Fathers, Children and Money
Money & Soul
by Eileen Gallo, Ph.D.
I thought it might be interesting for financial planners to look at the role of fathers in teaching their children about life, money and financial planning.
Being a father is not easy. It's not something men know how to do instinctively. Stephan Poulter, Ph.D., author of Father Your Son: How to Become the Father You've Always Wanted to Be, compares fatherhood with golfing; being a father "is a learned art that requires an acute awareness of all the little things that go into the process." And one of the most critical areas of fathering is money. In a recent conversation, Poulter observed that he has dealt with many sons and daughters "who openly admit that they have a horrible relationship with money. The common complaint is: 'My father never told me about money or how it works.'"
But many fathers simply do not have the time (or perhaps do not make the time) to tell their kids much about anything. According to a recent study by the National Fatherhood Initiative, a nonprofit organization devoted to "increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers," the typical working father spends just 12 minutes a weekday in one-on-one conversation with his children. This means that by the time most children reach age six, they will have spent more time watching TV than they will spend during their entire lifetimes talking to their father! Believe it or not, 12 minutes is actually an improvement. A 1993 national survey conducted by Parents magazine found that 84 percent of men reported that they were spending more time with their children than their fathers did with them.
When fathers make the time to be engaged in their children's lives, reports the National Fatherhood Initiative, their children "evidence greater self-esteem, higher educational achievement, a more secure gender identity and greater success in life."
This is stunningly true when fathers become involved in their daughters' lives. The Managerial Woman, a study by Margaret Hennig and Anne Jardim, the founders of the business school at Simmons College, found that a woman's career success was strongly affected by her father's attitudes. Suzanne Braun Levine, a founder of Ms. magazine and the author of Father Courage: What Happens When Men Put Family First, observes that "a mother who praises her daughter is seen as cheerleading; when a man does that, he's bestowing."
In my own practice I have found ample anecdotal evidence of the important role of fathers in their daughters' lives. As a frequent lecturer at financial planning conferences, I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the country's outstanding women executives. When I have inquired about their childhood relationships with their parents, they have almost uniformly stressed the importance of their fathers encouraging them to believe that they could accomplish whatever goal they set out to achieve.
Interestingly, successful fathers have to be careful that their success does not stifle their sons. Financial success is often as much a matter of timing and luck as it is of hard work and talent. As a result, many sons of successful fathers may find it difficult to equal their father's financial successes. In an article in the June 2002 Avenue magazine titled "Intimidating Fathers," George Lucas expresses the problem eloquently, observing that his children "have to live with a far too successful father."
Fathers as Successful Teachers
So, what should fathers do if they are going to teach their sons and daughters about money?
Spend time with your children. Start when they are young. If we want to teach our children money values, we need to create an emotional and intellectual climate that helps them learn to think logically and to deal with abstract concepts. In their books,Building Healthy Minds and The Irreducible Needs of Children, Stanley Greenspan and T. Berry Brazelton, two of the countryÕs most renowned experts in child development, tell us that one of the keys to our children learning to deal with such abstract concepts as money is reflective dialogue.
In a reflective discussion, you don't simply respond yes or no to your child's questions or comments. Instead, you ask what, when, why and how to help them form an opinion and reflect on their own wishes and ideas—the foundation of abstract thinking. In Building Healthy Minds, Greenspan reports that a study he carried out with Arnold Sameroff of the University of Michigan showed that children whose parents consistently used reflective discussions starting at 30 months were 20 times more likely to have normal to superior intelligence!
Avoid confusing net worth with self-worth. Fathers should make a point of complimenting professions that don't command a top salary. Children should hear comments from their father like "Teachers contribute so much to society" or "I respect the hard work of that salesgirl." Instead, too many of our children are exposed to comments like "He only makes..." Such comments teach the child to place a dollar value on everything. Doing so results in children who define themselves solely in terms of what they make or what they have, not who they are. As my husband, Jon, and I observed at a workshop on children and money, money doesn't define us; we define money by what we do with it.
Share your failures, as well as your successes, with your children. Children often have an unrealistic view of their father, assuming that he never encounters problems at work and that his success was easily accomplished rather than being the result of years of hard work. They are unprepared to take risks and when they encounter reverses in childhood or early adulthood, they have difficulty coping with adversity because they assume that there is something wrong with them.
Learn to say no based on your values and your budget. If your child asks you to buy something that you can afford but you don't want to, state your values simply and in a manner that shows how those values relate to the topic at hand.
"No, I've already bought you two things today that you wanted and that's enough."
"$100 for jeans is more than I'm willing to spend."
"I don't want to buy clothing from Y company because they use child labor."
Too often, fathers use "we can't afford it" as an easy way out rather than explaining their values. Doing so not only bends the truth but it may instill a false impression of the family's actual financial situation, making a child needlessly anxious.
Don't pay for grades. Bribery is not a particularly healthy child-raising policy. You are teaching your kids to associate achieving goals with being loved and getting paid, rather than achieving those goals in order to attain a sense of inner satisfaction. As your children grow older, they are likely to use money to buy friends or love. And if they don't get As, the failure to earn the money may be equated in their mind with failing to "earn" a father's love.
Also, paying for grades generally doesn't work. Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization, and Education Week magazine sponsor a yearly study of education in America called Reality Check. The study is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the GE Fund. For the last three years they have been sampling 6th through 12th grade public school students about what would motivate them to work hard at school. There were nine items on the list. Getting paid for grades came in a distant seventh place.
Separate allowances from chores. Kids should do chores because they are members of the family participating in family responsibilities. Kids should get an allowance as a means of teaching them about responsible money management. At the workshop that Jon and I taught recently, one of the fathers told us that he had been tying his seven-year-old son's allowance to doing chores. A few weeks ago, his son announced, "I don't need to make my bed anymore because I have saved up $45 and don't need any more money." The father turned to his wife and remarked, "Uh-oh, we're in trouble. We need to rethink our plan!" I agreed.
Fathers have a wonderful opportunity to be money role models, helping their sons and daughters go forth into the world with a healthy relationship with money.
Eileen Gallo, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles, California, where she works with affluent families and individuals dealing with psychological and emotional issues related to wealth. She can be reached at (310) 207-0710; her address is 11980 San Vicente Blvd., Ste. 712, Los Angeles, CA 90049.