It's Okay To Say No

I had a recent conversation that has got me thinking about state of life we live in - about the values of our society and what has become the "norm".  We've been experience a pretty scary time economically.  The experts pop up in the news and explain why things are crashing down around us...they talk a lot but I don't really hear them say anything.

It's amazing to see the number of homes that have been foreclosed on in the last few years. Our neighbor lost his home a few months ago. It's sad and depressing.  A few of our rental properties were repossessions or bought at tax sales. The home we're in now belonged to a family that lost it to the bank.  I always, always, think about the families that were forced to move. The families that lost their homes. It's tough.

But I also think it says something about the American lifestyle when you look down the street and see so many empty homes.  While there are always different circumstances, a large number of those homes are empty for the simple fact that the owners couldn't afford them. And I don't mean they lost their jobs or divorced or had a spouse pass away.  For many, it's just a simple case of living beyond their means -  trying so hard to live the "American Dream" that it became a nightmare.

Somewhere along the line the message has been skewed.

The other day someone was telling me about something they had planned for their family. They went on to share that some things had come up and that now this activity had become a financial burden. They legitimately didn't know how they were going to afford it but they were continuing with the plans because they didn't want to disappoint their kids.

And as a parent, I totally get that.  Who wants to disappoint their kid?  As a parent you want to do everything for your kids, you want to do special things and make their life magical.

When I was growing up we didn't have money. I lived in a rich community where the kids at my school wore expensive clothes, drove fancy cars, and spent Spring Break on the beach or skiing on the mountains. It was hard to not have money. There were a lot of things my parents couldn't afford. I got told no a lot. I got disappointed a lot.

I think it was one of the best things that could have happened to me.  I understood from a very early age that I wasn't going to get everything I wanted, that life could be disappointing, that being responsible sometimes meant making difficult choices. And I was happy. Even without all the stuff - I was happy.

A friend of mine once said her kid would want for nothing.  But shouldn't he want for something? Shouldn't he know that in the real world you can't really have whatever you want?

We're not equipping our children for reality when we let them grow up believing that there are no parameters in life. We do them a disservice when we teach them that a person's value is defined by their financial status.

Maybe we should focus less on the things we buy our children and more on the lessons we teach them...