The Art of Manliness - #188： Raising Children Who Are the Opposite of Spoiled

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So as a parent

00:00:19.280 myself, one of my goals is to raise a child that's not a spoiled brat, that's grounded when

00:00:26.520 it comes to money, that's generous with it and is savvy and sees it as a tool and makes the most

00:00:31.840 of it while not letting money control them. It's an issue that a lot of parents struggle with on

00:00:36.840 how to teach their children about personal finance. But my guest today on the podcast has written a

00:00:41.980 book with research-backed tips on how to teach your children about personal finance. His name

00:00:48.040 is Ron Lieber. He is the money columnist at the New York Times, and he's the author of the book,

00:00:52.880 The Opposite of Spoiled, Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money.

00:00:57.620 And today on the podcast, Ron and I get high-level first kind of talking about the philosophy

00:01:02.060 we as parents should use when teaching our children about money. But then we get

00:01:06.560 really brass tacks and get into specific questions that a lot of parents have about money, such as,

00:01:12.160 you know, should you pay your child allowance? And if you do, when do you start and how much

00:01:15.640 should it be? How do you teach your kids about being generous with their money? How do you teach

00:01:20.100 budgeting, setting limits on spending? So a lot of great practical information. When you're done

00:01:25.320 with the podcast, make sure to check out the show notes at aom.s slash Lieber. That's spelled L-I-E-B-E-R.

00:01:32.680 You can find show highlights as well as resources we mentioned in the podcast as well.

00:01:37.100 So without further ado, Ron Lieber and The Opposite of Spoiled.

00:01:49.480 Ron Lieber, welcome to the show.

00:01:51.320 It is great to be here. Thank you for having me.

00:01:53.260 So you're the money columnist of the New York Times. And during your writing, I'm sure you've

00:01:56.480 gotten a lot of questions from readers about different money topics. And I'm sure the people

00:02:00.060 you've interviewed through the years have raised the same issues about money and kids. And it seems

00:02:05.980 like teaching your kids about money is a, or can be a really touchy, sensitive topic for a lot of

00:02:11.220 folks. Why are parents so uncomfortable talking about money with their children?

00:02:16.180 I think some of this is bred into us, right? If we grew up, people who are parents now grew up,

00:02:24.060 you know, 20 or 30 or 40 years ago, whatever it is, quite often when we tried to ask questions about

00:02:31.860 money, we were met with some version of the following response, right? That young man is

00:02:38.040 none of your business. And so we got used to the idea that there was something wrong with being

00:02:45.100 curious about this. Maybe it was because we were presumed not to know enough to be able to handle

00:02:52.620 the answers to the questions. Or maybe we were supposed to think that it was rude to ask about money or to

00:02:59.540 talk about money or to even think about money. Maybe it was assumed that, you know, if we asked and if

00:03:08.000 we got the answers, that we would blab and that would embarrass our families or embarrass our parents. 0.68

00:03:13.660 And so for, you know, all of those reasons and more, so many of us have talked ourselves into or

00:03:20.360 been talked into assuming that this was a topic of conversation that was utterly off limits.

00:03:26.380 Yeah. And what's interesting is we think we're protecting our children when we don't talk about

00:03:30.820 money. But in the end, the irony is by trying to protect them, we actually fragilize them in a way

00:03:36.540 when it comes to personal finances.

00:03:38.540 I think that's exactly right. I've actually heard it said to me and put it to me directly in those

00:03:44.020 terms. One of the very first times I was ever out in public talking about this topic, a dad raised

00:03:49.860 his hand and said to me, you know, I just want to protect my kids from all of this money stuff just

00:03:59.380 a little bit longer. Why is that not a good idea? And, you know, my response to him was, you have to

00:04:07.420 think about, you know, what the end game is here, right? We're all in the adult making business here.

00:04:13.200 And money is a big part of how the adult world works when we don't have all that long to make an

00:04:22.080 impact or an imprint on our kids' brains. And if you want to put this off until they're teenagers,

00:04:29.040 the problem is that you then will only have a couple of years left to sort of get their head

00:04:34.760 screwed on straight until they are faced with a six-figure minimum decision about college, right?

