I recently found a card in my son’s Pokémon collection — bent, creased, clearly well-loved. My son is only six, so my husband and I usually know where his cards come from, but I didn’t recognize this one. I figured a friend had given it to him or he’d traded for it in preschool when all the kids were bringing their cards to class. Out of curiosity, I looked up what it was worth. If it had somehow survived in perfect condition, it could have been worth around $3,000. I died a little inside.
But to him — and probably to whichever friend gave it to him — it was just another cool card. Something fun, something he liked, something to use. Kids value things based on excitement, not economics. They love things loudly and immediately, without any thought to preserve them.
Meanwhile, my husband was wincing every time another card bent a little. He kept reminding our son to be careful, to keep the “special ones” safe, to protect them from the chaos of kid life. And as I watched them, I wished he would just let him be a kid.
It wasn’t until later that I realized I do the exact same thing! Just with different objects.
I still have limited-edition dolls from a previous stage of life, the ones I once imagined passing down someday. They’ve stayed in their original boxes, tucked away in my closet for years. My boys have zero interest in them, but even if they did, I don’t think I could hand them over. And then there’s the designer handbag I never use because I’m afraid of it losing value “just in case” I ever decide to sell it. Will I actually sell it? Probably not.
We assign value to different things for different reasons. Some comes from nostalgia, some from habit, and some from what society tells us is worth protecting. My husband doesn’t understand why a doll in a box or a bag in a dust cover matters to me just as I don’t fully understand how a glossy piece of paper can hold so much weight for him.
And our kids?
They’re not thinking about any of this.
They’re too busy enjoying whatever is in front of them.
So there we were: one adult trying to save a bent Pokémon card, another adult guarding dolls and handbags, and a six-year-old simply using what he loves. All of us placing value on different things for different reasons, none of them wrong… just uniquely ours.
The crinkled card is sitting in a pile with the rest of his cards, uncovered and unprotected.
My dolls are still in their boxes, high on a shelf in my closet.
The handbag stays in its dust bag.
And when I look at all of it together, it feels less like a contradiction and more like a reminder: we all value things differently — shaped by who we are, what we’ve lived, and what we’ve been taught to care about.
