Money stress

I must have been 13 or 14 when my parents sat down at the kitchen table to show me how to make a budget , now that I was earning a few bucks from babysitting. We had already talked about finances of course, but this almost too formal meeting left its mark on me, since I am telling it today!

Income, expenses, savings, credit , I would learn the value and weight of these words over the next few years. My first CD player bought with my own money, my first computer on credit at 15 with my parents' endorsement (oh, a new word to add to my vocabulary!) that I had to repay monthly at Stereo Plus… And what that meant about interest rates: the computer was going to cost me a lot more than the listed price!

As parents, we are advised very early to introduce children to economics. It starts when they are very young, we have fun teaching them to distinguish coins. The one dollar fascinates with its golden color, while others are hooked on the drawings. I remember cleaning everything before they played with money. I had found an old black penny, they were fascinated by the transformation of the coin and its beautiful copper color after soaking in Coca-Cola!

The Caisse scolaire , available in several schools in the province, goes further by encouraging them to save money to buy a toy they really want, for example. Francophone schools in Alberta have a school program in place to talk about money starting in elementary school. Even Allô prof has a page dedicated to financial education with interesting exercises, aimed at high school students.

However, there can be unforeseen consequences to discussing budget and finances . Last year, we sold our condo and bought a house. You only have to follow the news to understand that this is a change that disrupts a family's finances! Of course, through the joy of moving into our new space, we had to explain to the children that, for the next few years, the family budget belt would be a little tighter... Nothing dramatic, but we are more careful.

In the midst of our big move, it took us a while to realize that the oldest, our teenage beginner, had become particularly stressed about our finances . Suddenly, he was criticizing his little sister's desires, not telling us when his boots had a hole in them, and was doing way too much to contribute to the family savings!

So we sat down at the table with him (and the little one). To talk about budgets, like my parents had done thirty years before! But above all to reassure him, to tell him that the columns between income and expenses were balanced, otherwise we wouldn't have chosen to buy a house. Not to worry about it, we were managing it properly. And that it was now time for him and his little sister to learn to make their own budget with the weekly allowance they would receive on Thursdays... It's funny, but the requests to buy a chocolate here, a stuffed animal there, have been taken up again since then... The worry seems to have well and truly disappeared. ;)

Valérie Harvey is a sociologist, specializing in family, particularly the involvement of fathers, which she studied in Quebec and Japan. She also does research on manga, which she teaches at university. She is the author of several novels, essays and children's books, especially about Japan, influenced by her three years in Kyoto. https://nomadesse.com/  

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