00:04:44.260 Well, nobody was really paying much attention. All of a sudden, these college decisions became

00:04:48.960 enormous financially. And, you know, part, one of the many things we're getting them ready for is to

00:04:54.380 make a mature and appropriate decision along with us about, you know, what they're going to spend and

00:05:00.220 how they're going to pay for it to go to college. So, you know, if you haven't started that conversation,

00:05:06.480 if you haven't started giving them practice with money until they're 13 or 15 or 17, you're not

00:05:12.800 going to be able to teach them enough in time so that they'll be ready to contemplate those super

00:05:18.100 big numbers when they're applying to college. What's funny, too, you talk about this in your book,

00:05:22.560 The Opposite of Spoiled, is that while parents don't want to talk to their kids about money, they

00:05:26.440 really, really, really don't want their kids to grow up to be spoiled little brats. 0.66

00:05:31.420 My question is, what makes a spoiled child? Is it part of not talking about money? Is that an issue?

00:05:38.840 And also, I'm curious, what are the traits of an opposite of spoiled child?

00:05:44.520 Sure. You know, it took me a long time to find the answer to that question because the word spoiled

00:05:50.600 itself was something that came to me, you know, almost instinctively, right? The original thought

00:05:56.360 exercise I was trying to go through was that, you know, trying to figure out what all these parents

00:06:00.580 who were confused about money had in common, you know, whether it was the people who had more than

00:06:04.320 average or the people who had less than average, you know, what did they all want to accomplish or

00:06:09.360 at least want to avoid? And so, you know, I asked myself what the single worst word might be that

00:06:15.500 somebody would use to describe my daughter, now my older daughter, that would be the worst indictment of

00:06:22.740 me as a parent, right? The thing that somebody might use to describe my kid that would make me

00:06:27.680 feel like a failure. And right away, the first thing that popped in my head was the word spoiled,

00:06:33.000 you know, it made the hairs rise up on my arm, it gave me goosebumps, not in a good way.

00:06:39.420 And as I tried to figure out why that was so instinctive, you know, I asked other people the

00:06:45.020 same question. And, you know, more than half of them said the word spoiled, you know, some of them did

00:06:49.760 say racist, some of them did say mean, but spoiled was the one I heard most often. And I think the

00:06:54.940 reason why that's the case is that, you know, spoiled kids are not born, they are made spoiled

00:07:00.660 as a verb, not just an adjective, right? Spoiled by whom? Well, probably spoiled by us. And so it

00:07:08.760 literally is an indictment of our parenting when somebody uses that word. So I knew that that was

00:07:15.560 we were all trying to solve for. So, you know, I had to figure out what the opposite of spoiled

00:07:20.480 actually was. And you have to start by defining your terms, right? So, you know, I looked at a lot

00:07:26.240 of what the, you know, academic researchers had found in this area. And, you know, they had attempted

00:07:32.460 to come up with clinical definitions of spoiled. And, you know, the thing that was surprising to me

00:07:37.840 about is that money is really only a small part of it. Spoiled kids, you know, I think of four

00:07:44.560 a definition is only one of which has anything to do with money. Spoiled kids have no rules, 1.00

00:07:50.620 no standards that they have to abide by. So that's sort of number one. Number two,

00:07:56.260 is that if there are any rules, there are no consequences for breaking them. So, you know,

00:08:01.920 the rules might as well not exist in the first place because the kids feel emboldened to blow them

00:08:07.380 off at will. Number three is that spoiled children are never allowed to fail. Their

00:08:15.420 parent or parents are constantly kind of out in front of them, smoothing the path to make sure that

00:08:21.900 they're not challenged or pushed too hard or they're coming up behind them to clean up their

00:08:27.060 messes. They are literally never allowed to fail. And if they fall over, their parents are there

00:08:32.280 to pick them up and dust them off and intervene with their teachers and their coaches and, you know,

00:08:39.140 treat them like fragile little teacups. And it's only with the fourth part of the definition of

00:08:44.140 spoiled that you start to get into money. I mean, spoiled children believe that they have it all

00:08:49.300 coming and they are, you know, lavished with goods or with privileges way above and beyond what most

00:08:57.560 other kids get. And they are not grateful for them at all. They feel entitled. Turns out that

00:09:04.140 while it's easier to spoil a child, if you happen to be affluent in a family of means,

00:09:12.000 it's certainly not limited. I ran into all sorts of stories of families who were not doing very well

00:09:18.160 at all financially, but the kids were nevertheless spoiled because their parents felt so badly about

00:09:25.080 the situation that they were in, that they lavished all of their limited resources on the kids because

00:09:29.660 they did not want them to suffer. This happened to with, you know, extended family, especially with

00:09:35.060 extended family who were, you know, trying to do things for the kids as much as they possibly could.

