by Fred Brown
Why is it that parents who love their children often treat them badly when it comes to dealing with money?
I have wondered about this many times after clients and students shared with me the negative financial experiences they had with their parents.
I remember particularly the experiences of a couple named Susan and Ralph. Susan confessed that her mother was so controlling that even when she was in college, she was not allowed to buy her own clothes without her mother's consent. And when Susan got her first job and proudly came home with a paycheck, her mother gave her no support for her work. Instead, she gave her a check as a gift — that was greater than the paycheck.
The message to Susan was that her mother didn't feel that she was strong enough to be on her own and that she should look for her financial support from her mother and not her job. Not surprisingly, Susan's reaction to her mother's need to keep her dependent was to question her own self-worth.
To compensate for these feelings of low self-esteem, Susan tried to be the perfect worker and became a workaholic in every job she took. Although she made good money, the pay didn't mean anything to her so she spent it as fast as she earned it. As a result, she never had any money and was burned out from the work.
Ralph, on the other hand, admitted that his father put rigid controls on how much money he and his siblings could spend. This came out during a visualization in which he pictured his father arguing with his mother about how much they should spend on going out to eat. His mother was asking that the children be allowed to order what they wanted as long as it was reasonable since the family could afford it. The father refused, saying that it wasn't right for them to spend a lot of money on food. Ralph remembered that when the family did go out, his father ordered the cheapest meals for him and his sister.
Ralph knew that his father's attitude had made him feel deprived. When he went out on his own, he vowed that he would have no limits on what he could get. He used his credit card to buy whatever he wanted and eventually had to go into bankruptcy because he couldn't pay his debts.
How can we understand the attitudes of these parents?
I told Susan and Ralph that their parents did the best they could with the limited financial understanding that they had. And that since one generation often passes down their anxieties to the next generation, their parents probably had inherited their restrictive attitudes. Since Susan's and Ralph's parents were never able to sort out their own feelings about money, they probably followed the dictates of their children's grandparents. That generation still remembered the depression and more than likely felt an obsession to control their children's spending out of fear that there could be another depression and money would be scarce. This explanation rang true for both Susan and Ralph since their grandparents often alluded to the very rough time they had with their finances during the depression years.
I asked Susan and Ralph about their relations with their parents and they said that except when it came to dealing with money, their parents showed their love in many ways. I said I didn't think their parents knew how to give love in their money relationships; they were too caught up in their own financial fears. Moreover, they had no idea how their attitudes would affect Susan and Ralph. In money matters, most people aren't aware of how their judgments and criticisms undermine their children's self-worth and ability to manage.
To help Susan and Ralph get over the pain and resentment they felt, I asked them to try to understand where their parents were coming from and to forgive them for what they had done. As a step in that direction, I suggested they do a visualization in which they forgave them. I explained that doing the visualization would help them let go of their negative emotions without having to confront their parents.
At the same time I asked them to examine how they were treating their own children and notice when they were following their parent's limited money attitudes. Just by being aware of what they were doing could help them avoid making the same mistakes that their parents had made.
Fred Brown, personal financial consultant, is the author of the recently published book, Money and Spirit, published by A.R.E. Press. The book can be ordered directly by telephone at 1-800-982-4010. To contact him on line, use 103111.3337@compuserve.com or telephone (505) 466-2436.