What makes kids do what they do? I certainly don't have an answer, but I do know what I have observed, and it is more powerful because I wasn't expecting it.

For example, as I carefully pry the cookies off the baking sheet, I ponder this question. You see, not all the cookies are the same size, some are darker than others, and some (worst of all) have fewer chocolate chips in them. As my audience is a group of 7-10 year olds this causes me to worry: They notice stuff like that.

Then, I find myself thinking of which students won’t care if they get the smaller cookie with fewer chocolate chips, and it makes me wonder. Every single child that I think of who will simply be grateful someone brought cookies – homemade to boot!-- is a child I’m pretty sure has never had homemade cookies. The ones I worried about earlier, have. In fact, they have had so much done for them, and expect so much from others, that they are likely to either compare my cookies with other, better, cookies or, they might just walk by and say, “I don’t like that kind of cookie.”

After two years in rural public schools I have learned a number of things. One is that privilege does not equal character. That, in fact, many of the kids with the fewest outward privileges (financial security, opportunities to travel, extra curricular choices) are the ones who notice a fellow classmate struggling, and walk over to help. Or, admit they did something wrong and accept the consequences without large amounts of whining and arguing.

It is an interesting realization for me. I grew up with many of the perks, as did my own kids, and it makes me pause and consider. Children living close to or in poverty seem to find value in more permanent things rather than in stuff: In family. In small kindnesses. In unexpected cookies. It is a phenomenon I watch day after day and try to understand. From the kid who is given a pencil out of a box I bought on sale at Walmart who hugs me with tears in his eyes. To a child whom I have never seen wear new clothes, who brings in a new t-shirt she has just been given by a favorite aunt that has a cute cat on it, and gives it to a classmate, “Because she really likes cats.”

Kids who have very little give freely. Kids who have too much can be shockingly stingy.

It reminds me of part of a quote I have loved for years. The author points out that, when raising children, “If you burden them with an abundance of material toys their hearts will contract in possessiveness.” (From “Can You Make Room”)

I used to teach at a college where we had a large population of students from various African countries. Almost always, they were strapped financially and yet, they would always be as generous as possible, from cooking large meals for their dorm-mates, to lending whatever they had to someone in need. A few of them explained to me that where they came from you gave what you could if someone else needed it. It’s just what you did. Then, they continued, when you were in need you could be confident someone would help you.

It’s sad to think that the only way to learn this lesson is to be deprived of abundance. But is it? Sad, that is. The Stoics preached deliberate self-denial. I think I know why. When we are not overwhelmed with materialism, we see things more clearly. We are not so distracted by the baubles of life and that makes us happier.

I used to admire my African students for their generosity, but I found it hard to emulate. Now, seeing that same impulse to give in my young students, regardless of how much they have, I am learning how it works. Sort of. That the relationships you build as you are patient, or kind, or generous are what real wealth is made of. And, that when you need something you are more likely to find others willing and happy to help, as you have helped them. It’s not a cost analysis process but a larger, more intuitive sense of what matters. Kind of like the Golden Rule . . .

And it may just make for happier, less empty lives. Lives that, like my African and rural poor students, glow with a quiet generosity that is both approachable and wise. That leaves the last cookie for someone else, and doesn’t worry about how many everyone else got.