Posted on 04/01/2010 5:31:14 PM PDT by ATX 1985
It's a simple calculus, kids and money: From birth until college graduation, children consume dollars like they're chicken nuggets.
For those of us who aren't independently wealthy, that puts unrelenting pressure on the family pocketbook. The financial demands of raising a child require that money you otherwise might use to prepare for retirement, or to save for a nicer house, a sportier car or a swankier vacation, must, out of necessity, be earmarked for Lego sets and pediatrician visits and school uniforms and Christmas toys and a college savings account and a minivan and a trip to Disneyland ... and lots of, well, chicken nuggets.
I'm not saying this to disparage kids. I have two of my own, and money is nothing in comparison to the happiness they bring me and my wife. Yet happiness does not negate the fact that the moment a child arrives -- and, actually, months before the arrival -- your role as an adult changes in dramatic, profound ways.
And so, too, does your family's financial life.
Not only are you now on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in costs over the next two decades, you also have a new obligation to teach your children about money so that they grow into adults who are at home in the financial world and who have a healthy relationship with money. You, the parent, are the first and most crucial link in that learning process.
Read More:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126973100584968825.html
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Teach our kids something Congress hasn’t learned?
bump
One rule would change the USA as we know it.
EARN IT!
I drive past “gun free/drug free” school zones.
Back in the day, we had to PAY for our guns and drugs.
Nothing was free. Taught us the value of a dollar.
Kids today.
Also:
A liberal’s compassion is limited only by the size of someone else’s wallet.
Those who rob Peter to pay Paul will always have the support of Paul.
OMG That is dang funny.
My favorite rules are #2 (allowance) and #9, children should be allowed to screw up so that they can learn from their mistakes. So many parents coddle their children and are afraid to hurt their feelings. But kids need to be embarrassed when they make mistakes and they need to fear the possibility of being a loser. One of the problems my parents made when I was growing up is that they grilled into my head ‘how smart I was.’ Well, all of that assurance doesn’t make a dimes worth a difference when you have a calculus test that you are unprepared for!
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