
Why You Should Tell Your Children How Much You Make - mikek
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/your-money/why-you-should-tell-your-kids-how-much-you-make.html
======
sdrothrock
I agree that parents should tell their kids how much they make. Even better,
bring them in on the budgeting process, explain how much of their paycheck
goes to taxes, etc.

I was raised not knowing any of that -- my mother absolutely hated talking
about her finances with me. So I never really had a clue what a reasonable
wage or salary was, or how much I would actually lose to taxes, or what a
reasonable budget was... and of course, none of that stuff was taught in high
school, either.

Even with the FAFSA, etc., I remember being told to just sign it and my mother
would insist on taking the form and going to fill in the blanks herself.

I think that parents talking to their children about this kind of thing
provides them with a healthier financial barometer overall, which would be
useful when they start getting pounded with credit card pre-approval letters
out of the blue.

Edit: Even now, as a 29-year-old adult, I have no clue what my mother makes,
what (if anything) she has for retirement, what she inherited from her father
last year, the status of the house she lives in, etc. She just won't talk
about that kind of thing because it "has nothing to do with me."

As a child, it can be a handicap, but as an adult, it can be massively
stressful. I can understand the need to be independent (especially as a single
mother), but money is just a sensitive topic when there isn't a lot.

~~~
markc
I'm in favor of this sort of disclosure in principle, but I have a (perhaps
uncommon) problem with it.

I don't want to disclose my income because my kids are unlikely to ever earn
what I do - and I don't want them _ever_ to feel bad about it, and I don't
think the budgeting aspect would be very useful/instructive given that it's
"not normal".

We have lived far below our means, and I'm a known cheapskate. While my kids
know we're "comfortable" the frugality seems to have rubbed off. They're
savers (agonizing over substantial purchases, delaying gratification) and when
they earn wages or get monetary gifts it goes in the bank rather than into
clothes/gadgets/cars. I'm proud of that. They recoiled at my hints that they
might consider a college major that would lead to a decent wage, claiming that
they don't care about status buying and owning stuff. I hope it lasts beyond
youthful idealism.

So here's the thing. If I show them my salary, it's likely 3X to 4X what
they'll ever earn (based on median wages for college grads) so I can't show
them "reasonable". I can show them some sort of freak-show budget with >60%
going into savings, but it's still not likely to be very useful to them.

Part of me _wants_ to share this info, and I'm happy to hear other opinions,
but on balance it seems like it could do more harm them good. They're already
financially wise for their ages. Maybe I should just show them our bills? Then
they'd at least know what it takes to run an average home.

~~~
aragot
My dad earns 2.5x my graduation salary (which in France is a huge difference -
I'm 31 now). Don't worry about your kids knowing the figures, I've always
rationalized about my father: He's from a business school (earns more than
engineers), he explained me stuff about fluid mechanics theory (=He's smarter
than me), he had 30 years of experience when I had 0.5, he manages 150 people
when I would be incapable of that, and most of all, if your child isn't that
rich, you may have 3 kids when he can adjust to having 2 or 1 if necessary.

If anything, knowing the figures will help kids plan their life accordingly
and with more anticipation; the only drawback is I'm not good at holding
secrets and a few friends have known about my father's salary.

The most important is probably something your kids already know: My father has
a belly, and that's the result of long years of stress; In other terms he paid
his wealth with his health.

------
Too
Revealing the salary is one thing but i think revealing the monthly expenses
is even more important for kids to realize how much money actually just
"disappears", into recurring bills like rent, for one to live a comfortable
life.

There's a reality TV show in Sweden, called the teenage boss(tonårsbossen),
where in each episode the teenager of a family get's to control the whole
budget for his family for one month. Surely there's selection bias on what
type of family they put on the show but it's quite revealing to see how kids
think when they get that much money because they don't understand how much or
how little it is. Even when the hosts help them lay out a budget they always
always end up overspending. First they go buy tons of clothes the first week,
they give their parents less pocket money than what they themselves normally
got before, the food bill is always double because they don't know what's
normal price for grocery items, there's always some recurring monthly expense
that's easy to forget like gas for the car, they don't take into account
unexpected events like the fridge breaking down, nothing goes into savings etc
etc.

I think every kid would benefit greatly from doing this kind of exercise at
least once, at least letting them join the budgeting and let them see where
the money goes.

