Money, Kids and Failure

Money, Kids and failure

I grew up in a time where “success” meant everything. It didn’t matter what you did or how you did it as long as you won. The funny thing growing up in a poor neighborhood - there really wasn’t much to succeed in - so like most kids today we excelled at being the worst, best dressed and even the worst drunk. That’s right - our goals didn’t amount to much - just like today. Kids have nothing more to look forward in life but video games, music videos and TV.

Yes, there are the few smart kids and sensible ones who want more in life - but everything that is being taught our kids today is geared toward - depending on others to survive [ not succeed ]. Example - in school their told study hard get a good grade for success - then they go home and parents, friends, the news tells them that only the government can help them and that they can’t succeed without help from the county, city or government.


Yes, this is a bit political and no I do not agree with all the Obama agenda’s. But think about it -we tell our kids that they can become what ever they dream - then we tell them that the reality of life is that they will never succeed in life unless some one else helps them. We tell them that they should be their own person - but then turn around and tell them to conform in order to fit in???? Amazing.

What brought this up..

Well, I’ve been trying to change the way my kids think about money, how it works and creating wealth. I expect my five year old not to understand - but I expect more from my eleven year old who is smarter than the average kid. When she came back from NY she came back with a new hobby - making jewelry. She surprised me when she said she was thinking of making some and selling them to make extra money. That’s a good idea - until days passed and weeks passed and she just stopped making jewelry. She just lost interest, desire - she was more interested in hanging out in front of the TV or talking with friends. What happened??

What happened was “challenge”, “adversity” and the desire to give up than rather over coming. That’s right, she caved when the first problem came along. Yes, I know, she’s eleven and I should expect this - but really, we all act like this. We all run into problems and we simply give up. So few of us truly strive when faced with struggle… which brings me back to the political aspect of this.

With all the economic turmoil we’re facing - we are losing the opportunity to teach this generation to face trouble with a stern upper lip and to face adversity and to fight to over come it. When you read about the great depression you see how people struggled to survive - but you see how the country came together, how people , families worked together to save, penny pinch - rubber drives, food drives and so much more. An entire generation saw the worst and over came. Today, our children only see the government throwing worthless “stimulus packages” at a failed economy and doing little to change the root cause of the problems around them.

I was helping this family of seven [ mom, dad and five kids ] and they told me they had to leave early because all the kids had to go work [ don’t worry they were all of legal age ]. I thought about the things they shared with me. How they all pull together, struggle together, sacrifice what many consider necessities in order to survive this week.

This is why it’s important to teach your kids about money and how it works. Teach them that sacrificing today can help you tomorrow. That money isn’t everything in life and if you made it once you can make it again. That life is not made up of how much you succeed but about how you over come. That there are things more important in life and that family, life, freedom are a few of those treasures in life. Teach them, because no one else will.