Raising a little philanthropist sounds so great in theory. But in practice? I can't quite figure out how to get it going.
I
could do what parents did when I was growing up, which was to tell
their kids exactly how much of their allowance to turn over to the
church. But where's the lesson? The lifelong habit? We don't want
charitable giving to be motivated from guilt, right? And where should
the money go? Do kids get the concept of others in need?
Emily Bazelon, a writer for Slate, watched her sons get involved in charity --
one of them raising money to save an ophaned elephant in Kenya that had
fallen down a well. She asks whether it wouldn't have been more
relevant to raise money on behalf of orphans -- actual human ones -- in
their hometown, Washington, D.C.
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