Balance Junkie » Kids and Money

Mother’s Day Confessions: Lessons from My Children

2 Cents — Fri, 07 May 2010 09:45:15 +0000

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.

~ Rajneesh

I love the quote above. But I can see how some might interpret it as an endorsement of the idea that women are meant to be mothers and aren’t good for much else. It’s another call for women to give up their own identities and give in to the reality that we are here to serve others. Um . . . no. That’s not what it means to me.

I’m a well-educated female who gave up career aspirations to stay home with kids. I don’t contend that this is the right choice for everyone, and I refuse to get into the stay at home vs. work outside the home debate, especially near Mother’s Day. The reality (unfortunately) is that not every Mom is a good Mom. But any Mom who loves and cares for her children, whether she works outside the home or not, is a good Mom.

I’ve been a Mom for about 15 years now. I’d like to think I’ve taught my 3 boys a thing or two. But the truth is, I sometimes feel like I’ve learned more from them than they’ve learned from me. In that sense, being a mother really has made me a different person than I otherwise might have been. Far from stealing my identity, motherhood has refined and enhanced it.

Who’s the Moral Compass Here Anyway?

Truth and ethics have always been really important to me. I fancy myself to be a person of pretty high ethical standards. But, like most humans I often fall short of my ideals – sometimes by a lot. If you struggle with this same malady, I have the antidote for you: Have kids.

If you’ve ever uttered a curse word only to hear it repeated later by your 3-year-old, you change your truck driver ways pretty fast. If you’ve ever had too much to drink and had to face your little one’s wide eyes at 6 A.M., you reform instantly. (That only happened to me once and I can barely write about it now without dialing up the Children’s Aid Society to report myself retroactively.)

If your attitude and outlook on life becomes a little too jaded as you get older, or if you ever say or do something that even remotely contradicts anything you’ve said in the presence of your child, you can count on the teenaged version of your formerly adoring progeny to point it out to you – with a hyperbolic dose of sarcasm. You may also be surprised to learn that you aren’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer – at least according to your teen – who apparently is.

I know that, as parents, we’re supposed to act as a moral compass for our children. I take that responsibility very seriously. But I’ve found over the years that they act as a moral compass for me too.

The Basics Matter & Kindness Pays Dividends

In the process of teaching our children, it’s almost impossible not to re-learn all of the basics. You know, like tell the truth, be nice to other people, clean up after yourself, etc.. I found that I really learned those lessons a lot better the second time around. You’d be surprised at the great life lessons you can get from Little Bear, The Berenstain Bears, and so many other great children’s shows.

Kindness is almost an inherent part of parenting. Your children need you. You have to do stuff for them. Every day. Around the clock. When you’re tired. When you’re sick. Whether they’re acting like angels or tyrants. It can be exhausting.

But when giving becomes an obligatory norm, we automatically collect dividends that we might not otherwise have known were available. Giving feels good. Sometimes repeated acts of kindness can accrue like credit card points. You can then use them when you really need them – like when you really need to say “no”, or take a break. And sometimes, usually when you least expect it, your kids will give back.

This Too Shall Pass

Having children isn’t easy. It’s not always full of telephone commercial moments. Not all issues resolve themselves in the span of a 30 minute television show. Don’t get me wrong. There are wonderful moments. But they usually come when you least expect them. And they often come on the heels of some pretty ugly ones.

Last Mother’s Day was shaping up to be a pretty ugly one for me. My 2 older boys were particularly adolescent during that period. To make matters worse, for the two weeks prior to that Sunday, all 3 of my boys had this horrendous stomach flu. They got it one at a time, so it went on for quite some time.

There was a lot of worrying, temperature-taking, and running up and down stairs with Jell-O. There were irritable young men asking why I had to take their temperature yet again, and if I asked them one more time how they were doing. . . Well, you get the picture. There weren’t many thank-you’s.

My youngest son got it last. He has a mortal fear of vomiting, so he was in denial for a few hours and consequently didn’t make it to the bathroom when his dinner made an impromptu curtain call. That necessitated quite the biohazard clean-up on my part. Not surprisingly, I caved in to the same flu bug the day before Mother’s Day.

This was no common cold. There were no sniffles, no sneezing and no sore throat. It hit like a ton of bricks and caused me to pass out in my room on the way to tell my husband that I thought I was getting very ill. That was the first time in my life I had ever fainted.

Instead of going to my sister’s place to celebrate with one of my favourite meals, I spent Mother’s Day in bed, having endured a night I don’t ever care to revisit. But in the morning, I received the best Mother’s Day gifts ever. All 3 of my boys came up with some of the most thoughtful gifts they’d ever given me, including lists of reasons why I’m a great Mom, and some eye-welling poetry.