------
ProAm
I sort of feel like is a middle class/upper class problem or lesson to be
learned. When you grow up poor none of this is really a mystery. You
understand very early on the value of a penny, where it goes, and why it's
spent. Still a valuable lesson.

~~~
toyg
But do "you" _really_ understand?

My parents have always been on a tight budget -- they got most of their
cutlery, plates etc with loyalty schemes for the biscuits I'd eat every
morning. They bought a second-hand campervan so that they could go on holiday
without paying for hotels, and could afford a house only thanks to old-school
"socialist" policies here in Europe. They always fixed what they broke and
always talked about the importance of using money wisely, for real things etc
etc. They were also politically active, so I know how the sausage gets made,
so to speak.

The result? I've always been rubbish at managing big sums of money. When my
salary went over a certain threshold, I just stopped caring. I get anxious at
the first sight of debt, yeah; but in many ways, that's also a handicap
because it stops me from effectively leveraging debt as an instrument of
growth. I can't get myself to talk about money with clients, and I'm thankful
someone else does it for me. I used to spend days looking to save a few quid
on this or that £20 gadget, and now I buy my cars from an expensive official
dealer that is clearly overcharging me. When numbers go over a certain
threshold, it just becomes "funny money" and my brain switches off. Right now
I'm probably living beyond my means and balancing my budget by pure luck, I
just have no idea.

Growing up poor can give you a certain inner fire and a sense of the
importance of money in society; but it doesn't necessarily give you a full
picture, in the same way knowing how to develop a simple webapp with Django or
Ruby doesn't mean you know how to implement a scalable and highly-available
system with queues, nosql, AWS orchestration and so on. You know the value of
a penny, but not necessarily the value of a grand.

~~~
phaemon
Perhaps thinking of your spending as a percentage of your net income, rather
than an absolute amount, would help? Have a read over:

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-
sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-
behind-early-retirement/)

I found it provided a very useful perspective.

~~~
72deluxe
Very useful, thanks. Basically: "your age to retirement depends entirely on
your savings rate, as a percentage of your take-home pay".

So, in short, try to live on less, put the rest in the bank and don't spend
it. Live on what you need, avoid needless luxuries. And avoid credit card debt
like the plague, right?

------
ChuckMcM
We got our daughters checking accounts when they were 8. (actually USAA
savings accounts that you could write 3 checks a month on) and we set up some
auto-deposits for their allowance.

Generally the question wasn't about how much money we made, rather it was
about how money "works". And why would you save it rather than spend it, and
what is debt, and what are luxuries. We also made some of the things that
other parents were paying for out of pocket, come out of their allowance. That
exercise forces them to choose amongst a couple of things to spend their money
on, and they get to experience both good and bad choices. Like spending money
on going to a movie versus waiting and buying it as a DVD and having a movie
night at home with your friends. Same net expenditure of cash but very
different experiences.

And we tried to impress upon them the notion of 'current' money (money in the
bank) 'future' money which was inbound assuming you met the conditions,
'mandatory' expenses, and 'optional' expenses.

The goal was to show how saving money "pushes" it into the future while taking
on debt "pulls" money from the future into the present.

I think in general we were reasonably successful. They all knew how to balance
a checkbook and make a budget when they got to college. The hard part as a
parent is to know that you could make a temporary hardship "go away" but
holding back so that your kids can get the experience and feeling of getting
past it. The trick is doing it early, so the 'hardship' is they don't have any
money left to buy ice cream from the snack shop, rather than something more
serious like coming up with enough money to pay first and last month's rent on
a new place to stay.

The only thing I really didn't like about the article was responding "Why do
you ask?" which is always heard as a challenge by my kids, as if they have
over stepped their place by asking a question. I much prefer, "Great question!
What are you trying to figure out or understand?"

------
nsxwolf
"he decided to do something that many parents would consider radical: show
them exactly what he earned."

Huh? Really? That's radical? I always knew how much my mom made. Do parents
really keep this from their children, the same way they keep it from other
coworkers?

