On Friday, I went to the San Anselmo library to find this book I’ve been itching for: The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money. I’d taken a photo of the cover over 2 years ago when I was working in a school and they hosted a book fair. (In fact, I took many photos of the parenting section, as there’s little difference sometimes between parenting and teaching.) And, as I begin to gel my ideas and intention around a blog uniting parenting, finance, and spiritual principles, I wanted to get some inspiration.
I knew that I didn’t have to start from scratch, that there are resources out there—and I’ve fallen down a mini-rabbit hole with a blog site about living frugally, below your means, and retiring early, as part of the “FIRE” (financially independent, retired early) movement! But, it took me a little while to re-discover the title, as when you’re looking up “money and kids,” you get a lot of results!
This is encouraging. It seems that part of the backlash of the financial collapse is: How do we help this not happen to our children? I’m grateful people are asking this question, and are also offering some answers.
As I was cooking dinner yesterday (producing amazing ratatouille from the kitchn website), I was listening to the podcast, “Make me Smart.” The other day, it was “Conversations from the Corner Office” (you can tell I have a thing for Kai Ryssdal from “Marketplace” on NPR!!).
I’ve been listening to Marketplace for several years, eons before I knew what the numbers meant, before I owned a stock, before I understood why at all I was listening.
I suppose the answer is, because I wanted financial literacy!
I still do.
And one of my intentions in wanting to absorb information on finance, parenting, and values, is that I want to learn to live better in that realm. And once I learn it, I want to share it.
There are roads that are paved before us; let’s not bushwhack just to say we did.
Owning Voice 