Читать книгу Financial Adulting - Ashley Feinstein Gerstley - Страница 11

But the truth is, we are not set up for success. Most of us didn't learn about personal finance in school and unless a parent or mentor went out of their way to teach us about money, we probably didn't even learn about it growing up.

Talking to parents, I discovered that this was far from a malicious choice. Many found dealing with money so stressful that they didn't want to burden their children with that stress before they needed to. Others thought that they had made so many mistakes, who were they to teach their kids about money?

Regardless of our backgrounds and upbringings, we get to a certain place in our lives where we have to deal with money almost every single day. Yet most of us have learned very little about it and it can feel too taboo to bring up our questions, even to our closest friends and family.

Not to mention, many come from families where they are the financial first, like first generation. The financial first to go to college and navigate paying the tuition bills that come with. The financial first to have a W-2 salary and a 401(k) as part of their compensation package.

You might even have an early memory where you asked someone like a parent or teacher a question about money and they shut you down: “Oh, we don't talk about that,” “You can't ask questions like that,” or “I don't know, I don't handle that.”

From these experiences, you end up internalizing the idea that money is an inaccessible or shameful thing, and not to be talked about and discussed. You probably make some major assumptions about money – that it's bad, not for you, or something only greedy people care about. When it's time to engage with your own money, you bring these beliefs with you and they have a great impact on your relationship with money.

It might sound weird, but we have a relationship with money just like we have a relationship with a friend or colleague, in how we interact and relate to it. When we believe money is shameful and greedy, we might avoid dealing with it. Imagine if you treated your best friend the way you treat your money. I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate being ghosted!