~~~
fletchowns
I never knew how much my parents made when I was growing up. All I knew was
that they worked hard, there was always food on the table, and we got to go on
cool vacations once in awhile. I think that's really all you need to know at a
young age. Doing chores, mowing lawns, etc, is a good way to learn the value
of a dollar at a young age. At 14 I started working a real job and opened a
checking account, seems like a perfect age to be learning about how to manage
your own finances.

~~~
Terr_
Usually when people say kids must "learn the value of a dollar", they imply
kids _underestimate_ how important that dollar is... but to me it feels like
the reverse.

Kid-me would have been absolutely shocked at how many potential candy-
bars/toys/etc. are being spent on adult things like rent or gas or insurance.

~~~
sliverstorm
It goes both ways. At first money is meaningless, completely free. Then as you
learn its value, it is incredibly valuable to you. Five whole dollars! Wow!

------
MichaelGG
Budgeting with older kids, as part of teaching about general responsibility,
is probably a great idea. I'm also bewildered why anyone would hide their
finances from their kids. Neat idea to dump it out in cash and divide it out,
as an easier way to visualize.

But, some kids worry. Having to tell them we have to be careful with money,
that we can't do something because of money... eh, that introduces an
unnecessary thing for them to be concerned about when they're only 6, or 8 or
so. They're already terrified about death, plus all the other "stresses" of
whatever kids deal with (getting to the bathroom on time, not being made fun
of, studying, etc.).

So my line to my kids is: I earn enough, and I always will find a way. You
should never worry about this. Don't let money be the deciding factor in
decisions. Even at one point when I was a kid and we were on food stamps, my
father always tried to make it clear that money would not be a concern.
Dealing with teen stuff, no matter how insignificant it now appears, plus
worrying about my parents budgeting? What's for?

As far as "Why can't I get <newitem>?" \-- I don't buy them every toy they
want, but that's due to clutter and accumulating shit. I let them get any new
toy they want, if they trade in several old toys (so that they'd approach only
having a few, plus presents that don't require trade in). That's a separate
discussion though.

------
titanomachy
> Each month, she has them sit with her while she pays the tuition online,
> asking them to click the button. “We jokingly say that it costs $92.50 to
> send them each to school every day,”

I don't like this at all. If you decide to send your kids to private school,
don't lord it over them and make their education a source of guilt to keep
them in check.

~~~
peteretep

        > don't lord it over them and make their education a
        > source of guilt to keep them in check
    

Why not?

~~~
emodendroket
It probably wasn't their choice not to go to a public school (and if it was,
come on, they shouldn't have the ability to make that choice all by
themselves).

------
j_lev
One of the benefits of growing up Jewish is that business talk at the dinner
table each evening drowns out even the TV. Of course, you learn pretty quick
that not all families are like this.

I'm happy to give lessons but I'll never give an exact net worth. Stealth
wealth FTW

[http://www.joshuakennon.com/stealth-wealth-why-americas-
rich...](http://www.joshuakennon.com/stealth-wealth-why-americas-rich-hide-
their-money/)

~~~
yitchelle
My family, from a Chinese heritage, has a similar thing. We talk about
business, our salary, our financial plans etc within ourselves, but silence
outside the family. I heard similar stories from other families. I always
wonder how pervasive that is in other cultures.

~~~
foobar2020
I actually envy you guys. I come from an European Christian family, and it was
only my father that occasionally engaged in discussions regarding wealth,
earnings, business. It was not a popular thing to do where I grew up. Although
I firmly believe this is the right thing to do, properly executed it brings
family together and gives support to everyone's plans.

------
jtwebman
When I was 16 my dad made me balance the check book and pay all the bills for
a year. It is why I feel I am successful now. He also taught me to ask how can
I expand my means to afford something vs cutting. A great idea for sure!

------
pjungwir
I was surprised to read so much concern about children learning what their
parents make or what their home is worth, as well as concern they might share
that with outsiders. I have three kids, aged 1, 3, and 5, and I don't worry
about that. Maybe it's because I'm a freelancer so I think about income more
often than someone with a stable paycheck. Do other people fear those things?

If so, and sorry to veer off into a different thread, but maybe salary and
home value are good answers to "I have nothing to hide." :-)

~~~
Spooky23
There's slot of weird psychology at play here.

Many people harbor guilt or are otherwise insecure about money.

------
bhousel
I kind of don't want them telling the other children in school how much I
make.

~~~
peteretep
Eh, my Dad told me it was important not to tell other kids because it would
hurt their feelings, so I didn't. I'm pretty sure none of them would have
cared, either. Have more faith in your kids.

