Whether financial support is coming from the government in the form of public assistance or from a family trust, dependence on others for financial support has consequences. On the psychological side, dependence on nonwork-related income is associated with a lack of passion, drive, motivation, and creativity. Financially, it is associated with lower income and lower net worth. While financially dependent people rely on the income, they also tend to resent the source of the income. Clearly, it should come as no surprise that money can be used to manipulate and control others, especially as their dependence on nonwork money grows over time.
In many ways, financial dependence is a debilitating condition that can destroy a person's drive and passion. As such, it is something to be avoided, especially when considering how we are raising our children around money.
Financial enabling is the other side of the financial dependence equation. Financial enabling is essentially financial help that hurts. It is almost always done with the best intentions, such as when a parent wants to support a child's goals or passions. However, in the case of financial enabling, the enabler may report having a hard time saying no to requests for money. Our research has shown that financial enablers also tend to have lower income, higher credit card debt, and may feel feelings of resentment or anger after giving away money.4 Financial enabling behavior can get complicated and very emotional when it involves friends and/or family members.
CUTTING THE FINANCIAL UMBILICAL CORD: FIVE STEPS
We have worked with many families stuck in the financial enabling–financial dependence cycle. We have also worked with financial professionals who are worried about clients who are putting their financial health in jeopardy by financially enabling their children. In our work, we have identified five steps to help cut the financial umbilical cord.5
1 Recognize that financial help can hurt. The first step in breaking the enabler-dependent cycle is recognizing how your attempts to help someone via financial support can actually be harmful. Financial enabling is almost always done from a good place. You see someone you love in need and you want to help him or her. But by definition, financial enabling hurts. It can hurt you, the giver, financially. If you are reinforcing irresponsible or harmful behaviors then you are hurting the receiver. Financial dependence can be quite psychologically crippling, robbing the dependent of drive, motivation, passion, and/or creativity. You may also be hurting your relationship as financially enabling often comes with strings attached from the giver, and feelings of resentment on the part of the receiver.
2 Understand the curse of too many options. Depending on the level of financial support being provided, you may be giving the financial dependent too many choices. For example, we know of many adult children who have earned multiple graduate degrees in different fields without ever settling on a career or getting a job. Others move around frequently, or start and quit jobs often, never allowing themselves the opportunity to establish themselves. When people need to depend on their own work efforts to fund their lives, the experience can be quite grounding and can give a deep sense of purpose. These people also grow psychologically as they learn to delay gratification and to stick out challenging situations and learn to navigate challenging relationships.
3 Acknowledge the curse of unstructured free time. Research on the concept of “flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that it is much more difficult to enjoy unstructured free time than it is work.6 Gainful employment brings with it the opportunity to have flow experiences, where you are being challenged and you lose yourself in productive efforts to meet challenges. Contrary to popular belief, we struggle much more to enjoy unstructured free time, like during weekends and on vacation. With too much free time, we tend to dwell on our problems and feel isolated and uneasy. Work has many built-in social and emotional benefits, even if we find parts of our job distasteful. This is another way that financial enabling can hurt someone.
4 Rip off the financial band-aid. Since money is such a powerful reinforcer, threats and warnings that aid will end unless certain behaviors occur are typically met with failure, especially if the financial enabling has been going on for years. It is very difficult if not impossible for the financial dependent to change until the money stops flowing. Set a date by which the financial support will end and stick to it. You might want to brainstorm other ways to assist that don't involve giving money, which could include paying for therapy, career counseling, life coaching, or financial planning.
5 Establish ongoing support. It can be very difficult to stick to your guns as you are withdrawing financial support to a loved one, as it is not uncommon for the person to become angry or depressed. Financially dependent people may even engage in an adult version of a toddler's temper tantrum, which could involve crying, yelling, or making threats. As such, it is very important for the financially enabling to have an emotional support system to help keep them strong and encourage them to stay the course and not give in to adult temper tantrums.
RAISING FINANCIALLY HEALTHY CHILDREN
Children are born into a world of money like fish are born into water. Children are raised in a particular socioeconomic environment and have experiences common to that environment. This becomes their reality—their type of food, clothes, transportation, school, home, and so on. As they grow older, they will become increasingly cognizant of money and its implications. They will become curious about it. They will see the value that others place on money. They will pay more and more attention to it. They will begin to notice that their experiences of money are not the same as everyone else's.
Children will learn very powerful messages about money. They receive these messages from their parents, their extended family members, their culture, their peers, and from society at large. Sometimes these messages are overt and explicit, but many times, they are much more subtle.
For example, consider the lullaby “Hush Little Baby.” Have you ever really thought about the explicit money messages this seemingly innocuous song delivers, embedded in gentle, soothing tones and oxytocin-fueled cuddles? So what does a loving parent do when your bird won't sing, your diamond ring turns out to be a fake, your mirror breaks, your mode of transportation breaks down, and you've got a stubborn goat? Don't worry, all problems can be solved with the purchase of something. Papa is going to just keep buying you stuff until you feel better.
Early in life, children develop a conceptualization of money, and their formulation will set them on a financial course. So parents have two choices. They can let children make up stories about what money is and how it is to be used with the help of social media and their peers. Or parents can consciously teach children what money is, what it does, what it can't do, how it should be used, how it can cause joy or pain, and the values they want associated with it.
IT'S NOT SO SIMPLE
Money is an incredibly complex subject akin to issues like time, death, sex, and God. Except there is no money Bible. Even if there were, there would probably be no more agreement about the true meaning of money than there is about God between the Torah, the New Testament, or the Koran.
So, the challenge is to become clear about what money means to you and how it fits in with your values, goals, and worldview. We can't teach what we don't know. And then, of course, there is your child's other parent. Are they reading from the same script as you? How about grandpa and grandma?
It is also important to remember that children learn more from what they see around them than what those around them say. Are you modeling your own beliefs about money in your daily life—about what you believe is possible? Your actions will teach them whether you say anything or not. Remember, your actions will be much more powerful a teacher than anything that you will say to them about money. This is one of those critical times in life where your parenting message cannot be “do as I say and not as I do.” Your children will interpret that as “do as my parents did and not blah, blah,