{"id":70,"date":"2009-06-17T12:05:17","date_gmt":"2009-06-17T19:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=70"},"modified":"2025-11-09T10:32:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T17:32:23","slug":"kids-and-money-the-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=70","title":{"rendered":"Kids and Money-the Why"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot of people have different opinions about kids and money.\u00a0 Should they get an allowance or not?\u00a0 Should we as parents control what they spend? <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When I was growing up we had chores and got an allowance.\u00a0 It was a pitiful amount of money, our allowance.\u00a0 So at the earliest age possible I got a job.\u00a0 I was paid with checks.\u00a0 I had to get a checking account to put it in and use it.\u00a0 I then had to learn how to balance that checkbook (mostly because my Dad was an accountant and insisted). <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

W<\/span><\/span>hat did I buy with my money?\u00a0 Junk food!\u00a0 My mom was a health food nut, but not until I was 6, so I had my sweet tooth firmly installed and then went into withdrawal for 10 years until I could afford to buy my own.\u00a0 Ahhh, Sara Lee pound cake, come to me!\u00a0 I swear during those years I put our local ice cream man into a higher tax bracket.\u00a0 He once played Led Zepplin down our street because my brother gave him the tape!<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So here I am with my own kids, deciding how to instill a good work ethic into them.\u00a0 My parenting motto is \u201cYou are adults in training<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 With that in mind I realized my kids needed to know about money because it was necessary for adulthood.\u00a0 I wanted them to know that everyone had to earn money to buy their desires. <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Lucky me I ended up with 3 boys and after dating men who didn\u2019t know how to cook, clean, bake, iron and sew (o.k. maybe they don’t need to sew) I wanted to teach ALL household skills to my boys, not just the exterior ones.\u00a0 \u00a0My fantasy goal was to do only 1\/5th of the household work by the time the oldest was 18. <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So suddenly I had two reasons to have the kids get an allowance; 1. Payment for work and 2. Education on correct household skills.\u00a0 Oh, and the beautiful by-product of less work for me!\u00a0 Now my brother does not pay his kids an allowance and we\u2019ve had our discussion on our reasons.\u00a0 He feels that as part of the household they need to pull their share without monetary justification.\u00a0 I feel that is a noble thought, but that the real world does not work that way.\u00a0 I think it falls into the category of enforced volunteering or charity. <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Son- Why am I doing this, Dad?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dad- Because you get free room & board and should help out around the house as appreciation.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Son- How about you pay me and I\u2019ll buy my own food.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When a person chooses to do something it is out of the desire to be rewarded by something; money, gratitude, their own sense of fairness or justice or happiness or whatever motivates them. <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

When my boys\u00a0were infants I always taught the older that if you want something you\u2019re younger brother has, then you must either wait your turn or TRADE them for the item.\u00a0\u00a0 Because o<\/span>ur world runs on Trade and we use money to do it.\u00a0 As preparation for adulthood our children need to realize that and be able to work it.\u00a0 Adding charity and volunteerism is an added bonus to shape their character.\u00a0 But if all you teach them is charity and volunteerism and they go out there expecting the world to be run as rosy as their childhood where everyone is giving and fairly doing their share they will get a rude awakening.\u00a0 Will they be able to successfully negotiate that raise?\u00a0 Will they overspend and run up huge credit card debt at a young age out of sheer inexperience?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I want to prepare my kids for adulthood because I want to kick them out or into college at 18.\u00a0 Yes\u00a0and watch them flounder about but learn to swim because I gave them enough practice with the basics.\u00a0\u00a0 So that\u2019s the WHY.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give you the WHEN and the HOW in the next few posts.\u00a0 And you can all either cheer or laugh at me in 10 years\u2026we\u2019ll see then.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of people have different opinions about kids and money.\u00a0 Should they get an allowance or not?\u00a0 Should we as parents control what they spend? When I was growing up we had chores and got an allowance.\u00a0 It was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-narcissist-secrets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5177,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/5177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}