On Monday, I was a little better, but still bed-ridden. My older sons were home from school and took turns checking on me to see how I was doing. One of them battled some pretty jiggly Jell-O and brought it upstairs to me. That was the most memorable, and the best Mother’s Day I’ve ever had. (I hope this year’s is really boring! )

Enjoy the Ride

Raising children, like giving birth to them, is at once messy, beautiful, exhausting, exhilarating, heartbreaking and heartwarming. You’ll teach a lot. You’ll learn even more. It a rollercoaster ride that you’ll love and hate. It will both nauseate and thrill you. If you’re a Mother, it will redefine you. And for me, that’s a good thing. Thanks boys!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms, Moms-to-Be, and people who act like Moms out there!

Do you have any great Mother’s Day stories to share? What have you learned from being a Mom? What have you learned from your Mom?

Friday Food for Thought: 10 Signs You Are a Bad Parent

2 Cents — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:45:52 +0000

If your own life is an example of what you don’t want your child to grow up and become, you are a bad parent.

~ Larry Winget

I often draw parallels between financial health, and health in many other areas of life. I’ve compared the noise from the media to empty calories. I’ve compared debt to an alcohol hangover. I’ve written about how good financial habits are like eating your veggies.

I think food is a lot like money. The problems we have with money, like the problems we have with food, are largely math problems. You cannot consistently consume more calories than you burn and expect to be healthy. You will become overweight and you will eventually experience some of the health problems that go along with that: fatigue, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc..

Likewise, you cannot consistently spend more money than you earn. You will go into debt. You will eventually experience the problems that go along with that: stress, guilt, insecurity, inability to care for your loved ones and meet your responsibilities, etc..

Food and money, like lots of other good things in life, need to be enjoyed in moderation. When things get out of balance, they tend to go awry. This post is about a different kind of food: food for thought.

In the spirit of balance, I’m going to try to write an occasional post that provides (I hope) the opposite of the “empty calorie” noise I addressed above. I’m going to call it Friday Food for Thought. It won’t be every Friday, but I’ll try to stick to Fridays to post them or the name just wouldn’t make sense anymore!

Each post will highlight an article or group of articles that made me think. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with it or not. I just like things that make me think. I hope you’ll find these posts useful and thought-provoking – sort of like fruits and veggies for your brain!

Today’s article comes to us from Larry Winget, so you know you’re either going to love it or hate it. I came across it when I found Larry’s blog as a result of last Friday’s review of You’re Broke Because You Want to Be. Larry, or someone from his office, was kind enough to link to my review from his website and I found my way to his blog from there. The article is provocatively entitled Ten Signs You Are a Bad Parent.

Like anyone who puts an opinion out there, Larry drew lots of different responses from readers. I was actually afraid to read the article in case I fit into the bad parent category. I thought most of his reasons were pretty valid, although if you’re going to get picky, you can always find exceptions and loopholes.

I actually found the article kind of reassuring. We have been considered, by our kids and others, to be pretty strict parents. But I found many of the areas where we’ve put our foot down on the list. I’m really glad we stuck to our guns on the “no T.V. in the bedroom” thing. That seemed to be quite a point of contention in the comments section, but Larry supported his views with research citing the harmful effects of T.V. in the bedroom.

One area where I think I may not have passed with flying colours is the “no tolerating verbal disrespect” part. I can occasionally be a little too democratic – but I’m trying to improve on that. My kids are too young to be considered mooches yet, so I’ll have to see how I do on that one in the future.

What did you think of the article?

Should You Run Your Home Like a Business?

2 Cents — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:40:20 +0000

It’s not enough to make time for your children. There are certain stages in their lives when you have to give them the time when they want it. You can’t run your family like a company. It doesn’t work.

~ Andrew Grove

Well, obviously Andrew Grove, a key player in the birth of Intel, thinks the answer is no. I bet you can probably guess that I’m going to say that it’s not a yes or no question. I think the answer, like so many others, is yes and no.

Anyone who knows children knows that their needs cannot always be scheduled or anticipated. Anyone who has children knows that parenting is a 24/7, always-on-call affair. In that sense, it’s sort of like being a business owner. That said, as a business owner, you might need to cut expenses, employees, or suppliers. But as a parent, you are probably not going to downsize your 5 year old for not performing to your expectations.

Ok, so that’s the no part. The yes part comes into effect when you’re dealing with your finances. As a parent, you are a CCO (Chief Care Officer), but you are also a CFO (Chief Financial Officer), and the two are definitely very different. But they do overlap. There are 2 main ways that improving your skills as a CFO can make you a better CCO:

A. Model Healthy Financial Habits

Letting children participate in financial planning:

shows them that it is something that needs to be done regularly
lets them know what’s happening in the family’s balance sheet
teaches them about the process of financial management

It has the added bonus of helping them understand why you might not be able to buy what they want right now. Obviously, the level of their participation will be age-dependent.

B. Providing a Secure Financial Environment is Part of Providing a Secure Family Environment

Improving your financial position makes for a more stable home environment. Families with their finances under control enjoy less stressed parents and fewer conflicts over money. This makes for a less stressful environment for the kids. The family is able to enjoy the money they spend, knowing that it’s not going to put them out of business – so to speak.

What do you think? Yes, no, or both?