Although the headline reminds us of Sesame Street, we are not talking about the space field but about the economic policy of the country and how the State works. Economic policy, the operation of the state and how nothing is free in the strictest sense of the sentence, in order to explain to our offspring the basic notions about state and economy.
The first pedagogy that parents have to do is that they themselves are aware that absolutely no public service received is free and the second teaching and reflection goes through having enough intellectual honesty to explain to our children the different forms of social and economic organization, whether we like them or not.
Nothing is free: public spending and taxes
The first approach to public spending that we have to make to our children is about the value of the school, health, public lighting, sanitation infrastructure or public works (roads, rail ...). Our children must learn that the school is not free, hospitals either, that the medicines they take in a hospital are paid by someone, just as someone pays for the works and maintenance of a road or street lighting.
That someone is called the State (we can see differentiation at the regional, local level ...) and that State gets the money from the taxes paid by all citizens.
Here we have to introduce the tax concept and since our children should already know that parents are paid to work, we must also explain that part of the money they pay us, is destined to pay all those expenses that we use in general and that we give it to the State via payment of taxes, to have schools, hospitals, roads ...
How many taxes do my parents pay?
Explaining to a child all the taxes that exist, how they are calculated and how much they are, is practically impossible, given that the parents themselves do not even know in most cases the taxes they pay.
However, our children should know that taxes are paid progressively to the amount of money we earn, that more taxes are paid the more money you have and that if you have many properties or goods, you will pay many more taxes than another person who has nothing.
Although many parents, this idea does not come into their heads, it is a reality in advanced societies and many more taxes are paid effectively the more income you have and the more properties you get.
The State, the entity responsible for administering taxes
Simultaneously, introducing our children to the functioning of the State and how politicians decide where, how, when and how much they spend on public budgets is a vital point for them to understand the rudiments of economic policy.
That is, our children should know that there are some people chosen by all of us who are the ones who decide how much money they spend on health, schools, roads or other points of public spending that they can see every day.
If we have reached this point, explaining the first article of the Spanish constitution is very simple and at the same time, it is a very interesting pedagogy:
Spain is constituted in a social and democratic State of Law, which advocates freedom, justice, equality and political pluralism as superior values of its legal system.
We live in a social state because the politicians we choose are obliged by law, to protect and promote social justice and the welfare of all its citizens. Here we can explain how a person who is unemployed is entitled to receive financial assistance, how retirement pensions are paid to our elders or how if a child loses his parents and his family, the State itself takes care of it until it is an adult.
We live in a state of law, because although most want to do a certain thing, the law itself prevents it. Here we can give, for example, how the State cannot marginalize anyone because of their skin color, how no one can be killed in the name of the law or how human rights should be respected even if the majority decided not to do so by a vote.
And finally it is a democratic state because all citizens can freely vote for their political representatives, because anyone can be a representative of all citizens and how the position of politician is subject to the approval or censorship of all citizens by voting.
And now what do we do with the left and right?
At this point, any other political-economic theory that we put on the table can fall under its own weight and contradict all previous teachings quite easily.
For example, a communist state is not a democratic or legal state and if I am a communist, I have a really hard time explaining to my son the values of the social democracy in which we live without running over a few basic principles.
At the same time, we must also explain the concept of nation and how the concept of nationalism is a concept that corrupts and moves interests that go beyond the well-being of its citizens.
And finally, from my point of view, it is imperative that our children know what freedom and responsibility is, in absolute terms, how to deprive any person of freedom is one of the most serious penalties that exist and how individual responsibility and recognition of their own merits to achieve their goals should prioritize their way forward.
But in this paragraph, I am not impartial and here, everyone must decide how to educate their children. For my part, I think that the ideal is to provide you with all possible knowledge and that they decide, but always under the optics of freedom of choice and responsible decision-making capacity.