00:09:40.340 And the kids began to feel like they had it all coming. So those are the four ways in which I would

00:09:46.820 define the term. So, you know, you have to start there before you begin figuring out what the

00:09:51.560 opposite of spoiled adds up to. I guess even with those first three traits, they'll influence the

00:09:56.040 personal finances in a way later on down the road, right? It is. But, you know, for kids who have no

00:10:03.280 rules and have no boundaries, and if there are no consequences for breaking the rules, and if the

00:10:08.320 kids are, you know, not allowed to run their own lives, you know, if those are the sort of standards

00:10:13.860 you're setting or the baseline you're establishing, that means that, you know, there are no limits on

00:10:21.900 what they can have or what they can spend, or if there are rules and they break them or they spend

00:10:27.620 too much or they don't save up anything, that they're constantly bailed out. Or their parents feel

00:10:34.020 like, well, this money stuff is all very complicated and stressful, and I'm going to shield my child from

00:10:39.020 all of that as much as I can because what's most important is that they're happy and well-adjusted

00:10:44.620 and, you know, doing well in school and spending time thinking about that and certainly not working

00:10:48.940 for money, and so I'm just going to, you know, keep all of that away from them for as long as possible.

00:10:53.820 Okay, that's what we don't want. What are the things we want to try to develop in our children

00:10:57.900 so that they're the opposite of spoiled? Well, the challenge here, and it was one that I faced

00:11:03.100 directly was that, you know, there isn't a great antidem for spoiled in the English language. If you look

00:11:09.820 in the thesaurus, the first thing you find is the word fresh. But, you know, we're not talking about

00:11:16.620 meat or produce here. You know, we're talking about children. We're talking about, you know, sort of the

00:11:21.980 secondary definition of spoiled. So I found myself scribbling, you know, for months the list of the

00:11:29.100 values and virtues and character traits that add up to the kinds of grounded, decent kids that we all

00:11:35.500 want to push out into the world someday. Things like modesty and thrift and prudence, patience and

00:11:44.540 perseverance and grit, certainly generosity and graciousness, a sense of gratitude for what you

00:11:52.220 have. Perspective on your place in the world and curiosity about how it came to be, you know,

00:11:59.500 an understanding of your social class and who has more and who has less and how that came to pass and

00:12:06.140 whether it's fair. And so when you look at all of those things together on the sheet of paper,

00:12:12.460 you know, if you're use your imagination, you can immediately see how conversations about

00:12:18.860 money and, you know, family practice and ritual around saving and spending and giving can actually

00:12:26.060 lead directly to each and every one of those values and virtues. And so, you know, rather than

00:12:32.140 shutting down money conversations, if we actually do the inverse and embrace them,

00:12:37.260 those conversations can lead directly to all of these things that add up to the opposite of spoil.

00:12:42.860 Yeah, that's really interesting take because I think most people, particularly in our Judeo-Christian

00:12:47.180 westernized world, think of money as sort of this evil thing that it can corrupt virtue. But what

00:12:52.620 you're making the case that money can be a tool to teach important virtues that have bigger

00:12:57.580 lifelong impact on our well-being and happiness and groundedness. Is that correct?

00:13:02.620 Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you tip your cap to our sort of generalized

00:13:08.060 kind of majority religious traditions in this country, because, you know, I went looking for the

00:13:13.340 money is the root of all evil, the sort of source of the text for that. And I couldn't find it. I'm

00:13:18.940 not actually sure it exists. And while there's certainly all sorts of parts of, you know, any and

00:13:24.860 every holy book that you could find that, you know, sort of talk about the dangers of materialism.

00:13:30.860 What I found as I researched the book, and especially after I wrote it, that the message was being

00:13:37.500 embraced by people of all faith. I mean, I've been on the Debt-Free Muslims podcast. The book has been,

00:13:46.940 you know, embraced by all sorts of Mormons. I've gotten great write-ups on progressive Christian blogs.

00:13:53.980 You know, I'm Jewish myself. People in the Jewish community totally got it, right? And, you know,

00:14:00.220 all of these traditions, you know, much of the root of what they're trying to teach is, you know,

00:14:06.700 how to be a good person, how to have good values. And because money is such an important part of

00:14:13.820 how we move through the world, it stands to reason that there is a connection between, you know,

00:14:20.780 how we spend and how we save and certainly how we give and what we stand for as humans. So,

00:14:27.580 in fact, the connections are direct and they are deep. And, you know, I've spent more time than I

00:14:33.980 expected to talking about them. All right, this is great. We've talked high level. What I love about

00:14:39.180 your book is that you do high level, and I love that, but then you get really brass tacks. You get

00:14:45.500 down to the nitty gritty and the questions that a lot of parents have about money and their children.

