Parenting Failure: Teaching My Kids About Money

My son needs a job.

He’s a junior at and a smart kid. He played football in the fall, but is taking the spring semester off from sports. Which is good, because like many teenage boys, he discovered the three things that make it essential he has some sort of income:

He needs money for gas;

He needs money for food, preferably Jack in the Box tacos;

He needs money because he has a girlfriend.

He’s applied at Sports Basement, various yogurt shops, Mary’s Pizza Shack and even He goes in, drops off a resume and complains that no one is calling him back.

At this point, I am able to impart a bit of wisdom I’ve picked up over the years: Bug people. It’s the quickest way to get what you want. Go back weekly and talk to the manager. Show up so often that he or she hires you to make you go away.

I feel good that I can give him SOME advice, because the next part of the equation—money management—is something I’m not too savvy about.

As my son has been going about his job hunt, it occurred to me that my husband and I have not done a good job of preparing him for the job market or for managing his money once he gets it. According to the website Bill My Parents—a youth money-management website—we committed the four cardinal sins when it comes to teaching kids about money: we’ve put gas in the car for him, we’ve bought his tacos for him, we’ve given him cash when he needed to buy a Valentine’s gift for his girlfriend and we didn’t set firm financial guidelines. Basically, we didn’t prepare him for Real Life.

Parenting failure.

According to Bill My Parents—which is very good site, by the way—what we should have done is:

1. Start early by giving an allowance, increasing it as he gets older: OK, I see the value of that, but how does that apply to Real Life? If it were Real Life, I would give him chores, then put in a salary freeze and eventually add furlough days. His allowance might be cut 10 percent, and he may be let go, then have to reapply for his job as chief dishwasher/laundry folder/vacuumer. After all, his little brother might do it better—for less.

2. Create a budget: OK, I get this one, too: Tacos, 2 for 99 cents. At $20 per week allowance, that’s 40 tacos every seven days.

3. Make your teen accountable: Accountable to whom? Certainly not his parents. We’re the ones who, every year, say we’re going to cut back on Christmas spending, only to run up credit card bills on Christmas Eve. We’re the family that wants to eat at home to save money, and then spends $400 a week on specialty ingredients. We’re the family that used my daughter’s college fund to go to Europe. (Hey, it’s educational, right?)

Basically, money is a funny thing. And teaching kids an appreciation of it starts at home. But I think the important lesson here is to be real: Yes, you will never bring home as much as you think you will, you’ll often go over your budget and you’ll probably be afraid to talk about money issues with your significant other. Money management is a work in progress. But always remember never to get so wrapped up in making money that you don’t enjoy spending it.

Now go out there and get a job.