Trickle-Down Trepidation

When Does Penny Prudence Become Financial Anxiety?

Well, yeah. But I mean well. I want to convey the value of things, to show my oldest that financial responsibility involves making small but smart decisions: Buy new pajamas or sew the old ones? Hire a sitter or ask Nana to watch the kids? Grab a latte on-the-go or brew plain joe at home?

I hoped that being conspicuously cognizant of our dollars would justify any spending changes my son resented ("I'm not buying you a new backpack when there's a perfectly good, um, pink one in the closet"), and would teach him the lessons I never quite mastered about "rainy days" and "fools and their money" and so flipping forth.

Instead, it scared him. I overshot "create awareness" and landed squarely on "create anxiety." Oops.

How, then, does one model financial restraint without coming off as a miserly killjoy or worse, stressing out one's little dollar-devouring darlings? I asked some friends.

"I am a killjoy sometimes, but life isn't always about getting what you want when you want it," says Nicole, a self-employed mother of three. "What's wrong with raising our kids to have to work for something worthwhile — or wait for it? I feel my children are better served having this awareness and will in turn be better people. That's what I tell myself, anyway."

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