Book #8: The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber

This book has popped up once or twice on several book blogs I follow and I guess it's telling about how much of a boring parent I am now that I thought it sounded really interesting. Lieber writes about all of his experiences and research as a personal finance columnist for the NYT and how to teach kids about money and finances. More importantly, he discusses a lot about how to talk to kids about money, because it's an uncomfortable subject that many parents avoid because they don't want their kids to get any ideas. No parents wants their kids to be "spoiled," but lots of parents fall into the trap of buying their kids too much or not giving them enough financial responsibility, which leads to basically the same problem. So Lieber writes about lots of different tactics and discussion topics and different people who have done interesting things with their kids and their money.

I really liked a lot of the points Lieber makes. He's clearly writing for an upper-class/upper-middle-class crowd, because a lot of the assumptions he makes come from the idea that his readers are wealthy--which, according to him, means that you have everything you need and much of what you want. I can see a lot of people having problems with these assumptions, but I think it's fair for him to assume a privileged audience when he's writing about how to avoid spoiling your children--not something that poor families generally have to worry about. But he has some great ideas and perspectives about teaching your kids how to deal with money and how to be generous, etc. He suggests giving your kids an allowance--which he doesn't think should be attached to the requirement to do chores (kids should do chores/work, but they should receive their allowance whether they do chores or not because the allowance is "practice" money that they are learning how to take care of). Then, like on the cover of the book, he suggests that kids have 3 jars for giving, saving, and spending, and that they get to use the money accordingly. He also talks about being open with your kids about how much money you have, but also how you spend it and what you choose to spend it on (instead of saying, "We can't afford that," saying, "We're not choosing to spend our money on that.").

Obviously, this book is really a little advanced for the stage of life that we're in--Dane's not going to be getting an allowance any time soon--but I found it very interesting and I definitely want to revisit it in a few years when we have to start talking and thinking about these things. There are so many aspects to talk about specifically when you're raising kids!