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.
I couldn’t agree more. How to be a good citizen, how to behave and succeed in American society, and how to treat each other (not to mention decent sex ed) should all be taught in school.
Going too far along the path runs into opinion instead of fact (for example, I’m not sure there’s really consensus about some financial topics, but how unemployment works is an absolute). But there are so many facts about everyday life not taught in school that it’s mindboggling.
Yet another way in which school can be improved.
I’d love to compare financial notes with you sometime. I’m curious if we came to the same conclusions.
Random note: why don’t we have ongoing dialog in this country about these things? Friends don’t usually talk to friends about the details of finance, or turn to each other for advice. How silly.
I really agree about there not being a consensus, making it difficult to teach certain things. I wonder if we can find some sort of basic guidelines though, for various things.
Not that I think that we should learn everything about life in school and that parents shouldn’t do their thing — not that you were saying that, but I just now realized that I might have been giving off that impression.
I’d love to compare notes with you too. For me, since I make a great salary, I do the following (I couldn’t and shouldn’t have done this a few years ago when I wasn’t making what I do now):
– Maximize my 401K contribution, keep an eye on my yearly returns and rebalance.
– Try to build up 4-6 months of emergency savings, tucked away into a high yield savings account. We are at around 2 months worth.
– Pay extra on my home equity line of credit — any extra I think about putting into the primary mortgage payment goes here because the interest is much higher on this one.
– Lower my bills by calling and asking for them to be lowered.
– Only charge what I have cash to cover and paying off every month, while using a high rewards card.
– Will open and contribute to a Roth IRA this year for the first time. I initially just couldn’t afford it for many years.
I’m paying back the school loans more slowly, but now that we’ve paid off Seppo’s personal line of credit, that’s the smallest loan, so we might snowball the old payments into that.
Or into the HELOC, since that is the next smallest and it’s a much higher interest.
I definitely think friends should share information with each other. I am totally curious as to how other people deal w/ their money issues.
I did my taxes at H’s place once. She was free to see how much I made, and we discussed finances. My dad frequently brings it up (retirement, diversification, et cetera). My friends discuss it all the time, and most have a broad idea of my salary. I really don’t get what the big deal is, but really just got lucky with my environment and influences. (It’s obviously not just family because of the big hole my brother is in).
To me, people like Suze Orman have no new thoughts or ideas; yet, people flock to her as the messiah. That’s when I realized how lucky I have been. To me: financial responsibility has just always been there.
I don’t know that any subject in school can teach this. The biggest hurdle is that everyone has their own defined ‘standard of living.’
Very early on, I decided that money would not be an important part of my life, but that I would try to be wise with it. I count myself lucky. I am by no means frugal. Although my ‘standard of living’ is quite low, I knowingly indulge in life: LCD HDTV, cable TV service, DSL, eating out, Sidekick 3, cell phone. Many of these things I can do without, and have no bearings on hobbies or entertainment; and I know these do not makeup my ‘standard of living.’ But, I indulge in this upgraded lifestyle by sacrificing in other areas such as finding a cheaper apartment, or not contributing as much on a monthly basis to a “backup” savings in case I lose my job (I am up to 6 months, but really want a full year).
Dealing with relationships I mostly learned from the Catholic church. More accurately: I took away the values they teach. I really wish there was a way to make people better at relationships, but I wouldn’t know how one would teach this.
As for sex education: I was taught this stuff in 6th grade, and promptly forgot all about it. This lead to very strange situations in high school.
Culture has a lot of influence on all of these topics. How do you teach sex education when one’s religion teaches abstinence until marriage? And what about a culture where television is embraced as a necessity, just as a telephone and electricity?
And there is also personal taste.
In this regard, I am very Republican. The government should not be looking over people and teaching them; people should be jockeying for position, parents should be teaching their children, and commerce should win at almost any cost (deception is allowable). Survival of the fittest?
I don’t know.
