Should Parents Discuss Finances With Their Children?
My reflections from a non-parent’s perspective
Finances are a touchy subject.
Instead of delving into any philosophies on wealth.
I want to reflect on my own feelings towards my parent’s finances growing up,
As I feel that the impacts on the children of family conversations and attitudes towards money are rarely discussed.
-
No one wants their children to grow up as spoilt, entitled brat.
Which is why it makes sense to introduce your children to the value of money as early as possible.
The idea that the takeaway their parents just bought,
Was almost an exchange for their hard work,
Is an important concept to wrap your mind around from a young age.
The problem is,
That when people have a negative or toxic relationship with money,
Which I am going to go out on a limb here and say that most people do.
Parents often pass on these traits and feelings to their kids,
At a formative age which only compounds the negative relationship.
-
My feelings towards money growing up
I am not here to lecture anyone on finances or parenting.
But what I do think I can do is use my platform to speak to a bunch of parents from a non-parent perspective, reflecting on my time growing up.
-
I don’t remember having any feelings towards money before I entered secondary school.
If I am honest, I was probably more on the spoilt side of the spectrum.
Then my parents divorced when I was 12,
And like for a lot of kids,
Everything seemed to change,
(Not to be dramatic).
-
Money seemed to be something that we were always chasing and falling short of.
It felt like,
And I am sure that this was not actually the reality,
That money was brought up every day in our household in a negative way.
Which is funny,
Because I feel like we did spend money and went on holidays and bought takeaways,
But for me,
These things were always tinged with the understanding that we shouldn’t really be doing them,
As we ‘don’t have the money.’
I think this feeling came from a position of insecurity.
So much changed so quickly when I was 12,
That whilst I was all for going on holidays and buying nice things,
And would potentially begrudge my mum if I couldn’t do the same things as some of my friends,
I also felt that the effects of feeling like we were constantly financially on a knife edge.
Which we were unable to change.
-
Growing up with such an emphasis on money (my perception rather than the objective reality),
Has definitely cemented some strange feelings of shame, guilt, awkwardness and potentially most of all scarcity.
I definitely felt a weird mix of anger and guilt towards my parents for the financial situation they put themselves and us in (which really wasn’t that bad – I just felt that they felt it was really bad).
And to be honest I think this bit in brackets above is the entire point.
When parents share some frustrations with their kids about money,
And build complexes surrounding certain parts of spending,
But they aren’t able to share the full information,
As ultimately they are the parent and they are talking with their child who isn’t able to understand the full complexities of the situation,
Misperceptions will arise that create somewhat illogical feelings (like my anger and guilt) as well as negative complexes in their children’s lives as they grow up and earn money for themselves.
-
This email is not advice.
There’s no,
So, this is what I think you should do …
I just wanted to share my thoughts and experiences on a topic that is important and interesting to me.
-
I hope you have a great week ahead,
Best wishes,
Joel