Money Matters

At what age do your kids reveal their true colors?

Last night my sister-in-law called. “Jay is thinking about dropping out of college!” she wailed. “What will he do with his life?”

My husband spent much of the next hour assuring her there are many occupations that do not require a college degree, and Jay would be just fine.

When my two were living at home, their attitudes toward money were diametrically opposed. Now their attitudes seem to have reversed.
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“Do you know what I love most in the world? Do you?” Rebecca Gibbs asks in Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town. “Money!”

Our daughter landed this role in community theatre when she was about ten. The line cracked us up because Nikki was nothing like the character she played. She still isn’t, but she has learned to be careful with money, now that she’s managing a family of her own.

When she and her brother lived at home, I kept a tally of the money each accumulated from allowances, chores, birthday and Christmas gifts. Almost every year our daughter would run a deficit and start borrowing from her brother, who was more of a saver. Back then.

Not any longer. My mother occasionally recalls Clay saying, “I like to save money.”

If she says this in Nikki’s hearing, my daughter replies, “That Clay doesn’t exist anymore.”

Both Nikki and Clay are generous-hearted and charitable-minded, though. Although quite different from each other in their spending patterns, I remain optimistic that each is optimizing his or her potential for happiness in their own way.

At some point, our children and grandchildren must make these decisions for themselves. For some of us, letting go proves difficult.
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These issues may be even harder if you come into their lives when they are a bit older. In my novel, Joy After Noon, Joy finds herself in a situation where her stepdaughters have already decided to dislike her. What influence can she possibly have? You might be surprised.