Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Out of the Ashes, I arise once more, just to be worried.

Yeah. Stomach/Intestinal Flu sux.

Completely.

You know you really love someone when you hold their hand for 45 minutes while they cry and have explosive diarreha. At two in the morning, no less.

True love, Constant Reader, true parental love.

I think Darling's over it and Handsome and I survived the milder bouts. I suppose a good colon cleansing is good for everybody every once in a while.

That being said, the economy is making me (metaphorically) sick to my stomach. Everywhere you turn in the blogosphere, someone is worrying about jobs, money, foreclosure, etc.

What worries me the most is how it effects children.

Darling is mostly oblivious to money right now...at four and a half she still thinks 5 pennies are worth more than a dime. We're working on it.

Is her generation going to grow up learning to save and be frugal or are they going to continue on a path of over-consumption and economic indulgence that my generation has grown accustomed to?

It's only in the last year or so that Handsome and I have been in the economic position to start majorly paying down any of the debt we racked up with our expensive degrees and the credit cards that were thrown at us when we were young/stupid/graduated.

By the end of this year we should be debt free other than our mortgage and student loans. That's a major accomplishment for us, but we've accomplished this by completely curtailing all extraneous spending, save the occassional indulgence. We're almost there, God help us...

We're working hard to accomplish this, and just a few weeks ago, while we were grocery shopping, Darling informed Handsome that the ice cream purchase he was pondering was "not in the budget, Daddy!"

This may not seem huge, but I never claimed we were living at the poverty level.

Neither Handsome and I grew up in affluent families, but our parents always got by and kept their financial concerns out of hearing of their children.

They didn't want us to worry about money. Kids should just be kids.

They were probably doing us a favor in their minds, but shouldn't kids have a better sense of family budgets?

Or is ignorance bliss?

What's the balance of stressing kids out about the family finances and finding a way to teach them fiscal responsibility?

I have a feeling this will become more and more important if the economy continues in the same direction it seems to be heading.

3 comments:

Hyperblogal said...

I think kids can handle age appropriate information. The best advice I ever got was that critters don't think like adults and have their own way of understanding. Imparting values doesn't have to be fearful... just educational. I believe that children should be sheltered from those things they can't yet understand but certainly brought slowly along to cherish things that really matter...

Beautiful Mess said...

Husband and I are completely upfront about our economic status to the kids. Of course, it's age appropriate, but always honest. If Zilla *5* wants a toy, well tell him we don't spend money on things we don't NEED all the time. It's a treat, not an every day thing. With Nae *11* it's a lot easier. We can be more descriptive. My parents did the same thing with us that yours did, we were oblivious of any struggles. I'm glad ya'll are on the mend.

kcmeesha said...

I just tell my kid "no, I will not spend money on crap", to make it more age appropriate I replaced "junk" with "crap" but the idea is the same. then I add that she should have picked a more generous dad.