It was Camp\nLi-Lo-Li. I believe I had just turned\n8. My brother Ben was 6. We were \u201cbunny campers\u201d \u2013 children of staff\ntoo young for the regular program. Our\nmother was running the bunny camp program for all the kids, including us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the porch of the bunny camp building was a big toy box.\u00a0 In it, brother Ben and I discovered a train.\u00a0 We were having a great time playing with it.\u00a0 Another bunny camper, let’s call him Bratboy, ignored all the other available toys and insisted that he should also play with the train.\u00a0 We demurred, but Bratboy escalated to the bunny camp director (our mother) who decided that we were required to share the toy.\u00a0 This was not her usual tactic; I think she was trying to avoid the appearance of favoring us in disputes.\u00a0 In passive-aggressive brilliance, we handed the toy over to Bratboy and went to find something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later I remember\nseeing my mother resting from what I assume was a brat-fest-induced headache\nand she asked me if I thought it was unfair that I was required to share the\ntoy. I said it was. She looked defeated. I experienced a rare moment of feeling\nsympathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think that many parents have felt torn when they see a child selfishly keeping something from a sibling.\u00a0 I have always eschewed mandatory sharing.\u00a0 In general, my children are allowed to be selfish and they may find that this has natural consequences.\u00a0 It must be the capitalist in me.\u00a0 Fortunately, we have a decent-sized free market of economic near substitute playmates.\u00a0 A friend natural monopoly may require government regulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was Camp Li-Lo-Li. I believe I had just turned 8. My brother Ben was 6. We were \u201cbunny campers\u201d \u2013 children of staff too young for the regular program. Our mother was running the bunny camp program for all the kids, including us. On the porch of the bunny camp building was a big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}