00:14:50.540 So I guess the first question we start off with is how do you start the conversation

00:14:53.900 with your kids about money or when do you start them? Because, yeah, money is this really abstract

00:14:59.420 concept. You exchange pieces of paper or digital numbers out there in cyberspace and you get stuff.

00:15:06.140 So how do you have that conversation with your children at different stages in their life?

00:15:11.340 Well, quite often, you don't even have to worry about starting the conversation yourself,

00:15:16.620 because kids are going to want things, and it is going to be your job to not get them for them,

00:15:27.580 you know, the point at which, you know, you're ready to start teaching them the difference between

00:15:32.220 things that they need and things that they merely want. And so it can be hard to have

00:15:38.940 that kind of conversation with younger children. But you should sort of be prepared for it, you know,

00:15:45.820 for people who are listening who are just about to have kids or contemplating them at some point in the

00:15:50.140 future. You know, you don't often get to decide when these conversations begin. And the, you know,

00:15:56.140 the conversation, the questions will come fast and furious starting as early as the age of two.

00:16:02.700 I thought I had it tough at the age of three when my kid wanted to know why we didn't have a summer

00:16:07.740 house. And it wasn't an accusation. She was just sort of curious, right? But I was speaking several

00:16:14.220 months ago and a woman raised her hand and said, my two-year-old came to me the other day and wanted 0.51

00:16:21.500 to know why it was that I went to work every day when a lot of the other mommies didn't go to work.

00:16:28.140 What are you supposed to say to a two-year-old about that, right? And again, you know, you don't get to

00:16:34.460 choose when these questions come up. And I'm not a big believer in blowing them off or even brushing

00:16:40.380 them off. You know, you want to get to the root of why the kid is asking and help them feel good about

00:16:47.660 kind of who they are and where they are. So it turns out the mom of that two-year-old, you know, we sort of

00:16:53.500 drilled down on that. And I said, well, you know, why do you think she was asking? And she said, well,

00:16:58.060 it's because, you know, when she goes on play dates, a lot of the time she's at, you know, houses where

00:17:01.980 the moms are home. And I said, okay, well, where do you go during the day? And she said, well, I'm an

00:17:06.540 attorney. And I said, okay, well, what kind of attorney are you? She said, I'm a prosecutor. And I said, oh, I

00:17:11.980 said, that's easy. I said, you put the superhero cape on each day and you go and you make the city

00:17:19.020 safe. And she said, oh, she said, so I should say that. I said, yes. I said, you're a hero. And

00:17:28.200 that's what you go to do every day. So, you know, it might be more complicated, you know, for somebody

00:17:33.500 who is, you know, an investment banker or a, you know, name your sort of, you know, high concept

00:17:44.060 job, right, an accountant or, you know, something else that a child might have trouble really

00:17:49.180 understanding. But, you know, they are trying to make sense of how the world works when they ask

00:17:55.980 these questions. And we're not really going to get to choose when they come, but it is our job

00:18:01.320 to answer them, to answer them truthfully and to answer them, you know, at a level that in some

00:18:06.640 cases a two-year-old can understand. So you say in your book, oftentimes they just ask these money

00:18:13.000 questions. They're just curious. They're not being accusatory, even though it might come off as that.

00:18:17.740 They're just sort of curious. They're just being kids. They're wanting to know. Right. And it's

00:18:22.440 tempting to feel defensive because quite often they're, they may be asking about something that

00:18:29.060 they don't have that they want or something that other people get to do, or they're sort of sizing

00:18:35.140 you up and sizing their family up and trying to sort of place the family against some other family

00:18:41.480 that might have a bigger house or get to do more things than your family does. And, you know, you'll

00:18:47.040 feel a little bit like you're being judged, but more often than not, what they're really trying to

00:18:52.700 figure out is, am I okay? How are we doing here? And if we're not like everybody else because we

00:19:01.260 have less or because we have more, is that okay? And what am I supposed to say to people about that

00:19:07.980 if they ask me about the fact that our house is bigger or smaller? And so, you know, your job as a

00:19:15.160 parent is to sort of think about what the best way is to explain, you know, where you are and why that

00:19:22.620 is and to make them feel like it's okay because more often than not, it is okay. Yeah, that naturally

00:19:29.760 leads to a great question. These issues of social class, it can be really sensitive and touchy.

00:19:35.900 Even when kids are really young, they start to get this sense. They're like, well, some people have

00:19:40.820 more than me and some people have less than me. And it's become, I think, really more acute,

00:19:46.220 especially for teenagers with social media, when you can see the rich kids of Instagram showing their

00:19:51.480 lavish lifestyles off, or you have these YouTube channels where people just show off what they buy.

