When My Kid Asked for a $30 Virtual Sword, I Had To Rethink What “Real” Value Means

Why is it so easy to devalue things just because they exist in a world we don’t understand?

Photo by Dunamis Church on Unsplash

Like a lot of millennial moms who want to break the cycle but are still trying to “adult” the correct way, I’ve spent the last few years perfecting the art of saying no. No to slime kits. No to YouTube merch. No to toys that break before the box even hits the recycling bin. But recently, my 9-year-old cornered me with a request that didn’t quite fit the usual script: “Can I buy this sword in the game? It’s only $30.”

Only.

At first, I chuckled, and then I gave the standard mom response: “We’re not spending real money on fake things.” It wasn’t personal—it was instinctual. It was automatic, like swiping away a pop-up ad or deleting spam. Of course we’re not buying a pixelated sword. You can’t even hold it.

But the look on my child’s face made me pause. It wasn’t bratty or manipulative; it was sincere. She really wanted that sword. Not just because it looked cool, or because other kids had it, but because, in their digital world, it meant something. That sword was earned; it completed an outfit and it unlocked a sense of power or identity or presence that, to her, felt very real.

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure what I was actually saying no to.

The Price Tag of Virtual Joy

I’m not the parent who believes you should throw your kid in front of a tablet all day and let them have their way. It’s just not me. I understand that the new digital era we live in means kids’ “imaginary play” is a lot different from how I grew up, and I make room for that. You’re not going to be gaming all day and never go touch grass. But I do allow my kids to have their own interests that may be different from mine. Balance is where I focus on the fact that you don’t need to be a social media or digital guru, but also won’t keep you from it completely.

Back in my day (cue the nostalgia music), joy came in the form of neon gel pens, mix CDs, and sketchbooks from Claire’s. You could hold your joy in your hand, line it up on a shelf, and let it collect dust. When I spent my allowance, it felt like a trade. But for my kid, joy lives inside games. Inside avatars and usernames and worlds I have no map for.

So on the one hand, it’s not like I haven’t paid $30 for less. I’ve impulse-bought kitchen gadgets I never used and monthly subscriptions I forgot to cancel. If you opened my app history, you’d find more than one regrettable purchase “for self-care.”

But when my kid wanted to spend money on a glowing sword for her Dungeon Quest game on Roblox, my first reaction was to minimize it. I thought to reduce her joy to a line item I couldn’t justify. I asked her why she wanted it so badly, and she gave a very kid-like response that made total sense and simultaneously was hard for me to grasp.

“I nicknamed myself WarriorPrincessQueen … how can you be a warrior without the best sword, ma?”

It made me wonder: Why is it so easy to devalue things just because they exist in a world we don’t understand?

The Digital Identity We Don’t Get to Curate

For today’s kids, video games have surpassed entertainment. They’re social spaces, creative outlets, places where you can “geek out” in a way that isn’t always allowed in the real world.

A digital sword isn’t just a cosmetic upgrade like I would perceive it. It’s armor, flair, and a way to stand out and showcase your accomplishments. According to my daughter, you create the world you want to live in, and you can be whoever you want to be. Her favorite part of the game is feeling like a heroine and exercising abilities she doesn’t have in real life.

She talks about joining parties, auras, strategizing, and communing with others who like the same things as her. In school, she has a few friends, but apparently none of them are into Roblox like her, except for a few boys who are “too rough around the edges.” Whatever that means. She seems to feel like this is her thing; she can devote as little or as much time as she wants (within reason), she can be with friends without feeling awkward, and she says she’s really good at the game. ‘How can it matter so much to you? ‘ I asked myself. It’s JUST a game.

But then I thought about all the times I changed my AIM away message to passive-aggressive song lyrics in middle school. The hours I spent customizing MySpace layouts like my life depended on the perfect B2K lyric. My generation was no stranger to curating digital identity, but it just felt … different when it was through dial-up. Call me naive.

Now, that same expression lives inside Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite. And that $30 sword? It’s how my kid told me she was expressing herself and enjoying being a gamer, all while finding her voice in a place I couldn’t follow. It’s an adjustment for me because I look at skins and virtual items as just “stuff.”

There’s something disorienting about watching your child build a version of themselves you don’t fully understand. As a parent, you spend years narrating their world—naming things, defining rules, telling them how to survive in this ugly world. But at some point, they start logging into lives that don’t need your commentary. They start belonging to spaces that speak a language you didn’t grow up speaking. And if you’re not careful, your knee-jerk reaction becomes dismissal.

What Does Ownership Mean, Anyway?

That sword, like most in-game purchases, isn’t something we technically “own.” If the game goes offline, the sword vanishes with it. No resale value. No generational heirloom. No chance of accidentally stepping on it in the dark.

But that doesn’t mean it’s worthless.

As adults, we’ve already shifted how we think about ownership. We pay for digital music, digital movies, digital books. We rent cloud space. We pour real money into streaming content we’ll never touch. The line between what’s “real” and what’s virtual is beyond blurry and has become altogether outdated.

So maybe the better question isn’t “Why buy a digital sword?” but “Why are we still pretending that joy has to be tangible to count?”

My kid didn’t want the sword because it was shiny. They wanted it because it made them feel happy and heard. And in a world that’s often hard to navigate —especially for young people trying to make sense of themselves—maybe $30 for a little digital joy isn’t so outrageous.

Parenting Beyond the Pop-Up Warnings

Eventually, I bought the sword.

Not right away. Not without a budget talk, a couple basic chores, and a long conversation about wants versus needs. But I bought it. Because at the end of the day, I’m raising a human in a world that doesn’t look like the one I grew up in.

I can either stay skeptical and guarded, or I can get curious. And she’s really a well-behaved kid who doesn’t ask for much. The chores were just so she doesn’t get spoiled or start feeling entitled without valuing the concept of putting in work for the things you want.

This doesn’t mean I’ll be greenlighting every in-game purchase, but it does mean I’m trying to listen more closely when my kid tells me what matters to them—even when it comes with a price tag and a cool glow effect.

There’s a certain grace in learning to parent in the unknown. In admitting that just because I don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. That maybe, when my kid asks for a sword, they’re not asking me to buy something. They’re asking me to see them.

And really, what’s more real than that?

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