Teaching Children the Wise Use of Money by True Contentment

Another very important matter is whether your youngsters will realize that there is more to life than just owning things. Or will they be convinced by manufacturers, advertisers, stores and even by their friends, that happiness comes from things they buy?

In earlier generations people feel good about themselves because of things they produced. A man was an excellent cabinet-maker. A woman baked marvelous pies, or made beautiful quilts. A boy built a radio set, or raised a prize calf.

Today we make fewer things. Most of what we have is produced by machines. Manufacturers and sellers know this, and encourage you to fill the gap by consuming. They suggest you can "be somebody," not through developing a good personality or an upright character, but through things you buy.

In their book Supershopper David and Marymae Klein say that "it's not surprising that many young people try to distinguish themselves by being the first on their block or the first in their group to buy a new record, electric guitar, surfboard, or walkie-talkie-all of which represent consumption, not production. And even more young people flock to buy these things not because they genuinely enjoy them but simply because 'all the other kids have one.' This gives them a certain sense of equality-but it can also be brutally expensive, because it depends on continuous buying in order to keep it up."

How can young people be helped to see that "I am what I own" is not a valid basis for a happy life?

A great deal depends on the parents' attitude. As a parent, are you more concerned with things than with personal and spiritual development? Do you help your children realize that they are important because of what they are, not because of what they have? Do you make them feel good about themselves, rather than having to show off possessions?

They know that others appreciate them because of the kind of people they are trying to be-people who demonstrate their love, and who try to do what is right. In the lives of such youths there is a basis for real joy and satisfaction from accomplishments, rather than the shallow feeling of temporary importance because of possessions.

It is important for us to set such things of real value before our young ones, whom we love so much, and who look to our example as they mold their own lives.

Giving young children everything they want may indeed spoil them and tend to make them more selfish. Older parents who continue to give adult "children" everything they want may cause them to view the parents mainly as a fountain of gifts, rather than as people who are due respect and affection.

This fact struck one disillusioned woman who wrote that she and her husband had been "giving and giving to both [our] children for years, on every possible occasion, and asking them not to spend any money for us." But the parents received a shock when, after offering the grown daughter an expensive statue, she said: "Don't bother. One day all this stuff will be mine, and then I'll sell it." The mother lamented: "I can't tell you how much this hurt me." Further hurt came later when both grown son and daughter began quizzing her about how much they could expect to inherit when she and her husband died. Sadly she said: "I never thought to hear such remarks from our own son and daughter."

Grown children who receive too much in a material way from their parents may not only be spoiled but also be prevented from learning the valuable lesson of how they can obtain joy by giving to their parents, or by doing things for them. Parents who do not give children too much often find that when they later do give an unexpected gift it is more likely to be appreciated. And the parents may be more appreciated for what they are, rather than for what they can give.