------
programminggeek
Information has value and power when it is scarce and loses value when shared.
Honestly, I think more people should be open about how much they make, how
much profit margins their businesses have, etc. because transparency in the
long run deflects a lot of questions and problems.

Many/most people are basically rational and understand things in somewhat
reasonable terms, even if greed is problematic. For example, Bill Gates is
worth like $50 billion or whatever. I'm not rushing to take his money,
company, or job.

Yet, if I know that I'm charging $85/hr. for developer consulting when my
competition is charging $150/hr. perhaps I'd be better off adjusting my rates
higher. Or, at $250/hr if I'm already top of market maybe I don't have as much
room to raise my rates.

Knowing that I can make rational decisions about what to charge and so on and
people won't freak out about that. The way people handle salary negotiations
by and large is really bad simply because we are a nation of price takers, not
price setters. Thus, the majority takes what they are offered and doesn't bat
an eye.

The handful of people with professional negotiators or who are good
negotiators themselves are making far more than everyone else.

If you tell your kids how much money you make and explain why, they have a
better chance of making the same or more money than you do.

------
stegosaurus
I personally figured most of this out whilst growing up by just, well, looking
at what we had, where we lived, occupations, etc. All the data is there... I
saw a world dominated by fun coupons, researching it was just a given, like
asking 'why is the sky blue?'.

What I can remember intensely, is thinking that the amount of work that seemed
to occur for what we had seemed obscene. It was very difficult not to see that
as a failing in my parents. (I don't feel that way now). Why would they choose
to work for such low pay? The people on the TV, on the Internet seemed to be
doing well.

I try, but it's hard to not feel despair when reading these sorts of articles.
There are so many issues with this... the college debt throwaway, for example.
The choice looks completely different to a poor child in social housing, than
it does to a child whose parents are well on the way to owning the family home
outright.

------
informatimago
Since there's some discussion in this thead about inequality of revenue
between generations, I would mention here Stéphane Laborde's "Théorie Relative
de la Monnaie"
[http://trm.creationmonetaire.info/](http://trm.creationmonetaire.info/) or
"Currency Relative Theory"
[https://github.com/informatimago/LatexTRM/blob/master/LateXT...](https://github.com/informatimago/LatexTRM/blob/master/LateXTRM-
en.pdf)

Basically: instead of performing QE by giving all the new money to banksters,
we give a Universal Dividend to all human being, at a rate determined from the
average lifespan, so that each human being gets the same relative amount of
money during his life who ever he is, and WHENEVER he lives. (Of course, this
doesn't precludes normal economic exchanges, and therefore differences in
paychecks, but at least the QE are done systematically in a reasonned system,
contrarily the aphasard releases of the Fed). (For the European Union, given
the average lifespan here, this would give a Universal Dividend of about
500€/month).

------
taeric
The day when folks are in no way defined by their income can not come quickly
enough. It saddens me to know that it will likely not be near my lifetime.

~~~
emodendroket
Money is essentially a measure of your influence/ability to make people do
things, so it's not surprising it's tied up with status.

~~~
runamok
I suppose that is true. However, I see money as giving me the ability to not
_have_ to do what _others_ want me to do (within legal bounds of course).

~~~
1123581321
It's the same thing - your immunity to that power is your status.

~~~
runamok
I disagree. Using a probably hyperbolic metaphor: I don't want to be a slave
but neither do I wish to be anybody else's master.

~~~
1123581321
That is (or was) the definition of the middle or burgher class, though. The
middle class is independent enough to be a check on the power of the upper
class since they can't be bought, but not so wealthy or powerful that they
control others. I think the analogy fits well.

------
carlob
> Some parents start with even larger line items. Trisha Jones, a stay-at-home
> mother in Norfolk, Va., sends her children, who are 6 and 8, to private
> school. Each month, she has them sit with her while she pays the tuition
> online, asking them to click the button. “We jokingly say that it costs
> $92.50 to send them each to school every day,” she said, adding that they
> know that the daily number is akin to a nice Lego set. “But it’s a privilege
> to go to the school that they do, and we want them to know that we are
> making sacrifices to send them there.”

This really made me cringe. Specifically why should you admit to your kids
that what they have is a privilege. Isn't it the same as saying we're rigging
the contest? We're making the world more unjust?

Your kids should know that is not really that good for them to be away from
the poor/slow/racially inferior/wrong religion kids (or whatever your reason
is), but it's actually really harmful for the public school kids not to have
the kids who can afford private school in the same class.

