My son, bamboo, has started playing make-believe. It is probably due to the influence of his classmates at preschool, especially girls.
Here’s your check,” he says, but the gesture that follows makes me feel like a child living in the 21st century. He takes the adult’s phone in his hand, says “beep,” and presses it against a box of tissue paper on the tabletop, for example.
Instead, I imitate taking money out of my wallet and say to him, “Well, here’s 300 yen,” and he looks annoyed. He looks annoyed when I say, “Well, here’s 300 yen.
When I say, “Pay by PayPay,” he looks pleased. Then he picked up his phone and “beeped. Apparently, he is confusing NFC touch payment with QR code payment.
Perhaps a two-year-old does not yet have a good understanding of the concept of “money” and the rules of the world that services and goods come with a price and must be paid. If the concept of “electronic money” is added to this, I feel that their understanding of money will become even more limited.
It has been said for more than a decade that “the widespread use of electronic money will make it more difficult for young children to learn addition and subtraction.” I think that is true, but more than that, I feel that the opportunity to learn how to appreciate money will be damaged. We parents need to explain to him how important money is to us.
Otherwise, in the future, my greedy, evil son will pull my clothes off and say, “Give me money! Don’t be stingy! Don’t be stingy! and “Just transfer the value to this form! All you have to do is press the “beep” button! Just push the button! I’m seriously afraid that they will kick me. Children have no idea how hard it is to earn that money. If anything, they might make the mistake of thinking that they can get as much money as they want by buying shady information products on the Internet.
The word “PayPay” seems to be easy for children to speak, and I was surprised the other day when he kept calling out “Pay Pay” when he was humming.
For my part, I would like to see the Bank of Japan issue “digital Japanese yen” as soon as possible. It would be nice if the whole of Japan could go cashless, but I wonder if this is still not possible due to cost considerations.
(2023.10.14)
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