Want Not

Several of you have emailed me about yesterday’s dust-up surrounding the discovery that Amazon is carrying a self-published Kindle book about pedophilia, and Amazon’s subsequent refusal to pull the book from its library. I was emailing folks back one by one when I realized it probably just makes more sense to say something here.

I want to be perfectly clear about this:

1) I am—like everyone else, I’m guessing—horrified by the book in question. I would be delighted if it was never available to anyone, anywhere.
2) That said, in this age of the Internet (and Amazon’s self-publishing platform), anyone can release anything to the masses without any sort of quality control.
3) And finally—and this is where, I suspect, I’m going to get into trouble—I do not support the vilification of Amazon over their refusal to pull this book. Amazon is refusing to participate in censorship, and as someone who writes for a living, I respect that.

I completely respect your right to decide for yourself that you don’t want to patronize Amazon because you feel differently, of course. But I’m just telling you how I feel about it.

Two more things:
1) I read an excerpt from the book and feel confident that the whackjob who wrote it is too far into his own mental illness to provide anything in the way of “helpful tips” to fellow pedophiles,
and
2) I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. This last point is not really anyone’s business, but I share it because I’m not open to anyone coming and yelling at me about how we need to “protect the children!” I get it, believe me. In my opinion, we protect the children by making our best possible decisions about where they go and who they’re with, and educating and empowering them about their own bodies and rights… not by storming Amazon’s gates with pitchforks in hand.

Again, I’m not here to change your mind, because you’re entitled to your opinion. I just wanted to clarify mine.

[Edited to add: Amazon has now pulled the book, citing violations of their TOS.]

The lovely Crista writes:

My husband’s brother and his wife had their first baby this year. Hubby and I are thinking ahead to Christmas and we know it’s going to be a toy orgy. The parents can afford to get the kid whatever they want, and she is the first grandchild. Hubby and I want to do something different. For my sister’s kids, we adopt an Angel Tree kid or something similar. They love that idea and as they have gotten older have helped us pick out who to donate to. My brother is broke and they very much appreciate the clothes and books we give to their kids.

My in-laws are different. I don’t think they would appreciate the charity thing. And like I said, they don’t need us to buy clothes and books for their baby. We want to start a tradition. Hubby doesn’t like the idea of savings bonds, and that is the only thing I can come up with. I have thought of things like dance classes or paying for her sports, but that is a few years off, and what if she ends up not doing any of that. We want something we can start now and continue into infinity . Any ideas?

I think savings bonds are the obvious answer, Crista, but if your husband objects, there are a couple of different routes you can go, instead. (more…)

Carmie raised a point yesterday that I thought was timely and worth further discussion. She asked:

sking as a future parent of middle-schoolers…..do you let your kids hang on to their gift cash? Do they give you a portion? Do they have to save it all? Spend it all?

Obviously, my answer to this isn’t going to be right for everyone, but I’m happy to share what we do. And as with all monetary dealings when it comes to our children, I think the long-term goal should be teaching fiscal responsibility in a way that sticks. Demanding that all gifted money be immediately deposited into a savings account is certainly wise in the conventional sense, but if it leaves kids feeling deprived and not in control of their own money, they’re unlikely to make good choices once they have more freedom.

I’ve discussed my allowance philosophy here before; I believe in mandating some savings and charitable giving for our kids with the money they earn.

Now, cash gifts are (to my mind) a little bit different. I do not make my kids donate a portion of gifts to charity, just as I wouldn’t make them take a couple of markers out of the pack and donate them. Heh. Depending on the amount of money, we usually figure out a division of money to spend and money to save. If it’s a small gift, I’ll let them spend it. If it’s larger, we put some in the bank.

I also try to steer them towards purchasing something the giver would approve of (this isn’t completely necessary, of course, but again, I think it helps them to be more mindful). If it’s money from a peer, I’m more likely to let them spend it on toys. If it’s from a grandparent or older relative we usually go towards clothes or books.

How about you? I’m curious to know how other folks handle it. Hit me!

I feel somewhat disingenuous filing this under “Questions Answered,” as I’m not sure I really have an answer. But we’ll see what we can do. The very pretty Kim writes:

Lovely Mir,

I have adopted your gift closet approach to shopping year-round, but this holiday season, it is biting me in the butt. All of my husband’s family live on the West coast and we live on the East coast. When I took several boxes to be shipped the other day, the cost of shipping was equal to or more than the cost of the gifts inside the boxes! And I was shipping using the cheapest option available (i.e. UPS ground or similar). A couple were heavy, but even the light ones were pricier than I expected. All the money I have carefully saved over the year is lost in shipping those gifts across the country. Should I have shipped sooner, like before Thanksgiving? Are there other options I should consider (like Sherpas)?

After hemorrhaging all that money to UPS and FedEx, I am considering abandoning the gift closet approach for the holidays, and instead use something like Amazon Prime to ship them and have the parents/spouse wrap them for me. I won’t have the fun of wrapping, but even a year of Amazon Prime is less than I spent on shipping those boxes.

What’s a bargain-lover to do? (more…)