There are some burdens in life you carry forever. These are memories of things you wish you hadn’t done, but did nevertheless. Here is one such burden that I have been carrying for years.
It was a stupid chewing gum that started this whole thing. The gum came with some kind of a scheme in which they were giving away toys after you collected a certain number of gum wrappers (I was drolling over a specific diecast car, if I remember correctly). The temptation started as a way of competing with other kids who proudly displayed their toy trophies to me.
Any kind of chewing gum was totally frowned upon by my parents at that time (and correctly so); and hence, there was no way I had the guts to ask them for money to buy the gum. To make matters worse, the little shop that sold the stuff (which was about 10 steps away from our condominium), seemed to beckon me to go forth and indulge - by hook or by crook.
Then one day, in a moment of desperation, I did it - I stole some money. Of all the places in the world, I stole the money from a place of worship (probably because that’s where money was least guarded). Later, I realized that whatever I stole was not enough to buy that particular gum - so, I stole some more [I am talking about a piece of chewing gum here, so you can imagine how much I stole].
Finally, I bought my first chewing gum from stolen money. I was closer to the diecast car, but not there yet. So, I stole some more and bought more gum. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
And then, after a few gum purchases, it happened.. I got busted. My parents probably realized that I was becoming too religious (always ready to visit the place of worship and stuff) 
or probably the shopkeeper mentioned my little secret purchases to my parents. Whatever was the reason, it brought my gum affair to an abrupt end.
Many learning moments followed - for both me and my parents, and I eventually realized the gravity of my actions. I was remorseful and wanted to return the money back to the place from where I had stolen it. However, since I had already spent it on the gum, I didn’t have anything to give back. At this point, my parents did something clever - instead of giving me the entire amount to return it to it’s rightful place, they tied me to a small chore allowance. Every time I received my allowance, I was to apply my earnings towards returning the stolen money - by physically taking it back to the place of worship and apologizing to the caretaker each time. Believe me, it was much more painful (and pretty humiliating) than just returning the entire stolen amount at once and saying sorry.
It took me four (may be five - I don’t remember well) trips, over a few weeks, to give back what I had wrongfully taken, and every trip was made laborious by the weight of the stolen money.
More than 20 years have passed since then; the burden has reduced a lot, but I can still feel it at times. I wonder when it will go away. Maybe I can put a closure to it when I tell this story to my kid and save him/her from ever carrying the weight of stolen money.
Or maybe not.
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No need to feel guilty about it still. If you had not stolen the money in the first place, you might not have learned your lesson at such a young age. Do you think it’s just coincidence this lesson was taught to you at a church? Forgiveness is found very easily there.
agree with above comment, which was said so well. you’ve shared the story with all of us. please don’t carry that weight any longer
Isn’t it strange what haunts us from the past. It’s so easy for others to say don’t worry about it, yet we do. I often wonder about all the daft purchases I made as a kid - all those dreadful Donny Osmond, David Cassidy and Bay City Roller albums. What if I’d saved all that cash? How much better off would I be now? I could probably have paid off my mortgage!
I still occasionally feel guilty about the only thing I ever actually stole — Cabbage Patch Kid Crayons in kindergarten, from a peer’s desk. Not like, keep me awake at night guilty, but a small twinge. (I never got caught, but felt so bad I snuck them back into her desk a week later.)
Take heart, though — it’s those early childhood experiences that mold us into honest adults.
I think your parents did the smartest thing to do. I bet you never steal anything else after the fact!
I got caught by my parents too when I was a child. Having to go back and reimburse the stolen money was so humiliating as you said that I never did it again!
Thx for sharing this story, that brought back a lot of memories
It is very easy for kids that don’t have quite enough judgment yet to realize what they are doing is wrong. Thanks to your parents, you learned a valuable lesson. You should treat this as a good experience because what came out of it is good.
When you tell your kids, you might want to divert them to your post here years down the road
Kids do stuff like this, their parents teach them that it is wrong and as an extra bonus teach their kid how to parent. All part of growing up, you don’t need to feel as ashamed about it anymore.
I have a similar story, but with ice cream. The amount was a few dollars, but I stole it by prepending a dollar number before a .50 gift certificate to an ice cream franchise.
Unfortunately, I didn’t learn my lesson, and my greed (and dishonesty) went unchecked. 15 (or so) years later my greed lost me (almost exactly) 1000x that earlier dollar amount (it wasn’t stealing that time, it was just greed biting me). Some folks would call that karma.
My dishonesty caught up with me 5 years earlier, but it’s not money-related so I won’t relate it here. I have learned my lesson there though, too.
Getting caught is the best thing that can happen; coming clean / or at least making good (a la Dancinghawk above), as soon as possible, is the second best thing.
LOL, you people really feel guilty for (incredibly minor) stuff you did as a kid?
You are looking at the memory through the eyes of an adult, and applying morals and lessons to the event retroactively that you learned as a result of the event itself.
Don’t you see how messed up that is?
JM, it’s messed up only if you’ve missed the subtext that a lesson not learned costs more than a lesson learned saves. The sight may be hind, but the this real: getting caught sooner is the best outcome.
When you were a kid, did you not learn (or fail to learn) things that you were only able to articulate and put into other contexts as an adult?
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