do with my son's future? I think respect for everyone is one of the most useful lessons we can impart to our children. I think that meeting someone's eyes when they ask you for money--even if you quietly say "I'm sorry, I have nothing to give"--is an act of respect that teaches a child a lesson. Homeless people are invisible and rudely ignored and so are small children in trouble and women being beaten and countries full of people being murdered by their own governments. It's a brutal fact of life and it just shouldn't have to be.

So maybe, just maybe, tossing 75 cents to an invisible man and thanking him for his "God bless you" as I walk away isn't stealing from my son's college fund at all--it's just making a down payment on a more compassionate, respectful, visible world for him and his children.