Parenting is so hard. No matter how much effort you make to hit all the main points, you know something is going to slip through the cracks, or they’ll come out of childhood with a takeaway you never intended. Or in some cases, there are just so many more critical issues you have to prioritize.
My Mom actually did try to teach me fiscal responsibility, but I had ADHD and was not interested, and it was somewhat canceled out by her husband’s frivolous spending, so ultimately what I ended up doing was trying to finance the standard lifestyle at an elite school on a credit card. I ended up in a lot of financial trouble, got a do-over at age 23 when I married my husband, and took that do-over dead seriously. I’ve been managing the household finances and budget for years, while my husband manages our investments, because he gives a shit about all the little minutia that go into that, and I frankly don’t. Play to your strengths.
As a parent my attitude was pretty much the opposite: of course we are going to try our best but end of day my kids will turn out fine despite me. Seriously. And the mistakes they end up making as adults are theirs not mine.
Assuming we are not actually abusive or neglectful, assuming they know they are loved, most of our kids are innately resilient enough that our imperfect parenting is going to be good enough.
I wonder if there are any generational factors at play affecting different attitudes toward one’s responsibilities as a parent. We live in an age of intensive parenting, and I also have a kid who kind of requires that. It’s not like it was when I was a kid. And while there were clear instances of neglect in my childhood, every time I was allowed to do something on my own, or I wasn’t told how to fix a problem, was not neglect. In many respects, because I was given more and more independence as as I got older, I was actually capable of leaving a bad situation at age 17. I knew when I walked out that door, I could take care of myself.
I think a lot of parents these days are trying to overcompensate for their terrible childhoods. I have dreams of a more free-range parenting style but I don’t think it’s going to happen. For one, my kid has real limitations. For two, the current culture I live in does not support it.
But I think a lot of parents of young kids today feel extraordinary pressure to get it right.
Honestly, nah. Go back to my parents’ cohort and they were desperate to be told by experts how to parent just right, and there was no shortage of very strict precise directives given. Dr Spock tried to promote a more trust your instincts mindset but instead became another slavishly and anxiously followed manual. The precise manifestions of intensive parenting change, sure, but the basic anxiety and insecurity is consistent.
Being intensively involved does not btw require being anxious about not doing it well enough.
In terms of this thread we are talking about teaching some specific sets of skills and facts, modeling discussions about budget trade offs - and we definitely could have done that better. They still seem to have picked it up though.
I think the main difference today is there is so much societal pressure to get everything “right”. There is also a lot of pressure to appear as if you are maintaining a particular lifestyle. I think that has a big influence on how people handle their finances (or don’t as the case may be).
I’ve been in pediatric practice over 36 years now and I see the same spectrums of parenting anxiety I always have.
Neither do I remember my parents talking much about budgeting and finance or investing. I remember my dad having a Sunday evening ritual with his big checkbook that had three checks a page and stubs left in the book with what each check was for, but he never discussed his arcane art with us.
I suspect that many of us don’t teach how children well because we are kind of sloppy and anxious and conflicted about money issues ourselves.