What's The Kids' Role?
Our family started this discussion by brainstorming our Goals & Roles.
The “roles” discussion primarily focused on Mom & Dad. I wanted to flip the script and ask the kids what they thought their role was.
Persist & Don’t Retaliate
For me, the Prime Directive can be summarized as:
Persist
Don’t Retaliate
Don’t retaliate applies mainly to people I can’t fire:
Family
Spouse
Minor Children
Anybody, who is an a$$, gets quietly moved out of my life. It’s a huge benefit of being self-employed. I can clear most the drama in my life.
Our mantra… All Family Is Optional… reduces it further.
Now, I’m aware there are successful people who have a completely different review. This ranges from crush everyone whenever you get a chance… to walk softly and carry a big stick.
Doesn’t work for me. I have things I want to get done, rather than people I want to influence/control.
What The Kids Thought
The kids told us what we wanted to hear (see the picture). Thinking about that, it’s not surprising.
When I was young, I had no idea about:
My role in the world.
What I would do with myself.
What the future held.
My wants:
Do well in school
Be liked
Be left alone (as a teen)
A lot of the stuff I wanted to do was completely out of my league (sports, girls, popularity). Things got better once I figured out how to make-my-fate.
The kids asked if we thought their role was to take care of us. A good question. That gave an opening to discuss different cultures - the Chinese approach to family vs what they see in the US. I told them, I’d be sorting myself and I’d like them to focus on living their own lives.
While I’m on that topic, not taking the initiative for our later lives… not making a decision… is, in fact, making a decision for our spouse, or adult kids, to have to deal with every emergency we have.
While I may not “want to be in a home.” I could balance my wants with the reality that my future elderly self will certainly need help from someone.
My grandmother was acutely aware of this point, having taken care of her mother for many years.
Why Do You Go To Public School?
This was a fun conversation. The kids told me:
Private School’s A Flex.1
You’re Saving Money.
I agreed that we’re saving money and => saving money lets me spend more time with them.
But I said there’s another, more important, reason.
Attending public school is part of their role.
We all need exposure to people from different backgrounds. From that exposure, we learn how to get along with anyone, including difficult people.2
It would be easy to create a bubble with private school, niche sports and friends. That bubble would not be representative of the larger world. Even a bubble including all of Boulder County is not representative of the larger world.3
From this point we jumped off into annuity math. Probably should have shut down the conversation but I couldn’t help myself.
They knew the basics from The Allowance Game. I kept it short, explaining that not-spending saves far more money than it appears.
What seems like $1,000 a month per kid is really a $500,000 decision.
A 500-to-1 ratio is worth careful consideration.
Walking to ice cream our teen asked me why she should bother learning about “stuff like that.”
Two reasons:
First, you said you wanted to be rich. For the next few years, you are unlikely to meet anyone who knows more about money than me.
Second, if you want money, then you should learn about all aspects of it.
It’s up to you.
I’ve yet to meet a financial dependent who was uncomfortable spending the main breadwinner’s money to make themselves appear “more.” It’s mission critical for the main breadwinner to keep a lid on their personal spending. Everyone else is watching and decisions multiply across kids and time.
It takes effort and time to reduce drama and difficult people. Kids are faced with a lot of difficult situations, and people.
I live in one of the fittest, and least diverse, places in the world.