Suze Orman on Oprah Today: Kids & Money

Let me begin by say­ing that I know very lit­tle about Suze Orman.  I’m not famil­iar with her over­all fis­cal phi­los­o­phy, her back­ground, etc.  In fact, before today, every­thing I knew about Suze Orman I learned in a recent SNL skit.

So I watched today’s show with no pre­con­ceived notions.

In gen­eral, I agreed with most of what she had to say and her rec­om­men­da­tions for deal­ing with chil­dren and money.  But I com­pletely dis­agree with her advice to one caller on the sub­ject of allowance.  And on that topic I really, really dis­agree with her.

So I was curi­ous, Suze is a finan­cial guru but what does she know about kids?  Turns out, Suze doesn’t have kids.

I know that a lot of par­ents agree with Suze on the sub­ject of allowance: chil­dren should have to earn their allowance.  To be clear, I don’t dis­agree with this posi­tion.  I believe, very strongly, that chil­dren should have to work around the house.  My chil­dren have always had chores.  In addi­tion reg­u­lar chores, they are expected to per­form any addi­tional task requested of them.

So, while I under­stand the think­ing behind the advice to tie allowance to chores and the desire to teach the cor­re­la­tion between work and pay in prepa­ra­tion for their adult lives, I see this way of think­ing as overly sim­plis­tic, too linear, and mate­ri­al­is­tic.  It com­pletely dis­counts the com­plex­i­ties and sub­tleties of the human being.

For one thing, chil­dren are not minia­ture adults.  Any par­ent knows that the lessons a child takes away from an expe­ri­ence isn’t always pre­dictable.  Much depends on the age, matu­rity, and per­son­al­ity of a child.  In addi­tion, since when was it con­sid­ered an absolute given that being a good lit­tle wage-earner is what every par­ent wants for their child.  Then, too, there’s the ques­tion of whether every action we per­form should be viewed in terms of poten­tial income.

I would argue that con­sid­er­ing allowance to be an earned wage (Suze advo­cated pay­ing chil­dren $0.10/minute of labor per­formed) will result in self­ish, mate­ri­al­is­tic, money-driven adults.

I cer­tainly want my chil­dren to under­stand money, to have an hon­est and pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship with their finances but I’d hate for them to grow up to be obsessed with the acqui­si­tion and accu­mu­la­tion of money above every­thing else.

I’ve writ­ten a num­ber of posts about how we deal with our kids & money and I have sev­eral updates and future posts planned so be sure to sub­scribe (via email or in a reader) to my blog posts or book­mark my blog and come visit again soon.

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