Never read the book the author mentions in her essay about parenting but have seen the Ginzburg quote before
“As far as the education of children is concerned, I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but a love of ones neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.”
On her views about how to teach kids about money, the author says:
She posits that when we encourage kids to save for something they really want, a special and expensive toy, for example, they often become disappointed once they buy the toy, which invariably “seems dull and plain and ordinary after so much waiting and so much money.” They don’t blame the money, she says, but the object—they miss the money, and the alluring project of saving: “It is not bad that they have suffered a disappointment; it is bad that they feel lonely without the company of money.”
Better, she says, to raise them with an indifference to money, to let them spend it—and share it—freely and without regret, to teach them to seek work that they love, a vocation, rather than work that pays well.
It's been my experience that you can teach whatever you want about money to your kids - take an idealist view such as Ginzburg proposes. In reality thought, kids learn from the examples they see. Sometimes the closest example is that of parents and their relationship with money but it could be someone else who has an influential position in the child's life. From that experience and observation comes a set of habits and propensities - things they would habitually do and things they would never do. The talk has relatively little value - the walk is what truly matters.
Comments