We spent a lot of this summer traveling with our kids. If you see me at my happiest, it is on vacation with my family, making memories and spending quality time with my kids and husband. I genuinely love being able to do this for them and with them, but the truth is, it is for me just as much as it is for them. While planning one of our beach trips this summer, we let the kids have a say in which house we rented. It came down to two options: one right on the beach with private beach access and another a few blocks away from the beach. The difference was a couple thousand dollars.
Of course, the kids wanted the house on the beach. Honestly, so did I. But some of their comments almost came off as spoiled.
“Mom, it’s fine. It’s just money.”
Or, “Mom, it’s about the memories, right?”
That triggered me. And, apparently, it triggered this article.
What Our Kids See
Growing up, we usually took one big family vacation a year. My mom and dad both worked hard, and we did little weekend trips here and there, but we typically took one week-long trip, usually in the summer. I went to public school, played sports, and was busy with the normal activities of childhood.
In comparison, my kids have a pretty great life. They travel a lot. We homeschool them, which gives us a level of flexibility that allows us to take off for a week or more without asking anyone’s permission. This summer alone, we’ve taken multiple beach trips, gone to the lake twice, camped at several national parks, and taken a trip across the country in an RV. We have taken two trips in August, have another planned in September, and then have a three-week October trip to Disney and the beaches of Florida.
I look at my kids’ childhood and think, I really hope they appreciate how fortunate they are. And then I immediately have a second thought: I really hope they don’t think this is normal.
Don’t get me wrong. We want to give our kids an amazing childhood. We want them to travel. We want them to experience things. We want them to see the world and have memories with us that they will carry into adulthood. But we don’t want to accidentally raise spoiled brats who think vacations are automatic, money is unlimited, and convenience is something they’re entitled to.
Finding the Balance
We are walking a fine line between not intentionally depriving our kids because we’re afraid of creating entitlement and not giving them everything on a silver platter. I don’t think kids have to grow up thinking money is scarce in order to appreciate it. I just want my kids to understand that money is finite. It comes from somewhere. And it doesn’t magically appear because you want something.
So what does that look like for us? They get to travel, but we aren’t taking extravagant vacations every time. We still cook most of our meals while we’re on vacation. They don’t get to do every excursion they want to do. My husband and I joke that being on vacation is basically just living our day-to-day life in another place. Most of the time, we still even homeschool on trips.
It is also important to us that our kids see us working. They see us running the laundromat. They get to help out there and earn money for tasks they complete. They see me working in the hospital. They see their dad working and helping clients. They hear us talking about financial decisions, both personally and in the business. I want them to see where money comes from, how we make it, how we save and invest it, and why we have some excess. Hard work. I don’t want money to feel mysterious to them.
When More Becomes Normal
In personal finance, we talk constantly about lifestyle creep and how it affects our finances. But lifestyle creep can happen to your kids, too. If every birthday gets bigger, every restaurant is nice, every vacation is luxurious, every time they’re bored you entertain them, and every inconvenience is solved by giving them something, eventually those things just become normal.
And when everything is normal, nothing feels particularly special. I’ve recently written about auditing our own lifestyle and discovering how easily convenience can creep into your life. Adults aren’t immune to it, even when we’re financially responsible and intentionally watching our spending. Kids adapt even faster. This is probably one of the biggest questions of my life as a parent: How do I give my kids a great life without making them expect a great life?
I don’t want to get this wrong.
What We Want Them to Know
Here are some principles that we recite to our kids often, and that we are trying hard to make sure they understand about money before they leave our house.
Money is a tool.
Money isn’t the goal. It is a tool that allows us to do things that are important to us. It allows us to homeschool our kids. It allows us to travel. It allows us to give to our church and serve people who need help. It allows us to build businesses and gives us the flexibility to spend more time together as a family.
I want my kids to understand that money is useful, but it isn’t the measure of success. Having more money just for the sake of having more money isn’t particularly meaningful if it doesn’t help you build a life you actually enjoy or use it for some good.
Gratitude.
I want my kids to recognize how fortunate they are. Not feel guilty about it. Appreciate it. They get to travel, experience new things, and have opportunities that not every kid gets. They are starting to see some of this when they talk to their friends, particularly because they are homeschooled and have a different day-to-day life than most kids their age. But they are also spoiled with something I think is much more valuable: time with us. They are rarely away from us. We take them with us almost everywhere. We get to spend a tremendous amount of time together as a family. I don’t think they fully understand yet that this isn’t normal for most people. And honestly, I hope they eventually realize how special it is.
More isn’t always better.
This might be the hardest one to teach because the world constantly tells us otherwise. Bigger house. Nicer car. Better vacation. More activities. More stuff. More money. More, more, more.
This is probably the biggest thing I want to fight against, because I am a little bit of a more-more-more person myself. I have to battle this in my own life before I can expect my kids to learn it. Fortunately, I mostly want more money, not more things. I’m not particularly motivated by expensive possessions, and I care much more about experiences and having the flexibility that money provides. I still drive a 2014 car that has been paid off for eight years. Our family car has more than 100,000 miles on it, and we paid cash for it. My kids make fun of my car because it doesn’t have window shades or TVs in the seats. But they also get to see that not having a car payment is valuable. I hope they learn from me that just because you can afford something doesn’t mean you have to buy it.
Work Hard.
I want them to understand that the life we have doesn’t happen by accident. Money comes from somewhere. We work for it, save it, invest it, and make choices about what we do with it. I want them to see us working hard while also understanding that work isn’t the entire point of life. We work so that we can build something. We work so that we can have choices. We work so that we can take our kids on trips, build businesses, give generously, and create a life that we actually enjoy living. The goal isn’t to work as much as possible. The goal is to use the resources we’ve created through hard work to build a life that matters.
Conclusion
My goal isn’t to make sure our kids have less. I want to make sure they understand that what they have is a gift, not an expectation. I want them to travel. I want them to see the world. I want them to have experiences we didn’t have growing up. I want them to have opportunities. But I also want them to know how fortunate they are. I want them to be able to stay in a basic hotel and have just as much fun as they would in a luxury Airbnb. I want them to understand that a road trip can be just as memorable as an expensive vacation. I want them to know how to work, save, wait, and appreciate what they have.
Because eventually, they’re going to leave our house and build lives of their own. And I don’t want them measuring their lives against what they grew up with. I want them to be able to build a life they love, whatever that looks like, without assuming they need to constantly make it bigger, better, and more expensive. I don’t want my kids to look back on their childhood and think they didn’t have enough. We want our kids to think their childhood was amazing. We just don’t want them to think it was normal.