Reading what you wrote, it occurs to me that what I think would be useful to teach isn’t financial responsibility, but personal finance knowledge that we should all have before going into college (where most people start credit histories and get school loans). Give concrete knowledge so people can figure out what to do with it.
As in things like:
* What is a 401K plan?
* What are your options when you get laid off?
* How much should you expect to have put away for retirement?
* How fast is a $10K student loan generally paid off?
I have no idea how one would teach about relationships either. 😀 I think mediation training can be useful to learn how to diffuse situation and have people accurately represent what they want from an interaction/conversation/relationship. So again, it’s more about skillset rather than a moral mindset.
When I was in high school, I fully intended to wait to have sex until I was married, due to a combination of family, religion, and personal understanding of myself. However, I still supported sex education in school. I understand that that is not the norm. But I took that stance because knowledge about a subject does not mean increasing desire to engage in the subject.
I took a pharmacology course in high school, where I learned about a bunch of drug interactions in the body. It was like the one step after organic chemistry. The things I learned about the various classes of drugs made me want to avoid most recreational drugs even more. Knowledge is power.
I learned more about sex through reading medical texts at the library when I was in middle school than I ever did in school itself, and I disseminated the information to my close friends. I was intensely curious and I had a way to learn concrete solid knowledge. The kinds of sexual myths I had to correct ranged from funny to incredibly dangerous (can’t get pregnant the first time?! wtf?!).
I’d say the biggest deterrent to having sex was that I felt that I couldn’t handle the consequences, which ranged from my own emotions, to how my parents would behave if they found out, to what the hell would I do if I got pregnant or caught a disease.
Knowing specifically what the physical consequences are and what the pregnancy rates are helped me to decide I wasn’t going to risk it.
Watching that awful “giving birth” video didn’t help either. The horror.
I wish I could have personal one-on-one talks to people who don’t want sex ed taught at school for religious reasons. Because the combo of religion AND sex ed worked for me. Better than religion would have all by itself.
Oh yeah, I don’t mean “talk to them” like yell at them. I mean honestly try to make them understand and reassure them that knowledge doesn’t equal increased opportunity.
Knowledge let me better properly weight the risk versus reward.
My entire life is based on game theory. 🙂
Yeah, I figured that’s what you meant by “talk to them.” That whole “tough girl outta Philly” persona just doesn’t fly with me. :p
I learned everything important I know about finance and relationships (not sex! Repressed from their Catholic upbringing) from my parents. But my parents were no dummies.
Sure, I’ve learned other things, but the building blocks they provided have been fantastic. I’m incredibly lucky.
Of course, watch all these building blocks collapse after I post this comment. 🙂
Of course, I was also incredibly lucky in “my choice” of wife such that these “blocks” haven’t been too stressed beyond getting laid off at one point.
As far as the school angle is concerned, it’s generally impractical to teach “relationship” topics given the divergence of opinions, and most children learn these things from their parents. Instruction isn’t going to make much of a dent against what their parents do and say, day in and day out.
Moreover, schools, like it or not, are generally not geared towards producing functional human beings, broadly speaking. They’re about producing workers, narrowly speaking. They’re about teaching specific skills that will create “workers.” And its the basics, readin’, ritin’, and ‘rithmatic, that are considered the fundamentals for creating this work force. There simply hasn’t been any reevaluation of these core ideas.
Sure, you’ll get some “culture”, but even those courses are relegated to second tier status. So, you can forget more “humanistic” approaches, such as “relationships.”
To mirror Dre’s comment.
In any case, I am very something-or-other.
The government should not be looking over people’s shoulders and prying into their personal lives. But what most people know could fill a thimble and it is the role of good government to provide and education to its people.
This not to absolve the parents of their duty to teach their children, but we simply cannot rely on every person to have a full grasp of a broad range of issues or ideas that are relevant or important.
And commerce is only a means to an end. It is not the end or purpose of society. If there are alternative means to achieving happiness and well-being to a broad range of people, then those methods should be adopted. If they hinder or undermine laizze faire capitalism, which is often the case, then so be it. Capitalism or commerce is not the purpose of society. It’s system. Nothing more.