00:19:57.900 I don't get this. People just watch other people unbox things or see the stuff that they got at the

00:20:04.500 store. So how do you help your kids navigate this sensitive, touchy topic of social class?

00:20:10.820 How do you let them know, well, it's okay that some people have more than us, or if you happen to

00:20:15.540 be wealthy, that sort of sensitivity about being envied and people scorning you because you have

00:20:21.660 wealth. Any practical tips on dealing with that? Sure. So, I mean, let's start with the first

00:20:26.840 principle, which is don't lie. The second principle is you should explain to your kids that we can't

00:20:36.840 always know for sure how much other people have. You know, we may see physical evidence of it or know

00:20:44.560 what they do, but we can always be sure. And the people who, you know, have a big house and a fancy

00:20:51.400 boat and, you know, go on, you know, nice fishing and hunting trips all the time may be really far in

00:20:57.660 debt and we just don't know it. And the people who live in a modest home without a pool and, you know,

00:21:03.480 don't take fancy vacations or get in the car and, you know, drive and go to national parks,

00:21:08.060 they may be millionaires and they're using that money to, you know, fund things later, you know,

00:21:15.140 charity or college expenses or something like that. So, you know, there's a lot that we can't know

00:21:20.480 by looking at people. And then, you know, I think the third principle is that, you know,

00:21:27.020 we try not to judge other people's choices, but that we ought to explain our own. And so,

00:21:36.120 you know, quite often the question that we'll really rank old kids is like, well, you know,

00:21:40.160 why did you decide to, you know, be a teacher or a social worker or, you know, construction laborer,

00:21:49.420 a carpenter when you could have been, you know, an oiled field services executive or a banker or

00:21:58.420 run a startup. And, you know, then we would have nicer vacations and a bigger house.

00:22:06.020 And, you know, it can be difficult to answer those questions if you feel some regret about,

00:22:12.900 you know, where your life has taken you in terms of your career. I'm not sure I would be completely

00:22:19.000 honest with that about that, you know, with six or eight or 10 year olds. But one perfectly good

00:22:24.820 response to that question is I chose a career that would make me happiest because I knew that if I was

00:22:31.620 happy and felt proud of the work that I was doing each day, that that would make me a good person

00:22:36.860 and a good parent because the most important job that I have is keeping track of you. And if I'm not

00:22:44.760 happy with what I'm doing to make money, then I'm not going to do a very good job of being nice to you

00:22:51.300 and giving you all the things that you need emotionally. So that is not always going to be

00:22:58.360 a satisfactory answer for a kid who feels like, you know, their nose is being rubbed and everybody

00:23:04.740 else's affluence because you've decided to buy the cheapest house in the nicest suburb with the great

00:23:11.540 schools because you wanted your kid to get a great education without thinking about what it'd be

00:23:16.900 like to be the only 16 year old without a car. Right. But our job is not to make them like the

00:23:23.660 answers as much as we would like them to like the answers and to like us. Our job is to tell them the

00:23:29.500 truth and to explain our decisions so they can learn how to make decisions themselves.

00:23:35.060 So again, you're using money to explain values and virtues.

00:23:37.740 Exactly right. And for better or for worse, and I would hope for better, many of us have made

00:23:46.940 decisions about what sort of careers to pursue, not because we wanted to maximize our income in any

00:23:56.820 way we possibly could, but because we wanted to do good in the world or feel good about what we were

00:24:03.200 doing or have more time as opposed to less time to spend with our families. And those are totally

00:24:10.700 defensible choices and we need not be defensive in explaining them.

00:24:15.560 Okay, that's great. Great advice. Let's go to the next question that you tackle in your book. It's the

00:24:19.880 question that I think causes so much acrimony amongst in mommy blogs, parent blogs, discussions on

00:24:25.780 Facebook. It's about allowance. Because I wrote an article using research and resources you look to

00:24:32.580 in your book about when to start paying your kid allowance and how to pay them allowance, how much,

00:24:38.000 and it caused a lot of intense debate. People are really, really passionate about this topic. So let's

00:24:43.280 go there. Should you even pay your child an allowance? And if so, do you connect it to chores or not to

00:24:49.700 chores? There's probably some other questions I have too along the way, but let's start there.

00:24:54.120 Sure. Well, I think the most important thing to do is to step back and ask yourself,

00:25:00.860 you know, why allowance in the first place? What is the point of the exercise?

