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As Pete and Eleanor’s story so vividly shows, talking about money can allow you to build the life you want. In fact, we believe that financial security begins with a conversation—whether between spouses, between a parent and a child, or between an adult and an aging parent.
But these conversations aren’t easy, especially in the beginning. Most of us are used to chatting casually about the stock market or mortgage rates, but when it comes to candid, personal conversations about how much money we’ll need for retirement or how we’ll possibly be able to pay for our children’s college educations, the talk is much tougher. In a wealthy country where millions of investors have money in the stock market, there is still a desperate shortage of honest, candid talk about how we should be planning for the future.
And unfortunately, as Pete and Eleanor’s story also points out, not communicating about financial matters, from spending to investing to planning for the future, is an almost surefire way to undermine a relationship. So why, despite the obvious payoff and the equally obvious price of avoidance, do most people neither initiate nor participate in these essential family conversations about money? Because money is never just money, especially in the context of a family. For starters, money is tied up with our deepest emotional needs (such as security, comfort, success, and confidence) and fears (such as failure, inadequacy, and poverty) as well as with our sense of self- worth and identity. And ultimately, it becomes a reflection of our relationships. “In the first part of our marriage, there were all these inequalities, and money was a huge unspoken one,” says Pete. “Now it’s more of an equal playing field.”
Like it or not, even your parents’ attitudes about money have likely influenced yours. If your father or mother always tried to save that little bit, you may have adopted the same fiscally restrained habits. Or like a pendulum, you may do the opposite now that you’re an adult, refusing to let those money-saving tactics run your life. Either way, you’re reacting to lessons learned at your parents’ knees.
For example, I have a friend whose father used to drive her crazy with his penny-pinching habits: He phoned her only after five P.M. (he had one of those old-fashioned phone plans where the rates dropped at night), and he parked his car in a lot a mile away from where he was going if he could save a dollar. In response, as a young girl, my friend would call her dad whenever the urge struck, even if it was a mere ten minutes before the rates changed, partially to prove that her actions weren’t being dictated by the chance to save a buck. Valuing time and convenience more than economy, she often took cabs instead of buses and paid a housekeeper for cleaning she could easily have done herself. Figuring that you only go around once, she routinely indulged in expensive wine and topnotch restaurants. Only lately, many years later, has she come to recognize how much all those indulgences compromised her ability to save for her future and the things that mattered more.
My colleague Tom’s financial baggage also stems from his upbringing. Despite a steady income, his parents sometimes ran short of cash. Since Tom consistently held jobs as a kid—doing a paper route or umpiring Little League games—he usually had some cash on hand. “As a twelve- or thirteen-year-old, I was proud to always have a few hundred bucks,” he recalls. “I remember my dad and mom borrowing from me a few times to buy groceries or go out to a movie. In those pre-ATM days, I was like their bank for short-term credit.” Not surprisingly, this situation made Tom quite resentful in the long run, Thirty years later those emotions continue to affect how he deals with finances and money-related communication, but not in a positive way. Even today Tom never talks to his parents about their Financial position since it brings back uneasy memories. He and his wife don’t talk very much about their financial decisions or long-term p]ans either. While Tom attributes a lot of this silence to juggling two careers and raising two children, he also admits that his early negative money associations may play a part in his current attitude.