I won’t let anyone else teach money values to my kids - I once heard a school teacher had a post in her class room stating - “Work Hard, Spend Harder!”. Imagine the value that sets up in kids minds from young age. Terrifying!
I often wonder whether our children inherit our values or simply absorb our anxieties.
The line between the two feels incredibly thin. And as parents, we spend years trying to teach them one while secretly hoping we aren’t giving them too much of the other.
Do as what I say, but don’t copy as what I do.
But Kids, definitely copy what we do than doing what we say.
Recently, there were three small moments that made me pause and think about money, childhood, and the invisible lessons happening inside our home.
The first one happened at school:
Nathan’s PE teacher noticed that he was pretty good with a tennis racket and encouraged him to join tennis lessons.
A perfectly normal suggestion.
The kind that most kids would respond to with excitement.
“Really? Can I? and come back home to convince parents to say if I can?”
But my little economist had a different answer to his teacher.
“No, it’s a waste of money.”
Teacher: Stunned.
When I heard that story, I laughed. The kind of laugh that comes with a tiny bit of guilt attached to it.
Because that sentence didn’t come from nowhere.
It sounded suspiciously familiar.
Like hearing my own voice played back to me through a much smaller human being.
Part of me felt proud.
The other part thought, am I restricting his joy, his ability to experience things and he is kid only for once.
The second moment happened at the local library:
Jane had taken Nathan and one of his friends for an activity, and afterwards the boys decided that cookies would be an excellent way to celebrate their intellectual achievements.
Nathan’s friend walked over with confidence and announced to Nathan that he was going to ask Jane to buy them one.
Nathan, without hesitation, replied:
“She’s going to say no.”
Poor kid.
He had completely misread the situation.
Jane, as usual, became the soft target and folded under pressure.
Two happy boys. Two five-dollar cookies.
Mission accomplished.
The funny thing is, the cookie itself was never the issue.
Jane was telling me this story in the evening after I came back home with a mix of I didn’t know how to say no to the kid also a bit of guilt in her mind as she isn’t earning now and for her this is a splurge. The accountant in her brain was simply doing what it always does. Five dollars for a cookie. Now if Nathan’s elder brother saw that - he would also be asking for one.
She was thinking we could buy a whole packet from the supermarket for that price.
Potentially with change left over.
Enough for the entire family and perhaps a small emergency cookie reserve.
But that’s the thing about value.
Children don’t measure value the same way adults do.
To them, that wasn’t a five-dollar cookie.
It was a moment.
It was sitting with a friend after an activity.
It was asking for something and hearing yes or no. If it was a no - they’d be sad for a moment and then move on.
If it was a yes, then it comes with a bit of laughter, crumbs on their shirts, and a memory that will probably outlive the actual taste of the cookie itself.
And I found myself feeling two things at once.
Happy.
And a little sad.
Happy because Nathan understands money. He notices things. He empathises. He rarely asks for much and genuinely considers whether something is worth spending on.
But sad because I sometimes wonder whether we are teaching restraint so effectively that the small, beautiful irrationalities of childhood begin to disappear.
Are we helping them appreciate money? Or are we accidentally teaching them to feel guilty about joy in spending money which is a tool?
Honestly - I don’t know.
Maybe every parent asks themselves that question.
I do feel it’s better that my kids learn the value of money through hard work, earned credibility after achieving something than just getting things at any time anywhere.
For Noah’s tenth birthday, we decided to do something different.
Some small gifts that he asked and waited patiently for it for about 6 ish months. A letter from me and a book + thirty minutes at the dining table.
We spoke about a few simple ideas:
Income minus expenses equals savings.
Assets minus liabilities equals net worth.
Nothing revolutionary.
Just lessons I wish somebody had sat down and explained to me when I was ten.
And to my surprise, he understood it immediately.
Then I asked him to calculate his own net worth.
After adding up birthday money, savings and little treasures accumulated over the years, he discovered that he was worth $426.77
The excitement on his face was priceless. And I asked him to capture the emotion at the end of it which read “Really Happy”
He genuinely had no idea. For a brief moment, he felt wealthy.
And honestly, he already is. Not because of the number itself.
But because he is learning something that took me decades to understand.
I used that excitement to make a small commitment with him.
A promise that once every month, we would sit together and review his money.
No pressure.
No judgement.
Just awareness.
Because if there is one thing that has changed the trajectory of our family more than anything else, it has been understanding money instead of fearing it.
I even recorded a little video of him signing his first agreement to do it diligently.
He took it with the seriousness of a CEO signing a billion-dollar merger.
And I loved every second of it and now I only hope he keeps up this habit.
The older I get, the more I realise that teaching our children about money is far more complicated than teaching maths.
Because money isn’t just numbers.
It’s emotion.
It’s security.
It’s memories.
It’s sacrifice.
It’s values.
It’s the stories we carry from our own childhoods and quietly pass on without even noticing.
And perhaps the challenge isn’t teaching them how to save every dollar.
Perhaps the challenge is teaching them when to hold on and when to let go.
When to be sensible and when to simply buy the cookie.
Because money is what we spend, but value is what we get.
And value is deeply personal.
What feels valuable to a little boy might mean nothing to a grown man.
What matters to a teenager might seem silly to a parent.
What one person sees as waste, another person sees as joy.
The value of something changes between boys and girls, children and adults, families and cultures, and even between different seasons of our own lives.
Maybe wisdom isn’t about always getting the maths right.
Maybe it’s about understanding that the numbers are only one part of the equation.
And if we can raise children who understand both the value of money and the value of moments, perhaps we’ve done something worthwhile after all.
Money comes from work and or providing value to someone.