The Boy with Three "Tế"s
Today the school took the kids to the supermarket. Everyone brought about two hundred thousand dong. Each person picked out their own things, made their own decisions, and was responsible for their own money.
In the afternoon, Boons came running into the house, holding his first trophy: a toy giraffe with a springy neck that you can twist and stretch in all sorts of ways. If you open up the giraffe's butt, there’s... candy inside. Little round white candies, like tiny eggs. 🦒
He handed Mom some leftover money.
— I still have some left after shopping.
Mom thought that was the end of it. But Boons kept going, sounding very serious.
— I also bought a present for you, Mom.
It was a Lego set you can build into a flower pot. Mom paused for a second. Turns out he remembered she likes plants and flowers. 🌸
Mom got curious and asked:
— Did your teacher tell you to buy something, or give a presentation or anything?
— No. She just let us go in and pick whatever we wanted.
Mom asked again:
— What about the other kids? Did anyone else buy something for their mom?
— Yeah. Someone even bought a "diaper" for their mom.
Mom laughed to herself. "Diaper" in quotes. These kids... they’re something else. And pretty clever too.
Mom asked more:
— Why didn’t you spend all your money? It’s not often I let you go to the supermarket.
— I thought we’d go somewhere else after, so I saved some. But then we just went home.
Ah, so he knows how to plan ahead.
In the end, he summed it up himself:
— The giraffe is fun to play with and you can eat it too. At first I was going to get you a stuffed animal, but then I thought it would just sit there. This Lego, you can play with it, it’s what you like, and it looks nice on display too.
After hearing that, Mom could only nod.
Yep. He knows how to care. He knows how to plan.
Like Dad always says, a man just needs four "Tế"s: Tinh tế (thoughtful), Thực tế (practical), Kinh tế (financially savvy), Tử tế (kind).
He’s got three of them already...
The "financially savvy" part still depends on Mom and Dad for now.
Let’s just call that OK for now. 😊