~~~
kelnos
_This really made me cringe. Specifically why should you admit to your kids
that what they have is a privilege._

I think it's important for people to be aware of the privileges they can and
do take advantage of. Even (especially?) kids can benefit from learning this
early on.

 _Your kids should know that is not really that good for them to be away from
the poor /slow/racially inferior/wrong religion kids (or whatever your reason
is), but it's actually really harmful for the public school kids not to have
the kids who can afford private school in the same class._

So you're saying that parents should intentionally give their kids a
(presumably) inferior education, just because others aren't quite so
privileged?

My opinion is that recognizing and doing something about your own privilege
shouldn't be about handicapping yourself, but should be about helping to
elevate those without the same privilege.

Now, you can argue that putting the more-well-off kids in a regular public
school would do that, but the problem is it's another one of those solutions
that only works if _everyone_ does it simultaneously. And that's just not
something someone is going to be able to make happen. So, instead, you have to
compromise: you give your own kids an advantage that some people may not have
access to. If you have the ability, you might also try to help out the less-
advantaged kids by donating time or money (or something) to improving their
education in other ways. Certainly not a perfect situation, but many families
don't have _that_ much wiggle room in what their finances will allow.

Of course, this is all assuming as fact your assertion that private school =
rich, smart kids and public school = poor, dumb, disadvantaged kids, which...
I don't really buy as a blanket statement.

~~~
carlob
You have some good points and I admit that what I wrote came mostly from a gut
reaction. However there are a lot of studies showing that there are few
benefits for more well-off kids to avoid social mixing, while the damage
inflicted to those who can't afford private schools and are deprived of
interaction with other social classes is great.

I personally don't believe in solutions like charity and volunteering to make
a society more egalitarian and fair. I'm thinking specifically at the impact
of this type of philosophy on American society vs advanced socialdemocracies
like Scandinavian countries.

If you realize you have a cultural or economic advantage I think you should
really put it to use by sending your kid to the same school as everybody else
and improving it passively by their sole presence, and actively by making your
local public school as good as possible for everyone else.

------
kapad
I had parents that shared quite a bit about money with me.

I remember, when I was a kid, any cash gifts that I got on my birthday,
festivals, etc. would be divided in two equal piles. 1/2 would go to my
savings account, and the other half would be given to me to do with as I
pleased. This was my parents way to encourage savings.

A bit later, when I was in the 5th of 6th standard (we don't call them
grades), and my parents spoke to me about their investments in the stock
market, I began saving up my half of the gifts (from the last paragraph) and
invested that in stocks. They really liked me doing this, and decided that
they will match all my investments in stocks (really tiny sums of money then)
provided I do not sell until I am eighteen. I realise now, they wanted me to
get into the right kinds of stocks. Stable enterprises, with good leadership,
etc. After seeing me doing this for about a year, they handed me my savings
bank account, with all the 1/2's of all cash gifts I had been getting for all
my life (about 14/15 years). This was there way of telling me that they had
some confidence in my dealing with money. At around this same time, my dad was
buying a new office. He spoke to me about the loans that he would be taking to
buy this. There was some cash that I had (a gift from my grandfather, to be
given to me when I turned 18) and I asked him to use that to offset the loan.
I'd already realised, that I was not going to need this money until 18, and it
made more sense to use this cash and offset the loan. Why pay more interest to
banks that you need to?

On the whole, there have been a lot of incidents in my life, where my parents
have been rather open about their income with me. Now, I'm 2 years out of
college, I see the difference, in that, I am able to advise friends and
colleagues, some older than me, on where to invest cash, how to save tax and a
few stock tips a year. (I'm still a really long term investor :) )

------
jakejake
My parents completely hid all finances from me and my sister growing up. My
mother in particular would be horrified to think that their kids were
stressing out over mortgage and utility bills. They didn't have to sit down
and show us their pay-stubs for us to know roughly what types of things we
could afford though. Perhaps if my parents had been really wealthy and could
afford anything, then I would have grown up with no concept of money. But, as
it were, I had a small allowance that I could spend as I pleased and I knew
pretty well what price range we could afford for birthdays and such.

I would like to think I'm a moderately successful entrepreneur with a decent
ability to manage personal and corporate finances. I'm thankful I didn't have
that "adult" stress on my shoulders and was allowed to just be a kid.

------
sheensleeves
It's inescapable if they go to college. That's the only way I would have found
out.

There's a line on the FAFSA form.

