The Balance Beam of Financial Conversations
Cool Moment to report. I was on my way to my daughters’ gymnastics class, and she asked a deliberate question. One she hadn’t asked before. One that threw me off my parenting game for a second.
A little pre-explanation needed here, my daughter is a little business mogul in the making and the below conversation just proves the point. And to highlight the prep work explanation, she has me read my business books to her at night because the story books are too scary. She’s unique in this nature I think compared to other 7-year-old girls.
Yes, I might suffer from normalcy bias a little bit. Normalcy bias is a condition that hinders most of us in dealing with anything new. We prefer normal over everything else. The cool thing is that as David Swanson put it, “almost everything important that’s ever happened was unimaginable shortly before it happened.” What follows was something not normal on the way to gymnastics.
The interesting part was the question “Dad, why can’t we pay for the house later and do the fun stuff now.” And as I thought about it, that question was loaded with several lessons. I had to ask her to explain her question in more detail. You know, just to gain context on the depth of my answer. If you are a parent, you understand. They can ask a question and can only be mildly interested in the answer. I think they call that the Shiny Object Syndrome. Limited attention spans and all that.
Back to the question. She explained that she had a question about house payments because she heard me talking about it a week ago. So, we started down the road of discussing mortgages, banking, renting, credit scores, etc. It turns out, she was mostly concerned with “why do we have to pay monthly? Why can’t we pay at the end of the deal?”
That escalated to a discussion on trust. This 15-minute drive to a gymnastics class was getting deep. Annnnnnnd she was listening. Conversations do not usually go this way. I was excited for the chance.
And a little nervous. I do not think there was a time I could remember asking my mother these questions. I wish I had though, it would have maybe saved me some time figuring out all this financial stuff in my midlife. You know that time in your life when you are checking the next box on your insurance forms. Or when the doctors just flat out tell you to change your diet, instead of hinting at it.
That nervousness subsided as I shifted from trying to teach a lesson to just having a conversation with her about my journey with mortgages, credit, money, renting, and financial matters. I wonder if that was really what she was after, a genuine conversation. How often are we telling kids what they should be doing when they really didn’t ask for advice? It was nice to have a wholly organic conversation with no real mission other than a morning talk while driving.
The benefit, as she had asked the first question on the topic, was me thinking that our times are special with our kids, they maybe are more open to discussing financial matters than we think, and I wish (I hope) this conversation highlighted that money and financial matters do not have to be complicated or scary. In the current reality I see kids, and adults, not knowing where to go with questions and who to trust when they are in financial trouble. As a parent I hope I can be there for my kids in that regard.
Enjoy your Sunday. HP
