If you’ve ever wandered through a video store wondering why there are so few decent movies out, it’s likely because you’re not the one movie studios are aiming for. As we talked about last week, puberty is hitting younger at the same time as people are taking longer to settle down, leaving a huge cohort with tons of disposable income and no real responsibilities. Their spending drives entertainment, fashion, even our culture as a whole. That’s why we now live in a virtual Peter Pan society, which glorifies freedom and a lack of obligations. What popular culture doesn’t talk about quite so much about are the repercussions of wasting one’s very important twenties and even thirties.
As a parent, when one’s 16-year-old is out having fun, we rejoice. But if one’s 26-year-old is still out partying instead of settling down, we start to worry. That carefree 16-year-old, though, is not necessarily going to turn into a responsible twenty-something, though, without parents steering in the right direction.
I’m determined not to raise my kids to expect me to care for them when they’re adults. I’m already looking forward to the days when they’re going to have to take care of me! So my goal for the next few years is to give them increasing responsibility, so that they’ll yearn for autonomy later.
Giving kids responsibility, though, doesn’t necessarily mean letting your 16-year-old go with her friends on a spring break trip to Florida. It may mean encouraging her to work during March break instead. Too often we confuse responsibility with freedom, thinking that if we let our kids act independently we’re teaching them to grow up. That’s not true, because as a kid you don’t have to deal with the repercussions of irresponsibility in the same way you do as an adult. Too much freedom as a teen can actually inhibit maturity. So responsibility must come before independence. My youngest is due to leave for school when I’m 45, so I’ve developed my personal “Freedom 45” plan to give them that responsibility, and thus ease them into independence.
First, when the kids were little, we taught them that they needed to work to get money. We’ve always made the kids do chores for allowance (even a three-year-old can dust a coffee table, albeit not well). Then, if we’re out and they ask for a chocolate bar or an ice cream cone, we always say, “you have to pay for it with your own money”. The urge for chocolate, especially for girls, is a very good incentive to learn the value of work.
Now that my oldest is on the threshold of those teen years, we’re going to institute a clothing allowance. On her birthday, we’ll hand her the money that has to last her until next year. We’ll prepare the budget together, researching everything she will reasonably need. Then it’s up to her to make sure that money stretches. If it doesn’t, or if she decides she wants too many brand names, she’ll have to do some serious baby-sitting. It’s not my problem anymore.
And what about higher education? My husband and I paid most of our way through, with our parents helping out, but we did that when it was still possible to earn enough money working through the summers. Today that’s just a pipedream. But that doesn’t mean parents should just hand over the money, either. If kids have no stake in their education, they’re more likely to squander it. So our compromise is going to be the grant system, probably on a 3:1 basis. If they save $1,000, they get $3,000 from us, and so on. That way they know they have to earn money, too. And if they don’t decide to go to higher education, but come up with a really good business plan for their own business, we’ll be open to that, as well.
Will this guarantee they don’t grow up to be female Peter Pans? I have no idea. But it’s worth a try. Life is too important to waste your twenties away. And too many who do waste their twenties never really recover, even into their thirties. So far, this is the best insurance plan I’ve come up with. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
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