Salon Money | Get them while they're young

T A B L E__T A L K
Who pays for debt brought into a marriage? Discuss solutions to this sticky situation in the Business and Personal Finance area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y

Mad about Steve Madden
By Heather Chaplin
Wall Street loves this low-end shoemaker -- and so do fashion-conscious young women
(06/05/98)
Finding the g(ive) spot
By Kevin Kelleher
In the increasingly competitive quest for dollars, charity organizations are looking for ways to find that magic motivational appeal
(05/29/98)
The reluctant capitalist
By Heather Chaplin
Salon's Reluctant Capitalist looks at the knotty problem of what to do when you've won $195 million on the lottery
(05/22/98)
The reluctant capitalist
By Heather Chaplin
From red to green
(05/15/98)
Baby bulls
By Heather Chaplin
Young turks ride high on the booming stock market
(04/15/98)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Browse the
Money archives

Get them while they're young
_____________BY KEVIN KELLEHER | Think back to your life before money, that prelapsarian time when the subject did not possess an iron grip on your everyday thoughts and actions. Do your childhood memories go back that far? As adults, we strive to amass enough money to buy anything we desire, or we try to live a simple enough life to avoid its pressures. Both aspirations reflect a desire to return to that childlike Garden of Eden.
The hard truth is that long before the last school bell tolls, money has already inveigled itself into our identities. Some of us will idealistically try to rise above money's unseemly effects; others are already on the road to becoming money addicts. Either way, we've learned we can't get along without it. The age of innocence is over.
So how and when does this happen? It's a question that growing numbers of companies in the money business are eager to learn. One study at Texas A&M University says children under 12 spend $18 billion a year of their own money -- four times what Mattel brings in a year.
"Children start thinking about money when they go to the store and see their parents exchange this thing we call money for things that we want," says Marjorie Hardy, a professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa.
Anecdotal evidence from parents also suggests money becomes a reality for children early on, when the basic concepts of demand and supply start to clarify. "I believe that kids -- at least mine -- begin to think about money when they realize that they need it to get what they want, and that it is not readily available," says Diane Dobry, a mother of two who works at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York.
Around the time her youngest son, Kenny, learned to sign his name, he set out to hawk his autograph to neighbors. While not a profitable enterprise, Dobry says, it prefigured others Kenny enthusiastically undertook in the nine years since. "I think he feels it brings him independence," she said. "I wonder what he'll be like when he's 33."
Increasingly, however, it's parental worry that is making money an earlier and more direct presence in the lives of children. As personal finance becomes the top priority on the family agenda, some parents and psychologists wonder whether it's better to shield children from money, concerned that a childhood too focused on money will produce shallow, materialistic adults. Others fear that a child ignorant in the ways of money won't be prepared for the rigors of our very money-oriented post-industrial world.
"What kids don't know about money can hurt them. Bad financial habits in childhood can lead to worse problems when you're grown up," says Neale Godfrey, the founder of the Children's Financial Network in Mountain Hills, N.J., and author of "A Penny Saved."
Godfrey, like Dr. Tightwad and the Cash University site, is forging a personal finance niche aimed at helping parents who want to make saving money as strong a habit as brushing teeth before bedtime or washing hands before meals. As Louis Pukelis, a father of two in Aurora, Ill., says, "Saving and being wise about money and its other forms like credit cards are habits that need to be developed at an early age, in my opinion."
N E X T+P A G E | Girls and the Cinderella syndrome




T A B L E__T A L K Who pays for debt brought into a marriage? Discuss solutions to this sticky situation in the Business and Personal Finance area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Mad about Steve Madden By Heather Chaplin Wall Street loves this low-end shoemaker -- and so do fashion-conscious young women (06/05/98) Finding the g(ive) spot By Kevin Kelleher In the increasingly competitive quest for dollars, charity organizations are looking for ways to find that magic motivational appeal (05/29/98) The reluctant capitalist By Heather Chaplin Salon's Reluctant Capitalist looks at the knotty problem of what to do when you've won $195 million on the lottery (05/22/98) The reluctant capitalist By Heather Chaplin From red to green (05/15/98) Baby bulls By Heather Chaplin Young turks ride high on the booming stock market (04/15/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Money archives		_____________BY KEVIN KELLEHER \| Think back to your life before money, that prelapsarian time when the subject did not possess an iron grip on your everyday thoughts and actions. Do your childhood memories go back that far? As adults, we strive to amass enough money to buy anything we desire, or we try to live a simple enough life to avoid its pressures. Both aspirations reflect a desire to return to that childlike Garden of Eden. The hard truth is that long before the last school bell tolls, money has already inveigled itself into our identities. Some of us will idealistically try to rise above money's unseemly effects; others are already on the road to becoming money addicts. Either way, we've learned we can't get along without it. The age of innocence is over. So how and when does this happen? It's a question that growing numbers of companies in the money business are eager to learn. One study at Texas A&M University says children under 12 spend $18 billion a year of their own money -- four times what Mattel brings in a year. "Children start thinking about money when they go to the store and see their parents exchange this thing we call money for things that we want," says Marjorie Hardy, a professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. Anecdotal evidence from parents also suggests money becomes a reality for children early on, when the basic concepts of demand and supply start to clarify. "I believe that kids -- at least mine -- begin to think about money when they realize that they need it to get what they want, and that it is not readily available," says Diane Dobry, a mother of two who works at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York. Around the time her youngest son, Kenny, learned to sign his name, he set out to hawk his autograph to neighbors. While not a profitable enterprise, Dobry says, it prefigured others Kenny enthusiastically undertook in the nine years since. "I think he feels it brings him independence," she said. "I wonder what he'll be like when he's 33." Increasingly, however, it's parental worry that is making money an earlier and more direct presence in the lives of children. As personal finance becomes the top priority on the family agenda, some parents and psychologists wonder whether it's better to shield children from money, concerned that a childhood too focused on money will produce shallow, materialistic adults. Others fear that a child ignorant in the ways of money won't be prepared for the rigors of our very money-oriented post-industrial world. "What kids don't know about money can hurt them. Bad financial habits in childhood can lead to worse problems when you're grown up," says Neale Godfrey, the founder of the Children's Financial Network in Mountain Hills, N.J., and author of "A Penny Saved." Godfrey, like Dr. Tightwad and the Cash University site, is forging a personal finance niche aimed at helping parents who want to make saving money as strong a habit as brushing teeth before bedtime or washing hands before meals. As Louis Pukelis, a father of two in Aurora, Ill., says, "Saving and being wise about money and its other forms like credit cards are habits that need to be developed at an early age, in my opinion." N E X T+P A G E \| Girls and the Cinderella syndrome