The things we learn

My dear friend Roopa (congrats on the new phase of your life!) and I chatted on the phone Sunday. When we talk, we talk about one thing, about a million different things; it’s all the same but different.

We cover pretty much all of life, let’s just say. 🙂

Something in our conversationt triggered a thought about the things we are taught by our parents in regards to interpersonal relationships and personal finance.

You know how we all (ok, our friends and family, not all of the world) understand the dangers of not having sex ed taught in school? The problem is that we can only teach what we know and if we never get formal education on it from knowledgeable sources, we end up having no real source of information and end up teaching nothing, or crap instead of facts. Then people end up pregnant and full of diseases. (Even with the best of education, this happens, but at least some knowledge can help.)

You know, all that good stuff.

I was thinking that that’s not too far from how we learn about personal finance and relationships. We learn what our parents tell us, but they only know so much, and some of them are barely stumbling around life themselves. We learn what we can from doing and observing, and sometimes reading and researching, talking to our peers, etc. They aren’t terrible ways to learn things, but wouldn’t you rather learn from a solid knowledgeable body?

Knowledge about relationships [side note: I made a typo and wrote “elationships” at first. What a nice idea, being elated in your relationship!] and finance, along with a clear concept of what social responsibility means, are some of the most important tools we can arm ourselves with in life. Yet a structured learning curriculum for these things are not considered the norm.

I feel like I’ve spent my life thinking about relationships. Who hasn’t, frankly? But we get tidbits of knowledge here and there, figure out a bunch of stuff on our own, and some with our friends and family. There some crap on tv that purports to give you solid advice about relationships, but that’s fluff that’s not worth paying attention to. Isn’t that how it is with sex ed when you don’t learn about it school? Heh.

I’ve spent the last couple of years, and the last few months in particular, learning about personal finance. I’ve been relieved to find that Seppo and I are on a decent track. What I’ve learned, and what I’ve learned that I do not yet know, can fill all of wikipedia and Ask Metafilter.

My parents didn’t have the advantage kind of knowledge I’ve been able to gather in the last few months and will undoubtedly continue to gather as I get older. If they had, they would have done their best to teach me.

I don’t really have a conclusion. I wonder why some of the most crucial tools are not only not taught in school, but not even considered to be the kinds of things you teach as a part of a general curriculum. I guess we have so many basic skills that we are having enough trouble teaching already that it would be difficult to squeeze in more “soft” skills.

Still, it would be nice if we could formalize some of the stuff I’ve been learning.