Spending Time and Money Consistent With Your Values – Part II

Because money is so loaded with meaning for most of us, it is not unusual for our behavior with money to be in conflict with our other values. Using money to buy things because we’re depressed and want to feel better is a classic example of money values in conflict.

Depression is the world’s number 1 psychological disorder. Depression is such a common human experience that the ancient Greeks were writing about it 3,000 years ago! In fact, melancholy, the original name for depression, comes from the Greek melaina kole or black bile, a term first used by Aristotle. The National Institute of Mental Health projects that between 10 and 25 percent of women and 5 to 12 percent of men in the United States will experience a depressive illness during their lives. Perhaps twice as many will experience “subsyndromal depression,” or depressive symptoms that fall short of meeting full diagnostic criteria for a mental disorder, like a bad case of the “blahs” or feeling “down” much of the time. Studies by the U.S. Center for Disease Control disclose that as many as 20% of teenagers experience a major depression during high school.

What does depression have to do with money and values? Most of us believe in the value of not wasting our money. But we live in a society where sophisticated advertising – much of it targeting teens and pre-teens – urges us to buy and sends us a message something like this: You deserve a break today, so go buy x, y or z and it will make you handsome, sexy, happy and cool. If you’re depressed you tend to feel empty. You need to fill this sense of emptiness. Even if you value frugality, you’re likely to think: “I am empty. I need to fill myself up with things because I’m not enough by myself, so I’ll go buy x, y or z and I’ll feel better.” Buying things to help depression is a quick fix that doesn’t last. In fact, it may make you feel more depressed than before because now you’re spending money in a futile effort to make yourself feel better and that conflicts with your belief in the importance of frugality.

But even if we don’t suffer from depression, our money behavior can still be in conflict with our values. In our society, consumer spending is incredibly important. Remember that following 9/11 politicians were telling us that we needed to demonstrate our patriotism by getting back to the shopping malls. People want to conform to societal values. The Japanese have a saying that the nail which stands out above the others gets hammered down. In other words, not conforming to societal values attracts adverse attention. In practically every culture, seeing one self as a responsible member of society is an important value. This need to conform becomes particularly important for adolescents, who are going through the identity stage of development. In one of those ironies of life that makes parents simultaneously want to laugh and cry, teenagers often attempt to establish an identity separate from their parents by slavishly conforming to the standards of their peer group. “In order to show adults – especially my parents – my disdain for the way they slavishly dress the same way, like the same boring movies and listen to the same boring music, I’m going to assert my individuality by dressing the same way as my friends, going to the same movies as my friends and listening to the same music as my friends.” In order to fit in, many teens feel that they have no option but to share the same interests as their peers, dress like their peers and spend their money like their peers. In contemporary American culture, the value to our kids of spending their money like their peers can conflict with money values we are trying to help them learn based on saving rather than spending, or spending responsibly rather than buying everything that is advertised.

Look for chances to share money values with your kids. You’d be surprised how early you can start. One parent seized the opportunity to talk about money and values when her six year old tried to fool the tooth fairy! When six year old Maggie lost her first tooth, Mommy got her a tooth fairy pillow with a special pocket in it for the tooth. She explained that losing your first tooth is very special and that the tooth fairy was going to leave Maggie $5, but for the rest of her teeth, Maggie was going to get just $1 each. Maggie thought this was a great idea because she was getting interested in money. She had just started receiving a $3 a week allowance that she tended to spend at the local arts and crafts store to buy herself supplies to make things. The tooth fairy was a great way to be able to buy additional stickers and supplies. When Maggie lost her second tooth, she put the tooth in the pocket together with a note asking the tooth fairy to leave her tooth behind. Sure enough, the next morning both the tooth and $1 were in the pocket. The next night Mom noticed that Maggie was sleeping with the tooth fairy pillow again. When she asked why, Maggie told her that she was recycling her tooth! The conversation went like this:

Maggie: “I’m going to get more money, Mommy.”
Mommy: “You can’t do that. You can’t fool the tooth fairy like that.”
Maggie: “Yes, I can; I’ll sleep with my mouth closed.”
Mommy: “No, you can’t do that. It’s not right to fool the tooth fairy like that. You’re not being truthful in the way you’re getting money. If you want an opportunity to make some more money, tell Mommy or Daddy and we’ll see if we can’t find something extra for you to do around the house.”

