Money, safety or fear?
Author: Maria Mendez

For the most of us, money means fear and for others it means safety, but all the difference depends on our families concept of money. For my family money means, sorrow, anguish and fear. I grew up lacking financial literacy, we never discussed the monetary issue at the dinner table or better said, it was a forbidden issue to speak about it, if we did, we were answered with our family's slogan "we don't have any money".

However, for most of my classmates who grew up with wealthy families who had a different concept of money then mine, there was no fear for them, in fact it was a natural topic to discuss. There is a huge gap between talking about the lack of money or money discomfort and financial literacy. Anyway as every body knows, having money doesn't solve all our problems neither if we are talking about fears.

Let's pretend there is a very wealthy family but if what built that wealth was the fear of not being poor, then this family is almost in the same position that one who doesn't have any. In both cases having or not having was moved by fear.

Now I'm tempted to quote Sharon Lechter and Robert Kiyosaki from the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, "The avoidance of money is just a psychotic as being attached to money". Think about what are we teaching our kids about money, it doesn't matter for them if we say something but in the other hand we act differently.

Even a word can change a kid's life, but our actions sticks in their minds like a file and when it comes to their financial issues, they look into that file. For instance, even though I grew up with a wrong concept of money, I've always tried to think positively about it but, my son told me once "Mom, how can you always say that we are going to be rich if you are always so stressed out when it comes to paying your bills". This is my seven year-old son, imagine when he'll turn seventeen, what he could say to me.

Kiyosaki says in his book, "One dad recommended, study hard so you can find a good company to work for. The other dad recommended, study hard so you can find a good company to buy". "One dad said: when it comes to money, play it safe don't take risks, the other dad said: learn to manage risk".

"They will be dependent on their families or government for financial support. What will happen when Medicare and Social Security run out of money? How will a nation survive if teaching children about money continues to be left to parents--most of whom will be, or already are poor? Just as scholastic skills are vitally important so are financial skills and communication skills".

What are we really teaching our kids? We have the choice to pass to them the weakness of our fears or the strengths of reality. We are creating bankers, lawyers, teachers, presidents and parents, these are the people who are going to manage our future and therefore theirs. Kids don't come with a manual and its not easy to raise them, but this is a changing world where not just sex, drugs and technology are evolving, money does too and so our minds.

Let's stop blaming the past of what we've learned and prepare for what we can learn and teach to them.

Resource "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter








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I'm from Venezuela, I'm 27 years old, I have a beautiful 7 year old boy who I dedicated every single line I wrote and will write. I apologized for my writting, this is the first time I write something in english, I wanted to start practicing!!!

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