Deception is antithetical to this because it unfairly and unjustly accords “happiness” to the deceiver. A society based on lies and deception cannot function, as evidenced by extremely corrupt societies throughout history, and the overall misery. Further, corruption, a form of deception, has long been a hindrance to well-functioning commerce.
Once cannot support deception and commerce/capitalism because one damages the other.
Regarding commerce, I feel similarly to A_B.
Dre: commerce should win at almost any cost
How come? I don’t mean that as a flip question, and I don’t mean to ask it only to try to trap you into my own way of thinking. I’m genuinely curious about why because I haven’t known anyone else that’s ever said that. Maybe it’s a common concept? But it’s new to me. So I’d be interested in hearing more about why.
RE: commerce should win at any cost
Not really me talking, just random regurgitation on what the Republican party is/was/should be all about. It’s a bit like ‘survival of the fittest.’ If my brother just needs to spend an additional $10k to have a propeller logo on the hood of his car, commerce is at work. The government should not be creating some new law that deters those seeking their “American Dream” just because that dream is influenced by advertising. If it makes him feel better to buy it, talk about it, and justify it as a necessity (or at least “the best route to go”): so be it. Commerce is at work. It may have manipulated him, but we’re making a killing on tariffs or taxes, or creating jobs for maintenance.
Government should definitely step in if it is damaging to the public, such as smoking. But, the lines get so blurred on topics such as oil and conservation and who knows what else… It seems like the local/state governments are better equipped to handle these. It is a very debatable topic, but I lean heavily Republican on commerce (giving the wealthy bigger tax breaks to attract more businesses and hopefully create more jobs — things like that).
“It’s a bit like ‘survival of the fittest.'”
Commerce, by its nature, is often akin to this, sure, but what is the point of commerce?
One debate is how to create a system of commerce, or what steps we can take, that encourages more of it. But ultimately, why do you think we should attempt to have thriving commerce or, why should it “win”? What is it defeating? Why is it good that it wins?
I think that’s what ei-nyung is asking (maybe not). Or, at least, that’s what I’m asking.
Fundamentally, I don’t see commerce or capitalism as inherently good. That is, thriving commerce isn’t a positive thing in and of itself. It’s like a rake. If it helps you pick up the leaves, great. If it doesn’t, then screw it. It’s a tool.
I mean, if everybody was absolutely miserable, but businesses were thriving, I would say that’s a bad thing.
But if businesses were in the tank, but everyone was very happy, then that would be a good thing.
I understand that they’re interrelated and it’s hard to have one without the other in our current system, but my bias is towards the latter. I simply couldn’t care less about commerce outside of its ability to increase “happiness” for society, however that’s defined.
a_b said: I think that’s what ei-nyung is asking (maybe not). Or, at least, that’s what I’m asking.
Yeah, pretty much. 😀
dre said: giving the wealthy bigger tax breaks to attract more businesses and hopefully create more jobs — things like that
Without discussing the merits or demerits of such an ideology, it seems like that sentiment already expresses a counterpoint to commerce winning at all cost, at least in just that specific example — it is possible that other examples would show a much more supportive case.
When someone supports that specific platform, they are saying the tax break create jobs, therefore there is a value to giving the tax breaks. So it’s not to give the tax breaks for the sake of creating tax breaks for the people receiving them. Whether it’s true or not, whether someone really believes it or that, that particular theory says that the resultant job creation and presumably encouragement of widespread economonic prosperity are the things of value. So it sees encouraging and supporting commerce as a win-win situation. Would you support commerce if it didn’t create more jobs? Why wouldn’t it, one could ask, but the question isn’t meant to say that that’s the case; it’s to try to see if “at all cost” really applies or if it’s more subjective than that.
Now, if I go on to express my own views, commerce is a construct, a tool we use in society because I couldn’t make all the tomatoes, cars, gas, dog leashes that I want to use to live. Commerce has no inherent value except for what it can do for the people. As such, if supporting commerce in general leads to a win-win situation for the good of a group (even if that group is as small as just me, or as large as all of the world), then I support it. But if it becomes win-lose sometimes? I guess it depends on the group. Or if it becomes win-lose all the time for the majority of group scenarios?