Here are some ideas when it comes to helping your kids connect money and values. We’ll share one idea with you in this column and several more in the next column.

Help your kids develop a money values vocabulary.

Neurologists tell us that thinking is unconscious. We don’t remember thinking. What we remember are the words that accompany our thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. This means that an important part of teaching your kids money values is giving them the necessary vocabulary to be able to think about money in terms of values. We call this giving your kids a money values vocabulary. When we introduce the concept of a money values vocabulary in our workshops, some parents initially assume that we’re talking about a way of saying “No” in a manner that articulates our values if your child or grandchild asks to buy something you don’t agree with. Sometimes it is, but more often a money values vocabulary helps you and your child evaluate whether to buy something.

Elisabeth Guthrie, M.D., the Clinical Director of the Learning Diagnostic Center at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, New York, and the author of The Trouble with Perfect, has commented that parents can learn a lot about the importance of teaching kids values by watching swimmers in a pool. Swimmers need to push off against the end wall of the pool in order to do the best possible turn. When it comes to teaching our kids to go out into the world with good money values, it’s parental money values expressed in a way that our kids can understand that serve as the wall for them to push against.

Way too often as parents we keep our values in our head and don’t articulate them. When you talk to your children and grandchildren about day to day purchases, find opportunities to use terms that reflect money values like important, significant, useful, necessary, essential, practical and functional. “It is important to have extra batteries for our flashlights.” “I will treasure the memories of the trip. It was worth spending extra so we could stay another day.” “A warm coat is necessary during the winter.” “Your book bag is very practical. It allows you to keep all of your books together.” “The new microwave oven is something that we will be able to use every day.” Your vocabulary will rub off on your kids. When they start talking about a purchase, you can discuss it in terms of a values vocabulary. Ask questions like “Will you use it or do you just want it?” “Is it really important to you?” Another way of sharing values is to discuss the price in terms of how long you had to work to afford it or how much of your child’s allowance is involved. “We had to save for two years to be able to afford the new car, but it was worth it.” “If you buy that toy, you won’t have any more allowance money to spend all week. Is the toy important enough for you not to have any treats for the rest of the week?”

Sometimes it’s necessary to say “No.” Do so in terms of your values and the value vocabulary. One Saturday morning, fourteen year old Brian announced to his parents, Janet and Eric, that they “had” to get a really cool $8,000 50 inch flat screen TV just like the one his cousin Larry’s family had bought that week. “The store is offering zero percent financing for five years,” said Brian. “I did the math and it will only cost about $130 a month.” Janet and Eric didn’t watch that much TV and didn’t want to spend the money. They could have copped out by simply saying “We can’t afford it” or “We don’t have the money.” Instead they replied: “It’s very impressive but spending that much money on a TV isn’t something we want to do as a family. We’re saving for college and we think that putting money away for education is more important.” This response tied their comments about money to their values.

Other ways of saying no in terms of values include:

• “It doesn’t fit our values.”
• We don’t want to buy any more _________. You already have two and that’s enough.”
• “Spending money on ______ isn’t ok with us.”
• “Other families have different values. That’s the way our family does things.”
• “We don’t want to buy from that company. They have a bad record of using child labor.”

We will continue our discussion of time, money and values in our next column.

Eileen Gallo, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles, where she works with individuals and families on issues related to money. Jon Gallo heads the Family Wealth Practice Group of Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP in Los Angeles. They are the authors of two books on families and money: Silver Spoon Kids: How Successful Families Raise Responsible Children (McGraw Hill, 2001) and The Financially Intelligent Parent: 8 Steps To Raising Successful, Generous, Responsible Children (Penguin, 2005). Their website is www.galloconsulting.com.