“Your Children Deserve To Know What You Make” Uh OK

Billfold pal Adam Freelander pointed me to this NYT article making the rounds today, summarizing the opening scene as follows: “This fellow goes to his bank and terrorizes the staff, making them give him 10k in 1 dollar bills.” Then he brings the money home in big bags marked with dollar signs, dumps everything out on the table in front of his frightened children, and gives a demonstration.

Mr. Parker began peeling off bills. He told them about taxes, set aside money for a tithe to their church and made a big pile for the house payment. The singles piled up for soccer and scouting and hamburger night. By the end, there wasn’t much left over. “I was trying to make as big of an impact as I could, and I definitely had their attention,” he said recently.

That’s a fun thing to do with your dollars! You could also dive in and swim, Scrooge McDuck-style, or light cigars with them. But even if you aren’t going to be this literal about it, teaching your kids about money — and specifically being more transparent with them about how much money the household has, where it comes from, and where it needs to go — can be useful.

I remember the first time I had to fill out some form that asked how much money my parents made. Stumped, I passed the form over to my father, and he checked the last box on the list: $100,000+. My eyes widened. $100,000? We were rich! Who knew?

The NYT article goes on:

Money is a source of mystery to children. They sense its power, so they ask questions, lots of them, over many years. Why isn’t our house as big as my cousin’s? Why can’t I have a carnivorous plant terrarium? Why should I respect my teachers if they earn only $60,000 per year? (Real question!) Are we poor? Why didn’t you give money to the man who asked you for some? If my sister can have Hello-Kitty-themed Beats by Dre headphones, why won’t you get me the Bluetooth-enabled Lego Mindstorms set? (It’s only $349, and it’s educational, Mom!)

We adults, however, tend to do a miserable job of answering. We push our children’s money questions aside, sometimes telling them that their queries are impolite, or perhaps worrying that they will call out our own financial hypocrisy and errors. Sometimes we respond defensively and viscerally, barking back, “None of your business,” unintentionally teaching our children that the topic is off limits despite its obvious importance. Others want to protect their children from a topic many of us find stressful or baffling: Can’t we keep them innocent of all of this money stuff for just a little bit longer?

Money and sex are two mysteries of which we want, for some reason, to keep children innocent. Death, too, though that has a way of intervening such that it cannot be ignored. But money and sex are so often a source of shame to adults that we assume they are inappropriate subjects. They don’t have to be.

We as grown-ups can be open about money in a neutral and informative way, just like we can be neutral and informative about sex. You can also admit it’s complicated! Some money is earned, some won, some inherited. Some people don’t get money for their work while other people get a lot for theirs. Different jobs offer different benefits: some are more material, some are more emotional/spiritual, and so on. At a certain age, your child will probably have intuited much of this already, so more clarity can only help. Plus, you can let them ask questions, which builds trust.

Do your kids “deserve” to know how much you make, though? I don’t think so. They can benefit from knowing, as long as they understand the context. (Rich can mean lucky as much as hard-working, while poor doesn’t connote undeserving. Most of us are somewhere in between.) They can also get the wrong idea. If they believe, for example, that they shouldn’t respect their teachers because they’re “only” making $60,000, you have a lot of work to do as a parent.

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