Sugar Daddy
by Kathy Brown on October 30th, 2009 | 0 comments
My father passed away a few years ago. As I listen to the nightly news and hear how tax dollars are thrown around, I remember an important lesson he taught me.
My college years were about to begin. I was the only girl, with two older brothers already at Iowa State, and I was following them there. Enthusiastically, I sat down at the kitchen table with my Dad one evening to listen as he explained the checking account he was opening for me in Ames. Having no understanding of banks or accounts, and wanting none, I gleefully grabbed the checkbook and bounded off for the first week of my independent life at school. After several stops at the drug store for cosmetics and hygiene products, a quick venture into the local dress shop, numerous treats for my friends and me at a restaurant featuring access to the juke box from your booth, and the obligatory acquisition of a term’s worth of books . . . I got a phone call. It was highly irregular to hear the deep voice of my Dad, and I knew someone was in trouble. I soon figured out it was me!
He sternly asked me to send him the record of all the checks I had written. Newsflash: there weren’t any. Next, he wanted to know what my current balance was. My explanation tumbled out: I thought when the money was gone they notified him to put more in. It never dawned on me that there were limits on what I could spend. What a horrifying thought! I had gotten so used to being taken care of that I had developed an attitude of entitlement which was fueled by my desire for things my peers had.
Does this sound vaguely familiar? Sugar Daddy government has forgotten something that I was taught quite quickly back in my twenties. It is that spending someone else’s money is easy and so much fun. But just as I received my notice as an air-headed co-ed, this present day spree will come to an end and the bill presented. We may wish for the old days when coveting things that are not affordable and shifting the debt of bank loans, houses, cars and appliances was frowned upon. We may even be thankful for those, like my dear old Dad, that had the sense to leave behind the memory of a Biblical worldview.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17
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