00:25:05.440 And, you know, I would encourage people to think about it like this. Money, when you're talking about

00:25:12.560 kids, is for practice. It's like books. It's like musical instruments. It's like art supplies. These are

00:25:20.980 things that we want them to get good at. And in that way, you know, allowance allows kids to practice

00:25:30.980 being good at money. It's not compensation for work done. There will be plenty of opportunities to

00:25:37.780 send them off into the world as teenagers and let them get practice, you know, earning money.

00:25:42.840 I don't think we should treat it like a wage and set up our households to be, you know, little mini

00:25:50.240 enterprises or whatever. Money is something that we want kids to practice and get good at. Chores are

00:25:57.540 something that they should do for free because they live in the household and everybody's expected to

00:26:02.120 contribute to the household. I would certainly not reward kids for biological functions, for brushing

00:26:08.580 their teeth or keeping things clean for hygienic goals, right? If nothing else, you want to avoid

00:26:16.060 paying for chores for a practical reason, which is that the moment you start doing that, you know,

00:26:23.740 the smarter or older kids start scheming and planning for a point when they will have enough money saved

00:26:29.080 up that they'll be able to come to you and say, I've got enough money for the next three months now and

00:26:34.500 I am not going to do any more chores until I need more money. And that's a perfectly fair response

00:26:39.540 because you were the one who set up the wage system and packs yourself into that corner. So

00:26:43.680 rather than ending up in that situation, I would just assume keep the chores and the allowance

00:26:49.040 separate from one another in the first place. At what age should you start doing this? As soon as

00:26:53.400 they're cognizant of buying things or how much things cost and when's a good time to do that?

00:26:59.200 Yeah, I think pretty much the moment they start asking for things that you don't necessarily want to buy

00:27:03.960 them and that you want them to think about a little harder and not just, you know, try and

00:27:07.620 acquire impulsively. You know, as long as they're at the point where they understand that money is

00:27:13.480 not an art project. I mean, I've heard about, you know, three and four and even five-year-olds taking

00:27:18.080 paper money and ripping it up and, you know, sort of pasting it and gluing it places. So you want to

00:27:23.360 make sure that they have that, they've been able to make that mentally. Or, you know, a natural time to start

00:27:29.400 is the first time that Tooth Fairy shows up at your house. That may well end up being the first

00:27:34.880 time your kid ever has money that belongs to them. And, you know, as soon as they have some of it,

00:27:41.220 they're going to want more of it because no matter how much the Tooth Fairy brings for that first tooth,

00:27:45.440 it probably won't be enough to buy a lot of the things that the kids will want. And then they will,

00:27:51.180 you know, be looking for more money to reach their goals. And that's probably the moment that you start,

00:27:56.320 that you start, you know, handing it over to them regularly in the form of an allowance.

00:28:01.720 Yeah, we started paying my son an allowance when he was four. And it's been interesting to

00:28:06.880 see his progression because when he first got it, he had a hard time holding off buying things he

00:28:12.140 really, really wanted, like a cool Lego set or something like that. And he just wanted to buy

00:28:16.220 the stuff that just cost a dollar, like a, you know, pack of stickers or a candy bar.

00:28:20.660 And it'd be funny to see him have buyer's remorse when he got home. He's like, I don't have enough

00:28:26.720 money for my Lego set. And I was like, well, then you made a choice. You have to live with

00:28:31.660 the consequences. But now he's gotten a little more savvy about holding off and delaying gratification

00:28:38.460 and saving up his money.

00:28:40.180 Yeah, I mean, we want them to make mistakes and to feel regret. You know, this is part of the process.

00:28:45.940 And the more practice you have with mistakes and regret, I think the less likely you are

00:28:50.680 to make those kinds of mistakes in your 20s and 30s when it starts to matter more, because

00:28:56.020 you'll have this memory, memories, a whole memory bank filled with mistakes that you made. And,

00:29:02.360 you know, hopefully, as you make them, you sort of rewire your brain to think about money a little

00:29:08.560 differently.

00:29:09.420 So related to allowance a bit, it's about spending money. So I think this could be a challenge for

00:29:15.680 some parents, you know, there's some parents out there who when their kid wants something,

00:29:19.860 they can honestly say, tell them, well, we can't afford that. Right? And so the question,

00:29:24.200 the problem solved, right? Parents not in the budget, so they can't buy that thing. But there

00:29:28.900 are parents out there who they have enough money, or the kid has enough money to buy really fancy

00:29:33.900 things, luxury items, really expensive things. But at the same time, as a parent, even though you

00:29:39.040 could afford it, you still want to set limits for your children. So how do you manage that? How do you

00:29:43.980 tell your child no, not because you can't, not because you can't afford it, but because you

00:29:48.680 just shouldn't for some value based reason?

