Money, money, money!
Posted on: Friday, December 2nd, 2005Comments: 1
I received an email the other day from a father with a really challenging question. I wish I had a good answer. Maybe you do. He asked if I knew how to raise daughters in a wealthy environment without turning them into kids with wealthy attitudes; an unearned sense of entitlement.
In a way, I understand his concern. In a way, I live with his concern every day. I’m not rich; not even close. But, I live in a wealthier environment than I did as a child. Because of that, they won’t share my childhood experiences. So, I wonder if my daughters will be raised with the same core values I grew up with. How do you teach a child too appreciate gifts when they get dozens and dozens of gifts on their birthday, and many more throughout the year? How do you teach your child to appreciate the need to work hard for things they really want when they get everything they want without working for it? How do you teach your daughters to appreciate the plight of the poor when they’ve never been poor, or even known anyone who was poor? How do you prevent them from feeling an unearned sense of entitlement when everyone in their neighborhood has more unearned material possessions than we ever dreamed we could have?
As children our annual vacation was to the nearby city of Toronto for a weekend. We would spend the whole weekend running around the hotel. We swam in the hotel pool. We ate food my parents packed in the hotel room. We never left the hotel. (By the way, it was a blast!). Today, children in our neighborhood go on Disney cruises (multiple times per year), Mexico, and Islands I’ve never even heard of. Their parents shower them with gifts. Not just toys, but snow mobiles, trampolines, $70 tee-shirts, cell phones, iPods, and insanely expensive computer games. What could a child possibly think as they grow up with all that? Money grows on trees. Things come easily; without work or anticipation. Problems magically go away. There are no painful consequences to failure. Their brains will never be trained on basic lessons we learned everyday.
How do you raise daughters in a wealthy environment (or at least a wealthier environment) without stealing their only chance to learn lessons that will become valuable tools for them throughout their lives? Well, I’m not sure, but I have a few ideas.
First, since children have no idea what they’re missing or doing, as parents we have to be the ones to hold the line. We cannot cave in to the material pressures around us. Forego the expensive trips. Forego the expensive birthday parties. Make children work for things they want. Spend regular time at a city mission or soup kitchen or someplace where children can see that the world isn’t so easy and sacrifice-free for everyone. Read them the right children’s books. Motivate them to help others. Teach them the difference between want and need. Lead by example.
Above all, though, appreciate that children’s brains will be trained by their environment. And that the training their brains get as children will shape them more profoundly than at any other time during their lives. And appreciate that one of our most critical roles as parents is to create the right environment for that childhood training…to raise our daughters…our children.
Does anyone have a good answer to the emailer’s question?
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December 14th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
This is a question my husband and I have been battling with for years ourselves. And whilst we DONT spoil our kids, or buy them everything they want, our eldest boy (now almost 16) has expectations we would not (and could not) meet. The cruncher was his friends at school. At lot of his friends’ parents buy them really expensive things as a way of proving their love (quite often they are from a broken home). Then there are the friends who bought their youngest of 3 sons (10 years old) a new motorbike because he grew out of his old one. Not even a birthday or Christmas gift. Just because. And our son sees this and thinks – I want a motorbike. And cannot quite understand my reaction (inside it’s “over my dead body!”, outside its a simple NO!)
And no, I dont have any good answers to the emailers question – but one thing we have tried for our two older children (12 and 15) is to put them on an allowance each month out of which has to come their non-school needs. Clothing, shoes, entertainment, mobile phone, whatever they chose. And the allowance is not excessive. And they are learning they need to budget. And my son is now looking for a holiday job over the summer (we’re from Australia) to supplement his allowance. So I must be doing something ok.