~~~
genericuser
My parents simply told me they had too much in savings for me to get financial
aid so filling out the FAFSA was a waste of time. But the entire time I was
growing up they acted like we weren't in the best financial shape and couldn't
afford name brand cereal and stuff so I learned to be thrifty through a false
sense of being worse off than we actually were.

It is important to teach kids to live with in reasonable means and how to
prioritize needs over desires to stay within budget when everything is
accounted for. It is not important in my opinion for them to know an exact
amount anyone makes, but the article does outline a way the former was
achieved by doing the latter.

~~~
MadManE
I don't know that the threshold for FAFSA being useless is really that high.

~~~
rhino369
For Pell Grants isn't not that high, but you still have to fill one out if you
want federal student loans which have no limit at all.

------
theVirginian
I grew up with no idea how much my parents made and they often sent very
conflicting messages about how much they had or how much we were able to
spend, giving me money freely one minute and then screaming at me for being
selfish about money the next. I never did have a clear picture and probably
never will, after a while I didn't care. If I got something I got it, if I
didn't then I didn't. Instead of money being used as something I could earn
respect with or be trusted with, they used it to control me and get me to do
things whenever they wanted.

Now I am older and they desperately beg me to know about my finances. I don't
answer and I plan on never giving them the slightest clue. There is a complete
lack of mutual respect and this is something I WILL NOT screw up with my kids
if I ever have any.

------
shenoyroopesh
I think the title could have been rephrased.

It's definitely a good idea to build some financial sense from young age,
helping kids figure out how budgeting works, where the money gets spent, how
it all works, etc. It also works if they are able to learn why someone pays
you that money in the first place - how a business makes profit because of
your work, which justifies the salary (or some other value gained if it's a
non-profit organisation). Finally it also makes sense to let them understand
money as a means of exchanging value, rather than some magical paper that just
helps buy stuff.

The earlier they learn about stuff like interest rates, debt, investments,
etc. the better prepared they are to take on their life.

However, just telling kids that "hey kids, I make $xxxx" and doing nothing
after that is never a great idea!

------
jareds
I knew what my parents made as long as I can remember. THey also explained
there health care and retirement situation to me at a young age. This helped
me realize that since they are teachers and were grandfathered into the
systems before benefits started getting massively cut that I needed to take
into account more then just my salary. While my starting salary was much
higher then theirs with inflation taken into account I also realized that I
had t start saving as soon as I got a job. I am lucky that I enjoy programming
and it allows me to live comfortably. While if money were no issue I may have
gone into history talking with them about finances made me realize that I
should find a happy medium with something I both enjoy and will allow me to be
comfortable.

------
zaroth
Some parts of this article struck me as bizarre, like the "Why do you ask?"
part. And the parenthetical "this also works well for questions about sex and
drugs" was even worse! I guess in some cases it's useful or important to ask
"Why do you ask?" but using that line every single time? I think that would
get old very fast.

The counter-examples seemed plastic. Who doesn't tell their kids "because it
costs too much money" when they ask for some stupid toy they are going to play
with for 5 minutes and then forget. I explain the cost of things all the time
to my kids, it would never occur to me to dodge the subject.

------
teekert
There are some good tips in this piece I am definitely going to apply.

Growing up I remember very well that I always felt my parents had a near
unlimited budget but that they just didn't buy everything because they wanted
me to learn that that was somehow bad. It real took until somewhere in my mid
teens to understand that this was not the case.

My father never shared his salary. Taking all this cash home sounds like a lot
of fun! OR perhaps you could just sit your kid down and make Python/matplotlib
script that shows some pi/bar charts where you add categories... Get the kid
excited about programming too ;)

------
wisevehicle
I felt like this article actually begs a bigger question, why don't we tell
each other how much we make? I get the sense that because we keep this so
extremely private, it makes it so much easier for the class division between
the wealthy, the 'middle class', and the poor to continue to grow.

