Photo by Miguel Ugalde

Pssst … my little secret … I’ve been telling a story to my unborn baby in my wife’s womb (almost) every night for the past one month. I believe that this, and some others that my wife and I do, could stimulate her brain. For your information, the unborn babies could start to hear sound in their fifth month. The story’s title is ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker,’ retold by Sara Miles. I had been repeating the same story (almost) every night till I can memorize (now almost) every sentence. At first, frankly, to me it was all about the elves, the shoes that they stitched, the leather that was cut into shapes, the shoemaker and his wife, and his customers. But then, gradually, the story tells me about running a business. Truly a great story for your little ones!

The following is what you could tell to your little ones, after you read them this story.

In order for a business to make money, a business needs a product or a service, which the customers buy. You can make money out of almost anything in this world. For example, you could assemble and sell computers, manufacture and sell clothes, import and sell books, offer baby-sitting services, and offer hair cut services. In the shoemaker’s case, obviously, he is making and selling shoes.

A business requires some inputs to produce or to have a product or a service. The inputs could be the shop, workers, equipments, and so on. The shoemaker needs a workshop, which is also his shop and his house, some shoe making tools, and leather. He doesn’t need worker as his business is just a small business and he himself knows how to make shoes. But recently he has some mystery workers, who stitch the shoes for him at midnight. Who are they? The three elves! How the shoemaker paid them for their shoe stitching service? He gave them some warm clothes, and the elves were very happy till they danced! In real life, businesses give their workers salaries and some other benefits in return for their workers’ services.

The business is said profitable when what the customers paid is more than enough to cover the costs of these inputs. And the business is said not profitable or, in other words, making losses when what the customers paid is less than enough to cover the costs of these inputs. The business is also making losses when no customer is buying its product or service. The business needs to make money at least enough to cover the cost of these business inputs to be sustainable (meaning to survive, to keep running).

At the beginning of the story, the shoemaker was so worry that he has enough leather just enough to make one pair of shoes. His business was not really profitable. But his fading fate turns bright when the elves started to help to stitch the shoes for him. The first customer in the story, a lady, paid more than what he had asked. With more money in his hands, he is then able to buy more leather. The elves stitched two pairs of shoes. He later sold that two pairs of shoes to two men. Then he bought more leather. The elves made four pairs of shoes. And shoes are made day after day.

The shoemaker is able to buy more leather, which is needed to produce shoes, because the customers paid more than enough for his business to run. More leather means more shoes, and that means more money.

I am sure that you could share more things to your little ones about this story, more than what I wrote here. Good luck!

P/S: In contrast to we think, children learn better than us adults, because their ‘cups’ are simply empty. Our ‘cups’ are either full or half-full. We put so many but’s and if’s to ourselves till we think that running business is hard.

Wikipedia’s link on ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’

I bought that book at Popular Bookstore. I tried to Google for it and found that it is for sale online at Singapore’s Popular On-Line Bookstore (not an affiliation link).