00:29:52.260 Sure. So, you know, these aren't always easy conversations to have, because sometimes they

00:29:57.700 can feel a little random. So you want to do whatever you can to make sure that they are not

00:30:03.420 random, right? So you start first and foremost, kind of, kind of like a top line list of banned

00:30:10.980 items, of things that are not allowed in your household. And, you know, you make those lists,

00:30:16.740 right? And maybe it's violent video games, or actual weapons. Maybe it's clothing that, you know,

00:30:23.900 bears the midriff, or skirts that are too short. Or maybe you've become so overwhelmed by the number 0.66

00:30:32.440 of Legos or dolls in your house that you simply cannot abide by a single additional one path, you know,

00:30:39.980 the threshold of your home, right? Whatever it is, make that list, make it clear to the kids and sort

00:30:45.480 of start there, right? And then, you know, when it comes to allowance, and, you know, setting the

00:30:50.920 amounts of allowance, you want to give the kids just enough money so that they can buy some of what

00:30:59.040 they want or save up for it, but not so much that they don't have to make a lot of really hard choices.

00:31:04.740 So rather than having the parents be the deciders all of the time, as soon as possible, I think you

00:31:11.960 want to get to the point where, you know, the kids are making the decisions. And, you know,

00:31:16.760 some parents as early as seven or eight or nine, they'll say to their kids, okay, you know, we've

00:31:21.320 been at this allowance thing for a couple of years now. So from this point forward, anytime you want

00:31:26.140 something, if it's not your birthday or the holidays, you're going to have to buy it yourself,

00:31:31.740 right? And then it's all on the kid, you know, to make the decision and to sort of, you know,

00:31:37.640 do self limits. Now, when it comes to things that kids need, there's obviously like a whole

00:31:43.520 continuum of, you know, what you might spend in any given category. So, you know, I encourage

00:31:48.800 parents to sit down and literally put the continuum to paper, right? So if you think about, I mean,

00:31:54.880 I think about like underwear and outerwear, right? Many parents, most actually, I think, you know,

00:32:01.220 probably no matter how much money they have, they don't see any real good reason to spend

00:32:05.760 a lot of money on kids' underwear, right? I mean, they're going to outgrow them and, you

00:32:10.620 know, they're going to get all ratty and whatever, you know, it doesn't make any sense. It's not

00:32:14.080 something that the family prioritizes. And so, you know, maybe your family is an Old Navy

00:32:19.800 or a Walmart underwear family, because why should you spend more than, you know, $2 for a pair

00:32:24.820 of briefs. But on the outerwear side, maybe your family goes fishing and hunting all of the time,

00:32:32.160 or maybe your family likes to ski, or maybe your family are a bunch of hikers, right? And if the

00:32:38.240 gear is not really, really good, everybody's going to be miserable. And so when it comes to outerwear,

00:32:43.480 you're actually going to spend a lot of money. You know, you're an Orvis family or a Patagonia

00:32:47.660 family or an REI family. You're really willing to spend on that gear. And so you set your budgets

00:32:53.580 in your spending accordingly. Now, at a certain point, you know, 9, 10, or 11, you may be ready

00:32:59.180 to turn the entire annual budget for needs over to your kid. And you'll say, okay, you know,

00:33:06.040 you're only going to get, you know, $20 for 10 pairs of underwear this year, you know, or 10 pairs

00:33:12.900 of bottoms if you're a girl. But for outerwear, we're willing to set aside, you know, $150 for,

00:33:19.900 you know, your coat for the coldest season of the year for your raincoat, right? And then you hand

00:33:25.520 that over in a lump sum and allow them to make their own decisions. You've explained what you

00:33:30.720 stand for. But, you know, if your teenage daughter, you know, wants to buy Victoria's Secret bras,

00:33:36.600 and that's not on your banned item list, she should go through it. But, you know, she's only got $20 1.00

00:33:41.100 left for her coat. She's still going to have to buy that because that's part of the stuff that was on

00:33:46.080 your need list. And, you know, at that point, she's going to be shopping at Goodwill. And,

00:33:50.740 you know, if the Victoria's Secret bras are more important to her than the coat,

00:33:54.920 she's not worried about, you know, being miserable when you go out hunting or skiing. Well,

00:33:59.820 you know, then that's on her. 1.00

00:34:02.400 So let them fail with their choices sometimes.

