Parents need to teach their kids everything. There are no assumptions in this world; None. Society has lost it’s focus and believes that children will learn about money, friendships, relationships, and marriage on their own. We are so caught up telling our kids what not to do that we have forgotten that we have to teach our kids what to do. Read on. Oh, will this stop bullying behavior? You bet it will.
During the course of the last 40 years society has become very myopic and lost a great deal of its wisdom. Wisdom is a very dynamic word and can be used in many ways. The definition of wisdom is the accumulation of philosophic or scientific learning. The definition also includes the ability to discern inner qualities and the ability to use good judgment. Wisdom is also knowledge, good sense, wise attitude or course of action. In terms of relationships wisdom can be defined as having the ability to see life from another person’s perspective. A person learns wisdom first and foremost from watching and listening to the instruction of his/her parents. With the understanding that their parents are wise and have the ability to impart their knowledge to their children.
I can not say that I truly have wisdom. One area of one’s life that indicates wisdom is financial stability. As I am writing this essay I am mortgaged to the hilt and have a variety of other debt. I have spent more than I make and have bought things that I didn’t need. Sometimes I have to go through my couch to look for coffee money. I am past due on some bills, and did I mention that the holidays are just around the corner. I have used band-aids to deal with my finances and had some temporary relief, but never have been able to achieve financial stability. I have been married twice, and divorced twice. I have two children who I love that need to be provided for. My oldest daughter is in college and will be going to Italy in January; need I say more. My younger daughter is in high school is not far behind, and she will also be going to college in a few years, and well, the debts are high and the funds are low. I asked myself, how could this happen to me? The answer rang very true in my head, Jim you have not been very wise in certain areas.
My parents never struggled financially the way that I do. They didn’t have debts they couldn’t pay or live in a house that was over their heads. They stayed married even though they may not have been too happy with each other. Why did I not learn wisdom from my parents?
When my dad died he didn’t have any life insurance at all. My mom was not left destitute, she had money, but there wasn’t this lump sum of cash on its way from an insurance company. One day my mom was cleaning out my dad’s things, and found an old shoe box in the back of the bedroom closet. She opened the box and found $30,000 in cash. My dad had the wisdom to stash money away so my mom was taken care of when he died. We always thought he was cheap, but he wasn’t. In his own methodical way he saved money for the future. On the other hand, I never learned how to save money, and I am realizing now just how fast thirty years can go by. My mom and dad always had trouble in their marriage. He was a drinker and my mom had all types of problems managing his unruly behavior. Nonetheless they both had the wisdom to realize that they were worth more together than they could ever be worth apart. They remained married for thirty five years. I on the other hand have been married twice and never recognized the benefits of remaining married. The reality of it all is I observed wise behavior but was never learned how to be wise.
These are not only a problems that I have been dealing with, I believe that it is pervasive in society. Some people call it street smarts, I call it wisdom. During the last 50 years, it seems as if people have either lost their wisdom or never developed it in the first place. I know this because I am not the only one in this situation. I have observed this problem affecting people much younger than I. So many people today have never been taught how to handle money, and they don’t realize that money is for many other things than for just spending. Too many people have gotten married and gotten divorced just as fast, and it doesn’t seem to matter if there are children involved or not.
Why did our parents stand the test of time 50 years ago and stay married, and manage money so well? Why have the last 3 generations suffered so much financial difficulty, and been involved in one divorce after another? We observed our parents being financially responsible, and we observed our parents remaining married. The problem is we observed, but we never learned. It’s almost like watching a car mechanic fix a car, but never learning how to fix it ourselves. Wisdom, wise decisions, wise behavior, needs to be learned. We needed to know why our parent’s did what they did and we needed to be shown how to do it.
If society is going to develop the wisdom, common sense, or street smarts it has to start with grooming the kids of today and giving them the instruction they need to deal with money and relationships. When you get right down to it there really isn’t much else left. The challenge is great because parental role models are not as wise today as they were in days past. Parents can’t be asking their children what they want to be when they grow up, they have to taught the best career choices and then pointed in that direction. Parents have to teach their children how to handle money at a young age and show them how to save and invest for the future. Parents have to stop thinking that they don’t have a say in terms of who their children choose as a marriage partner. They have to speak up; if they believe that who their son or daughter is dating is not good for them they need to instruct them about the qualities they believe are important in a life partner. Society believes after a certain point that kids know what they are doing and they’ll be fine. Parents don’t want to interfere. They don’t want to ram something down their kid’s throats. If parents don’t ram something down their kid’s throats some else will. If society is going to become wise again, it will have to spend more time teaching, and less time watching. We can start to teach are kids now when they’re young, or wring our hands as they get older and wonder where we went wrong.
Words of Wisdom