If everyone truly understood just how much less the 'rich' people they know
earned than any of the 700,000 or so folks in the global elite, would we still
be having the same sort of disdain for progressive taxation?

~~~
nroets
Because it leads to discontent: www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg

------
twiss
> [E]ven the youngest generally understand when budgets have become tighter
> and want to know why.

I don't think this is true for everyone. Children could write off a lack of
stuff to any reason other than "budgets have become tighter", or give it no
thought at all, or be proud that they are not spoiled. Also, "I never thought
we were poor" stories are not uncommon. I don't know if that's a better way to
go, but at least it's sometimes possible.

------
sfjailbird
I don't tell my kid how much I make because they use it to compare with the
other kids' parents. It is uncomfortable and embarrassing to overhear them
bragging among themselves that their dad earns more than that ones.

It's easy, if you don't have kids, to theorize on how you should instruct and
mentor your would-be offspring, but few plans survive first contact with the
real world.

------
Cthulhu_
> “We jokingly say that it costs $92.50 to send them each to school every
> day,”

That might actually have an adverse effect. Kids doing worse at school for
whatever reason, get a huge guilt complex because their parents pay a lot of
money for them to be there. Reminds me of the "disappointed Asian parents"
meme / stereotype.

------
spacemanmatt
I love seeing this. I run a full-disclosure household. We talk about money
(savings, income, assets for now; they're young) and careers and aspirations
often. Justice themes bubble up naturally out of this. As a parent, I can only
recommend bringing your kids into the conversation.

------
holri
You should tell your children how much you can do and what you know.

Being is important, not having.

~~~
spacemanmatt
Education is also important. We have created economies so that we can conduct
business and allowing children to remain ignorant of these things is a direct
harm.

------
DigitalSea
I wholeheartedly agree. Our consumer-led marketing manipulated society casts a
massive shadow over the reality of just how much things cost and no sum of
money is too big. When you're a child or teenager, you don't have the
pressures of life on your shoulders, you don't realise just how hard things
can be. You have no bills, little to no responsibilities and everything is so
much easier.

I actually had this conversation with my wife the other day. We decided we
would raise our child to be aware of just how much things cost and teach him
from a young age to be successful in life and get the things you want, you
have to work for them and that nothing is ever handed to you.

This is why I think it is important to instil good values into your children
from a young age and teach them the importance of money, how it is earned and
where it is spent. When they're old enough to do things for themselves,
encourage them to earn money through chores but also ensure they do some
chores for free. Maybe give them a few dollars for mowing the lawn, but make
them do the washing up and clean their room for free.

When I was about 10, my father who is a small engine mechanic gave me a full
can of fuel, a whipper snipper and a mower. He then suggested I go door-to-
door and ask people in the street if they would like their lawn mowed for $15
(for a small yard). When the fuel ran out, I had to use my own earned money to
buy more fuel, oil (for two stroke mixture) and whipper snipper cord. I
remember one stage I had like $40, but I spent half of that on fuel, oil and
cord.

Because of that experience my father taught me, I believe it actually made me
grow up to be more conscious of money and taught me the basics of running a
business and managing money. I have very little personal debt, I earn an okay
salary and have some savings. Sadly, we're seeing the current generation
getting into massive amounts of debt thanks to credit cards, expensive
electronic items and even in-app purchases on our cellular phones.

I learned to be more budget conscious when I go shopping with my wife because
I grew up going to the store with my mother who knew to go at a certain time
of day to get discounted; fruit, meat and vegetables. The importance of buying
in bulk, the importance of knowing what you want to buy by writing a shopping
list before you even set foot in the store.

When I was growing up, money was a taboo subject that my parents didn't like
discussing in-front of me and my siblings. I would see my parents sometimes
argue about money, not very often, but I didn't really know first-hand some of
the stresses until I got older and paid more attention. I wish my parents
involved me and my sisters in the budgeting process so we could all be a
little more grateful for what we had and the sacrifices my parents had to make
raising us.

Honestly, I think the whole money subject should be taught in school. I know
some schools do to an extent, but children need to be taught the honest basics
and realities of everyday life financial responsibilities as an adult and the
consequences of things like debt.

------
lolheheh
You forgot that HN readers are cool bros who travel the world and code from
cafes in Thailand while writing books about now to be cool. They don't have
kids.

~~~
spacemanmatt
I'm probably risking my karma to respond in agreement with an already
downvoted post but whatevs. You're mostly spot-on about the demographic even
if also something of a prick about it. ;)

