I attended a conference recently and one of the things I was fascinated by was a discussion around values.
The speaker was talking about how many of our attitudes toward money (both good and bad) are learned from our parents, and we carry these through our adult lives.
As an example of this my grandparents were children of the Great Depression and money and resources were scarce when they were growing up. As a result of this they learned that nothing was to be wasted (as did their daughters), and even today my mother can get enough jam for a slice of toast out of a jar that would seem empty to most others.
Sometimes values are forged in defiance of parents though. David Morgan, the former CEO of Westpac, in his new book talks about the formative experience in his childhood of coming home to find the family home had been repossessed and his father declared bankrupt, and watching him go across the street to his piano teacher to tell her he didn’t have any money to pay her the fees he owed. At the sight of this David vowed he would never allow himself to be in that same situation.
While we may act in a certain way simply because ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’, it can be interesting (and informative) to stop and consider what our values are, and where they have come from.
What did you learn from your parents about money?