I obviously can see sense in supporting something when one believes that it has value. Like supporting big business if one believes big business has value to people that it affects, whether by making a product accessible or creating jobs. Or small business if one believes it has positive effects for the community.
But if there were no positive effects, why should one support it? I think it was the phrase “at all cost” that made me curious. For me, I would say that I support most things “if they had a good net effect”, as subjective as that is.
Where is the inherent, intrinsic value to commerce other than to make some subset of people’s lives better/easier/more fulfilling/useful/etc.?
I hate these little comment boxes. I think I might have repeated myself a little or started a sentence one way and finished it another.
Thanks for putting up with my ramblings.
Hey, it’s my blog! 😀
…and you’ll cry if you want to.
I will admit that “win at all costs” is the incorrect phrase. I say “at all cost” because the current society of America thrives on wealth as a measure of success and happiness. This is not my belief, but rather the majority of America. Since I am no politician and have limited experience on how much government can actually be effective in the economy, all that I am trying to say is that government should not try too hard to regulate on a micro level. It should go after monopolies, it sould regulate utilities, and it should set nationwide policies. But it shouldn’t discern if Ford is a better company because it makes more hybrid vehicles than GM. Perhaps I am overly optimistic that corporations are inherently good and won’t abuse the system, or that people will wise up and stop buying gas-guzzling SUV’s.
I guess what I mean is that there are many problems in the world today that a super power, like the United States, with all of its politicians and think-tanks, and researchers: all of these resources can be used for something other than local issues?
I feel and fear that the government has been spending too much money “protecting the future of America” that it may not have a future to protect. What is America? What is American culture? What is American society? What is the future of America?
Isn’t the proliferation of gas guzzling SUVs more than a local issue, though? Doesn’t it have lasting affect on the entire planet’s air quality? Doesn’t it affect our relationship with the middle east because they are our oil dealers?
The gov’t has a duty to make sure that the nation is still worth something a hundred years, two hundred years, five hundred years from now. They have to take the long and the short view. That includes raising the emissions standards for vehicles even though it’s economically unpopular, because it was help avoid an energy crisis fifty years from now.
Seppo pointed out that some schools do teach personal finance. To that, I say, “Kudos!” That’s really great.
On that note, I had “home economics” as a junior high student. I’m sure what Seppo is talking about isn’t like home ec. I’m randomly going to talk about it anyway though. We spent that time making cookies. The teacher occasionally admonished us about not having kids when you are a kid yourself. Other than that, we learned about coupons and comparison shopping.
Those are some of the basics, but I’m talking more than coupons, balancing checkbooks, and comparison shopping. That’s like learning the ABCs when we need to learn to really read and comprehend.
I’m talking about learning early, before starting work, what it’ll take to pay off your school loans, how you can finance a house (and when you are going over your budget), how to put away enough for retirement starting as soon as you can, how you buy a car without getting blindsided, how to figure out how to whittle down your budget so you can pay things off and live debt-free (even the mortgage).
Or how to deal with layoffs, how much emergency savings is enough, what filing for unemployment means, what low cost health care options there are, what kinds of insurance is good to have and what is overkill, how people plan to have a family, what tax breaks are meant to benefit you in whatever unique circumstances are (as opposed to how to cheat on your taxes — people should also learn that taxes are important and useful, not something to try to dodge).
Obviously, there are a lot of things to teach a person before that: how to live in a socially responsible manner, how not to be an ass, how to be a loving person, how to survive in a tough world, etc. But man, there is so much about money I just didn’t know.
And money is the currency of our lives. I’m not interested in being uber-rich; money in and of itself doesn’t really interest me. I just want to be stable on a long term scale so that it’s not a worry when I’m trying to live & love my family & friends. I realize now that we are really on a good track for solid financial independence in our later years. It’s a nice feeling.