Dear Next Generation:
Preteen children are so innocent and impressionable. It’s the best time to implant in their conscience the most important values that you wish upon them. There’s a plenitude of values to choose from. Along with religious values, monetary values can also be imparted to children. Preteens are easily impressed with what the world has to offer. At such a young age, the financial cost to parents to open up their children to the monetary world can come in the form of a cash “allowance” and can be used as a teaching tool.
In the early 1960s, my father gave me a quarter-dollar allowance once per week when I was a preteen. I happily stretched that quarter to satisfaction. Very little of it went to candy; a lot of it went to Topps baseball trading cards, which included bubble gum (5 cents per pack). The baseball card industry was a boon to the neighborhood boys in the 1960s. We were all in on the comparison, trading, and “flipping” of baseball cards for competition to win baseball cards from the other neighborhood boys. We also attached baseball cards with wooden clothespins to the front forks of our bicycles to make flapping noises with the spokes as we pedaled.
My method of stretching the allowance that I gave to my children was somewhat different, but the lesson was similar: to understand fiscal responsibility right away. In the mid-1980s, every once in a while I would hand each preteen child a five- or 10-dollar bill. But that money came with conditions. They couldn’t spend it all at once; they had to “budget” the money to stretch it. They bought Topps baseball trading cards too, and their collection grew bigger than what I ended up with. In my day, baseball cards weren’t “collectibles.” But in my children’s preteen days, monetary values were applied to baseball cards according to each player’s total baseball statistics, compared with other players’ total baseball statistics. My children put the best cards in collector’s albums to keep them in pristine condition.
For my children, my overall goal was to teach deferred purchase with some of their “allowance.” An example: to go into a toy store, settle on a toy to buy, but walk out of the store without a purchase and wait for a week to see whether the chosen toy was still a “good purchase.” When children are taught to avoid instant gratification, they learn through patience the art of financial discernment.
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