One of the Last Great Taboos
There are certain things as a society we decided long ago not to speak about publicly, whether it is because we find the topic too difficult, too messy or complex or because we decided it’s a moral issue and better not to be discussed outside of church pews or the family home, or maybe it’s because there is a deep insecurity and fear of admitting our inadequate knowledge about a topic that deems it taboo – and so it’s never discussed outside of the confines of hushed whispers.
Money – specifically our own personal finances is one of the last remaining taboo topics.
As a society, we talk about money all the time. We talk about how to earn it, how to spend it and (incorrectly) how it measures a persons’ status according to how much of it they have or don’t have. We talk about money in terms of power and proximity to power and we talk about money in relation to the economy as a whole. We don’t talk about our own personal connections to money – i.e. our emotions. We don’t talk about how our emotions on some level may subconsciously guide us in our thinking about money, and how that may affect our behaviors on how we spend and/or use our money. During our conversations about money, we speak quite often about other people’s money and how other people use and spend their money but seldom speak about our emotions and how they are intertwined with that and how that affects our judgments of other people.
“We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame.” Brene Brown
It’s in the silent spaces where the damage is done. The silent space is where misinformation flourishes. The silent space is where financial empowerment withers instead of grows. The silent space is where the “haves” create their power that “the have-nots” don’t have, and don’t even fully know exists. The silent space is where shame, fear, anxiety, and feelings of worthlessness reside. The silent space is where we allow this thing called money to control us, rather than us controlling it.
So how do we change this? How do we move out of the silent spaces and into spaces where we can speak in healthy ways about our own personal connections to money?
The way most people relate to money starts with what they do or don’t learn from their parents and others in their households growing up. A 2014 survey found that 36% of Americans were uncomfortable talking about money and 18% said talking about money in their families was taboo.[1]
Some parents talk to their children as it relates to personal spending for the child’s shoes, clothes, and food in broad generalities; however they don’t talk to their children about money as it relates to the entire household budget, and why specific spending decisions are made.
Why don’t parents talk family finances with their children? Why is it such an uncomfortable topic for most parents to discuss with their children? Surprisingly the answers to these questions generally return to a few reasons: (1) parents don’t feel as if they have the knowledge to talk in financial terms; (2) shame – some parents aren’t making enough to cover all the needs of the family and they don’t want the children to know or to carry the burden of knowing this information; (3) they revert to the old refrain “it’s not polite to discuss money”, which is used as a great cover for a multitude of underlying reasons parents would rather not discuss money.
If children, who grow up to be adults in society, aren’t learning about money and personal finances at home, maybe they’re learning about those topics are school. This shouldn’t come as a surprise but this isn’t happening either. A 2012 study found that only 13 states[2] in the U.S. required students to take any kind of financial literacy course before graduating high school, although an overwhelming 86%[3] of high school students say want to learn about personal finances so they can avoid mistakes as an adult. In 2016, a survey from the Council for Economic Education found that only 20 states had any requirement for students to take an economics course to graduate high school and only 17 states required students to take a Financial Literacy course to graduate. [4]
If children aren’t having these conversations at home and aren’t having them in schools, where are they having them? They aren’t having them. Without these conversations, children grow up to be adults who still haven’t learned personal financial literacy and instead only know the basics of the broad economy and the stock market, which most adults are not active participants.
Even as adults many of us hide our financial behaviors from loved ones and spouses – are we ashamed that they may ask questions about why we spend or save money the way we do, and how we developed these habits? Why are we unwilling or unable to discuss this even with those who are supposed to make us feel safe?
For too many of us, we make financial decisions without fully understanding the long-term consequences or understanding the complexities of the financial products being used.
For too many of us, the way we spend money is dependent on whether we’re happy or sad, or if we’re using the things we buy and spend money on to hide something about ourselves we don’t want others to see. This happens across the income spectrum, it is not just those who are lower-income earners or those living in poverty that have hang-ups about money.
So how do we change this? How do we move out of the silent spaces and into spaces where we can speak in healthy ways about our own personal connections to money?
We begin the dialogue.
This year for the 2020 project of The One Less Foundation we’re opening up the dialogue and shining a light on the spaces where our emotional ties to money hide in the darkness.
Ingrid R. Shepard, Executive Director
THE ONE LESS FOUNDATION
[1] American Psychological Association’s 2014 Stress in America survey
[2] Why High Schoolers Can’t Manage Money, 2012 USA Today (survey by Council for Economic Education)
[3] Why High Schoolers Can’t Manage Money, 2012 USA Today (survey by Council for Economic Education)
[4] US high schools get failing grades for financial literacy, 2016 CNBC