Community post

Ok, so totally not ttc related. So, Kenny (DS) has been cutting the neighbour's lawn, front and back for a cpl months now. They went "back home" for the summer and he was asked if he would do it and she'd pay him when he got back. No problem, he needs something productive to do during the summer. Ok so he cut the lawn on avg, every 10 days. Sometimes once a week, sometimes once every 2 wks due to the ridiculous amount of rain we had in June. Either way, she was paying him for every two wks...fine, fair enough. So she went to pay him today, after we'd (DS, hubs and myself) already discussed and agreed that $30 was fair, and she sends her son over with $70. We (DS and I) both pretty much said at the same time "woah, thats too much!". So he went over to return some of it and tell her it was too much. Not paying attention, he gave her back $50. She offered a 20 and he said no thank you and left. He gets home and realizes he just made $20 for a summers worth of work. Kenny is a very sensitive kid. If he's upset, he does his best to hold it in, but it always ends in tears. So he goes to the kitchen to empty the dishwasher and I *just* caught sight of the side of his face and it was red. Poor kid was bawling. I feel so horrible for him. He tried to do the right thing and not take advantage of our neighbour. She's from the Middle East and not great with English or what's a good pay for what job, and he just wanted to do the right thing and ended up ripping himself off in the process. I know it's a life lesson and hope he learns from it, but I feel absolutely horrible about it all. I told hubs about it (he's still in Saskatchewan) and he says "u shouldnt've told him to give some back". Yeah, cuz that's how I wanna raise our kid, to take advantage of ppl. That pissed me off, was shocked he said that to me, tbh. We aren't dishonest ppl...geez I couldnt rip someone off if u paid me. I wouldnt be able to sleep at night. It's a flaw I guess. I may be a complete c*nt sometimes, but I wont intentionally take something that isnt mine and I wont teach my kids to do so either. So, here I sit, feeling horrible that he's learning his first real lesson in life, and as much as I wanna give him the rest of the money, I dont want him thinking we're gonna bail him out of everything. I want him to think before he does something that cant be undone. Ugggh! Not that that helps me feel any better. Geezus, seeing him cry broke my fucking heart!! =((