Money can teach kids valuable lessons, but sometimes, the real education is measured by how well you play with others.

When a bake sale turns into a battle over profits, one parent decides to settle the score with some careful calculations.

Read on for the full story!

You want to make things fair? I’ll show you fair.

A couple of weeks ago, my kids and their neighbors decided to have a bake sale.

We live in a tourist area with high foot traffic, and the kids make a killing.

I tell the kids I ought to charge them for the labor (I said I’d help bake) and ingredients so they learn the concept of net gains, but instead, I’ll donate to their cause.

I just ask them to bring me back the money I lent them to make change.

The process has taught the kids a lot.

I love seeing the kids be entrepreneurial, work so hard, and get so excited about their success.

But not all the kids are so into it.

After a couple of hours, the neighbor’s son decides he’s bored and wants to go home.

He tells my kid, “When you’re done, come by and deliver half the money.”

Another kid pushes back on this.

Mine says, “Hey, that’s not fair. If you’re leaving, we should split the money now.”

Mind you, the bulk of their sales was my baking.

The neighbor kid gets super ticked, but mine sticks to their guns.

They split the money, and the kid leaves in a huff.

Mine comes in a few hours later, having lugged home all the gear and cleaned up, annoyed that the neighbor kid got mad at them.

Then I get a knock on the door.

It turns out, someone else is concerned about “fairness” too.

It’s the neighbor’s mom, with the kid, who is still pouting.

Mom’s holding a receipt.

She explains that they purchased a bunch of stuff for the bake sale, it cost a lot of money, and it’s not fair that my kid is making money off their stuff.

She says they should be compensated for what they purchased.

This mother knows that she’s not being entirely truthful.

The receipt lists a bunch of items I immediately see they didn’t use (like two boxes of cereal when they used one, and napkins that I’d ended up providing), but whatever.

Never mind that her son went home early and left mine to clean up.

Never mind that I’d been churning out batches of cookies all morning.

I’m irked they’ve taken what was a fun, cheerful day of kids making money hand over fist and turned it into an awkward conversation because they assume their kid can’t be wrong.

So she decides to beat the other mother at her own game.

So I say, “Of course!” and fetch my receipts.

No expense would be left unchecked.

I sit down and (in front of them, and out loud) calculate the cost of lemonade and cups used.

I calculate the cost of flour, sugar, chocolate chips, vanilla, and butter per batch of cookies, multiplied by the number of batches made.

I toss in the baking soda for free (so generous). I even subtract the value of leftover cookies.

Did I mention I made a lot of cookies?

When the other mother figures out she’s actually in the red, she changes her tune real quick.

The neighbor kid has to fork over $23.

They got pretty quiet all of a sudden.

I thanked the lady for making sure things were fair and offered her a plate of cookies to take home.

She declined.

The end.

They came looking for compensation, but all they got was a crash course in fairness!

What did Reddit think?

It’s good to teach kids to be entrepreneurial.

Some people just can’t be trusted to be equitable.

It’s possible the mother could teach them too well.

Kudos are in order from this commenter!

It turns out, fairness is a two-way street!

The cookies may have been sweet, but the reality check was anything but.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.