00:34:03.980 Yeah, let them fail, let them make decisions, and let them be in charge of the limits, right? I mean,

00:34:11.380 you're setting overarching limits by letting them know, you know, what the budget is for needs and

00:34:16.800 by setting their allowance. But, you know, on a day-to-day basis, if they feel like they're the

00:34:24.100 ones making the decisions, and they're the ones with the power, you'll have fewer conversations

00:34:28.840 and upset moments about, you know, what it is that's available to them.

00:34:33.600 Another aspect that I think a kid being spoiled that a lot of parents associate with is that they're

00:34:38.480 greedy, they don't share, they're not generous. Are there things we can do as parents to nudge

00:34:43.040 our children to be generous, not just with money, but with their time as well, so that they're

00:34:46.720 just generous adults when they head out into the real world?

00:34:51.060 Sure. So, I mean, I think it starts with having a, you know, one of the jars where they store

00:34:57.000 allowance being a gift jar so that you're establishing both with like a visual cue and,

00:35:03.120 you know, sort of the weekly dumping of money into that jar, and then the occasional

00:35:07.460 handle, you know, handing out of said money to a worthy cause that, you know, this is something

00:35:12.200 you expect them to do and to think about all the time. But even so, some families find that

00:35:19.260 their kids find the whole giving conversation to be somewhat abstract. You know, maybe you live in

00:35:25.780 an area where there are not a lot of obvious visual signs of people being in need. Maybe you restrict

00:35:32.980 your kids, you know, media consumption such that, you know, they don't see a lot of sort of haunting

00:35:37.700 pictures or videos of people who are in trouble. And so it can be a little abstract. In that instance,

00:35:43.720 and really in every instance, I encourage families to talk about their own history of having been helped

00:35:51.560 themselves because, you know, almost every family has one and quite often it affects the way that they

00:35:57.320 give. So, you know, for me, my wife is from a family of Holocaust survivors. And, you know, I got

00:36:03.340 financial aid, I got scholarship money from, you know, sixth grade all the way through college. And,

00:36:07.460 you know, my mother had premenopausal breast cancer when I was eight or nine, you know, back in the day

00:36:13.620 when that killed people more often than not. But, you know, she was treated at a really great

00:36:17.620 university teaching hospital where there were a lot of research funds available and super smart

00:36:24.960 clinicians and they saved her life. And so, you know, those stories and, you know, we tell all sorts

00:36:33.020 of stories about all three of those kind of major impactful occasions in our family's history. You know,

00:36:39.380 those stories are really meaningful to kids. It helps them really have a kind of a visceral sense of,

00:36:45.320 you know, where their roots lie and where the struggles have been and who and all of the

00:36:51.180 entities and individuals who have reached out to hand to help. And those stories, they stick with

00:36:57.640 kids. It's part of how kids learn. And, you know, once they kind of adopt those stories as their own,

00:37:04.200 I think they understand almost intrinsically why it's important to help other people.

00:37:08.900 Fantastic. Well, Ron, there's a lot more we could dig into, but I'm going to let you go now.

00:37:12.560 Where can people learn more about your book and your work?

00:37:15.320 Sure. So my personal homepage is oppositeofspoiled.com. And that's, you know, where sort of the basic

00:37:24.380 outlines of all of this is. But, you know, for people who want to participate in an ongoing

00:37:28.940 conversation about these issues, as different ones and nuances come up, my Facebook page is where I'm

00:37:36.220 particularly active. It's facebook.com slash Ron Lieber author. And, you know, several times a week,

00:37:44.500 we've got new stuff up there that we're sort of chewing over in the community. It's about 8,000

00:37:49.800 people now who follow along. And, you know, I'm going to have much more to say about these topics

00:37:56.360 going forward and, you know, definite lines of reporting that I'm pursuing both at my day job and

00:38:01.840 what I think will be another book someday. So I encourage anybody who's interested to come and hit

00:38:07.240 the like button and follow along.

00:38:08.860 Awesome. Well, Ron Lieber, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:38:11.940 It was my pleasure. Thank you.

00:38:13.680 My guest is Ron Lieber. He's the author of the book, The Opposite of Spoiled,

00:38:16.660 Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money. You can find that on amazon.com

00:38:21.440 and bookstores everywhere. Also, be sure to check out the show notes for this podcast at

00:38:25.420 aom.is slash Lieber. That's spelled L-I-E-B-E-R. You can find the highlights as well as resources

00:38:32.580 we mentioned in the podcast as well. So go there.

00:38:37.840 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:38:42.200 make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy

00:38:46.280 this podcast, I'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Really help us out

00:38:50.700 by getting the word out about the show. As always, appreciate your support. And until next time,

00:38:54.100 this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - April 01, 2016

#188： Raising Children Who Are the Opposite of Spoiled

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