When the nurse laid my first sweet little baby boy in my arms right after his birth I looked at that squishy little innocent face and swore I would be the best mom in the world. Which for the next ten months meant catering to his every need: feeding him when he was hungry, rocking him when he whimpered, singing to him to sleep.

Then he learned to walk.

For the next few months I still catered to just about every whim but now I had the added pleasure of saving his life on a consistent basis. I made sure he didn’t fall down long flights of stairs, run into oncoming traffic, or eat dog poop. How could this boy not adore me?

A few months later when he started to talk I realized that he wasn’t totally thrilled by my valiant life saving efforts. In fact he was kind of pissed off. But I stayed the course and lovingly continued to do everything I could to protect him and make him happy.

Pretty soon with the whole talking thing he made it quite clear that he wanted stuff. I mean anything, anywhere, at anytime. He wanted gum balls from every machine we passed, balloons, McDonalds, ice cream, gum, Pokemon cards, a new bike, an iPod, an iTouch, an iPad, a new car. Okay he hasn’t asked for a new car yet but I know it’s only a matter of time. Actually, I am realizing it would be easier to give you complete list of things that he doesn’t want – which would pretty much be anything in the vegetable family.

I wish I could say that I held firm and didn’t overindulge him. But between working full-time and being a mother I often folded like a house of cards in the face of my boy’s demands because frankly it was way easier and dammit I was just tired.

On a side note my second son is nothing like this. He literally is happy if I give him the receipt from the shopping trip – for real. I’m pretty sure my oldest must have said something to him like “As the younger and smaller child you will just be happy that I let you live. Please don’t ask for anything that will take away from my efforts of total world domination or you will have to sleep with one eye open.”

If only I could turn back the clock and have a similar conversation with my #1 son when he was still young and naive – you know so like at six months. Unfortunately when I threaten him now he laughs at my hollow threats. Sigh.

Truth be told I’m not really put out by getting him little trinkets when we shop. I’m happy to reward him when we make it out of Safeway on a Saturday afternoon and he hasn’t destroyed the store or completely melted down. My frustration - no, the bane of my existence – is that he simply isn’t grateful. Oh sure, I’ve taught him to say the words “thank you, mama.” And he even remembers to say them like four times out of ten times. But what he doesn’t get is just how good he’s got it.

I know it’s not just my son. I hear plenty of moms complain about their children lacking the perspective to realize they have a pretty cushy life. And I haven’t heard a single good way to give a seven-year old boy a sense of how many people do without – short of pulling a Brangelina and taking him to a refugee camp in Africa or Cambodia.

I know he has the capacity to be grateful. When he was a year and a half old I walked the three-day breast cancer walk. It was the first time I had been away from him for any length of time and when he saw me after three days of separation he wouldn’t stop hugging me and refused to let me put him down. Which was surprising since this is my son who up to that point couldn’t bear to sit still or be in one place for more than 45 seconds – and even that was pushing it. Could the answer be that I simply need to take everything away from him for three days? Awesome visual but not sure of the practicality.

So for now I’ll continue to try to drill into his head how lucky he is. But I have a feeling he’s heading straight for a life lesson at some point. I’ll let him learn it the hard way like all privileged American children, when he signs for his student loans for college and spends the next five years of his life living on Top Ramen.

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