It's another snow day, and I've been spending some of my time reading different articles on the Internet. I read one claiming that experts say kids should get an allowance, and they should start getting one at age 3-5. Apparently this is supposed to teach them the value of money. The "experts" also say that the allowance should not be linked to chores since this teaches them that the only reason they should do chores is to get money. Once they get real jobs, why continue to do household chores? I can understand that. Children should learn that doing chores is part of helping out the family. But I don't think that kids should get money that they don't earn.
I never got an allowance. When I was about 7 or 8, my mother decided to teach my younger brother and I the value of a dollar by taking us blueberry raking. It worked. We were on a family owned lot and there were several other kids our age who raked as well. My mother's rule was that we had to rake at least one box of berries a day. After that, we could go play in the rows that had already been raked or read a book (which is what I usually did). There were great big boulders in the rows that were fun to play on. She let us keep all the money we earned, but that was all the spending money we got for the entire year. She bought all our school clothes for us, so we got to spend all of it on fun stuff like toys and books.
If you have never raked blueberries, you might not appreciate how difficult it is. You are on flat land with no shade, bending over a rake for hours at a time. When you are finished, everything aches. The berries stain your skin and clothes a dirty shade of blue, and when you try to fall asleep at night, all you can see when you close your eyes are rows of blueberries. I don't know how much you would get paid today, but when I raked I used to get $2.50 a box. The most I ever raked in one day was 11 boxes.
We did this for about 3 years. Mom got a job when my younger brother started going to school all day, and she had to work summers. She paid us a little money during the summer to do extra chores around the house, but it was still only during the summer so that we had to budget our money for a full year. I think that this system worked really well. She still paid for all of my school clothes so that she could very easily keep track of what I was wearing (of course anything extra that I bought and she didn't like she would conveniently "lose" in the wash). I am very responsible with money. I don't know if I would be as responsible with money today if I had learned from an early age that I deserved to get money each week. Maybe I am missing something, but this doesn't make sense to me.
9 comments:
On the opposite side of the spectrum, I received an allowance starting at about age five and eventually that allowance went from $0.25 a week to whatever amount I earned from chores. Emptying wastebaskets earned $0.25, cleaning my room earned $0.50 (it was usually a large task), vacuuming was $0.10 per room, and so on. It wasn't until we needed money that my brother and I asked Mom to settle up. When I started my first job at age 13 I put a percentage of my weekly paycheck into my savings.
I consider myself rather saavy with money. My boyfriend considers me a tightwad. He loves his tightwad, though, and if it weren't for me we'd be in deep doo-doo.
Yes, but you actually EARNED your allowance. You also probably had good parents who taught you that you should do the chores whether or not you were getting paid. It also helped that your parents didn't give you a large allowance. This article said that the amount of the weekly allowance should be equal in dollars to the child's age and should be in no way linked to chores. I think that's ridiculous and just asking for trouble.
I agree. What on earth is a three year old going to do with money? Furthermore, if this researcher feels that the allowance should not be linked to chores because "this teaches them that the only reason they should do chores is to get money," I would wonder how you would teach a child to do chores. If you punish them for not doing chores then the child only learns to do chores to avoid punishment. Heh, clearly the only option is to not have children ever do chores! That way we never have to worry about the issue and the child never has to do chores. Win win!
Ha! Children never doing chores? Don't make me laugh. I'm a firm believer in the fact that children exist purely for slavery.
And the idea of the wage matching age is bogus. What is a 10-year-old going to do with $10 a week? Weed costs only so much. No, seriously, I think kids spend waaay too much money. There are all kinds of fun AND free activities, as we found out in college: Skip-Bo, excursions, and movie-making.
My son has a ton of money. It would never occur to him to spend it. Two summers ago he took care of the neighbour's cat, and he still has the five-dollar bill she gave him at the end of the week.
He needs a savings account! He needs to start accruing interest!
Sorry, disregard my ravings. It's a pet peeve of mine when people walk around with wads of cash in their pocket. Half of them can't afford to spend any of that money, but rather than invest or just store it in the bank they pretend they're rich.
HEY! I carry wads of cash around with me! What are you trying to say here?
Actually, I learned about that the hard way. When I was 15 years old, my house burned to the ground. I was sleeping when I heard an explosion outside (my family still credits my brother's four-wheeler for saving our lives). I didn't have time to grab anything, so my purse with $200 cash burned with the house. My parents had a savings account set up for me, but after I learned about the Great Depression I decided that banks were the enemy and hoarded it in my room. I was incredibly cheap, so it pretty much included the first dollar I had ever earned. Now I use banks.
Perfect story, Princess, to make my point.
In defense of the Great Depression, it wasn't entirely an issue of banks, but a combination of issues that lead to chaos. In reality, it all started with WWI and the dominoes fell from there.
Post a Comment