“It's one of the worst-kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter, and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it - the better to preserve the good thing they've got going and to keep their siblings off their back.”
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No one ever pretended that shopping for anything is a rational experience. If it were, would there be Fluffernutter? Laceless sneakers? Porkpie hats? Would the Chia Pet even exist?
Becoming food savvy is one thing, but it's amazing how fast savvy turns to snooty, and snooty leaves you preparing three-hour meals that break your budget and that the kids won't even eat.
Spending $1 for a brand new house would feel very, very good. Spending $1, 000 for a ham sandwich would feel very, very bad. Spending $19, 000 for a small family car would feel, well, more or less right. But as with physical pain, fiscal pain can depend on the individual, and everyone has a different threshold.
In both children and adults, there can be a hard-to-deny link between a robust sense of hope and either work productivity or academic achievement.
