My Daughter Told Her Preschool Friends That Papa Is Rich — Because He Buys Strawberries

The call from preschool that made my day

When my daughter was about four or five, I picked her up from preschool and her teacher pulled me aside with a grin.

“Today the kids were talking about strawberries,” she said, “and your daughter announced: ‘My papa is rich, so he can buy lots and lots of them.’”

I burst out laughing.

Rich. Because of strawberries. One pack costs maybe $3-4, and suddenly I’m a billionaire. The confidence of a four-year-old who measures wealth in fruit quantities is honestly unmatched. Somewhere between “Can I have strawberries?” at the supermarket and today, I’d been promoted to Berry Billionaire in her mind.

But here’s the thing — underneath the laughter, I felt something unexpected. Relief.

Because growing up, I never once thought my parents were rich. Not even close.

Used cars, an old rental, and two chances a year

My childhood wasn’t poverty-level, but “comfortable” would be a stretch. We lived in an aging rental apartment. Our car was always secondhand. Family trips were rare, and my mom never once said anything like “we have money to spare.”

So birthdays and Christmas were everything. Those were the only two days a year when I could ask for something I actually wanted.

Here’s the funny part: I didn’t ask for what I genuinely wanted. I asked for the most expensive thing within the acceptable range.

Think about it. If you only get two shots per year, you don’t waste one on a book you kind of want. You calculate. You optimize. You think: “What gives me the maximum return on this rare opportunity?” If some other kid said “I want an encyclopedia for my birthday,” I’d think, “An encyclopedia? You can read that at the library. Ask for something expensive!” I was basically doing ROI analysis as a second grader — I just didn’t know the term for it yet.

Scarcity does something to your brain. It makes you a strategist before you can even do long division. Looking back, that childhood scarcity shaped my entire relationship with money — it’s one of the things I’d tell my younger self about investing if I could go back in time.

The Switch 2 incident

My daughter, on the other hand, operates on a completely different wavelength.

When the Nintendo Switch 2 came out recently, I thought about what that moment would’ve looked like in my childhood. I would’ve campaigned for weeks. I would’ve pledged my report card as collateral. I would’ve negotiated like my life depended on it — for a $449.99 console. And there was still a solid chance my parents would’ve said no.

My daughter’s reaction? “You’re obviously going to buy it, right, Papa?”

I mean… yes. I was going to buy it. For myself. Because I like games. (It’s now basically her console. But that’s beside the point.)

The gap between “I must fight to get this” and “this will just appear in our living room” is enormous. She’s never experienced the hunger of wanting something and knowing it might not happen.

When the hunger disappears, honesty shows up

Here’s what I noticed.

For birthdays and Christmas, my daughter asks for things that are often surprisingly cheap. A stuffed animal. A sticker book. A capsule toy from the machine at the supermarket — the kind that costs maybe $3.

She picks based on what she actually wants, not what costs the most.

Compare that to kid-me, who was mentally calculating “birthday budget allocation” like a portfolio manager. I wasn’t choosing what I loved. I was maximizing the value of a scarce resource.

The difference comes down to one thing: whether you feel like you have enough.

When you’re generally satisfied — when your basic desires are met on a regular basis — you can afford to be honest about what you want. You’re not gaming the system. You’re just… wanting what you want.

And here’s what surprised me: this describes my own relationship with money now, too.

Years ago, I’d buy things because they were on sale. “It’s 50% off!” was enough justification, regardless of whether I needed it. Now that our assets have grown (I wrote about how we reached ¥50M, roughly $350K, in this post), something shifted. I stopped asking “Is this a good deal?” and started asking “Do I actually need this?”

Financial security and a four-year-old’s innocence apparently produce the same result: the ability to want what you genuinely want, without strategic optimization.

My daughter figured this out at age four. It took me until my mid-forties and 50 million yen.

Playing it normal

Of course, there’s a practical side to all this.

I’ve told my daughter not to mention our family’s finances to other people. “We’re a normal family,” I tell her. “Don’t say papa is rich or anything like that.”

To be fair, we’re not actually rich by most standards. But even perceived wealth can cause problems — especially among kids. Jealousy, weird dynamics, parents getting the wrong idea. It’s just easier to keep things quiet.

This is the “Quiet Wealth” philosophy in action, I suppose. Build assets silently. Live normally. Don’t flash anything. But also: never stress about strawberries. Always be able to say yes to a family trip. Have the Switch 2 just… appear in the living room.

It’s not about looking rich. It’s about invisible margin.

In Japan, there’s a cultural norm of modesty around money that actually works in our favor here. Nobody talks about their net worth. Nobody asks. You can be sitting on ¥50M — and still feel anxious about it — and your neighbors think you’re just another salaryman. Because you are.

What I really want to teach her isn’t about investing

When my daughter’s a bit older, I plan to teach her about financial literacy. Compound interest, index funds, NISA (Japan’s tax-advantaged investment account, similar to a Roth IRA) — the practical stuff. We’ve already started investing her otoshidama (New Year’s money) through a Junior NISA-style approach, so she’ll have a head start.

But before any of that, there’s something more fundamental I want her to understand.

Looking at the world today — social media, the finance influencer space, the whole culture around “passive income” and “financial freedom” — the words “money” and “investing” have taken on a life of their own. For a lot of people, making money has become the goal itself. It’s a pattern that researchers in financial literacy education have been warning about for years.

I think that misses the point entirely.

The most important thing is creating something. Writing software. Growing food. Making art. Even writing this blog. You create something, deliver it to someone, and receive money as a “thank you” in return. That’s the foundation. Investing is just one tool that comes after.

Papa can buy strawberries because papa creates value at work every day. The strawberries are the result, not the starting point.

If my daughter reads this someday and thinks, “Oh wow, Papa actually remembered what I said at preschool” — that’s enough. And if she eventually buys her own strawberries and understands the system that made it possible, even better.

Not “Papa is rich.” More like “Papa just quietly kept at it.” I hope that meaning lands someday.

This article reflects personal experience and is for informational purposes only — not investment advice. All investment decisions are your own responsibility.