Monday, April 13, 2015

Children and Money

I have just been reading the Tonight section of the Cape Argus. I would not waste my hard-earned (or  even my not so hard-earned) cash on this newspaper if it wasn't for the crossword puzzles. These are of a very high standard unlike the articles. The local content is written in very poor, but amazingly pretentious,  English. Take this phrase "...with her DNA strongly rooted in entertainment." Whatever does the  writer think DNA is?  Does she envisage a helix-shaped molecule somehow growing out of rhizoids which have been planted among other dancing and singing molecules and then attached or perhaps given to the  actor referred to. Reading it over I came to the conclusion that the reader is supposed to infer that the person in question comes from a family associated with TV or the theatre. No further mention is made of these relations, who may or may not be"household words." So perhaps the writer just means to say that the actor was previously involved in the entertainment industry. Am I being fussy in preferring plain English? Why do journalists have to use a long word when there is a perfectly good short one. For example "Celebritydom comes at a price."This is the first sentence in another article in the same paper.  "Celebritydom" may well be a word in some American dictionary.(It is not to be found in my copy of Chambers), but it is a very ugly one. There is no reason why "Celebrity" the abstract noun, meaning "fame" could not be used here.

Other articles, the ones which have been previously published in overseas journals, are more readable, if not particularly exciting. A whole page in the latest edition is given to the question of teaching children about money. So many of the children I know are extremely mercenary. Do they really need more instruction about money?  What the writer(Lieber of the Washington Post)  advocates is making children set aside a proportion of their pocket money for savings and for charity. Having "three jars" is how she puts it. One is for spending money, one for money to be saved for something special and one for charity.This is supposed to teach them economy and generosity. She also believes strongly that lessons about money should be given at home and parents should not expect children to learn these lessons at school.

On the face of it this seems to make sense, but in fact, is it really a good system?  Children are totally dependent on parents. Parents supply all their needs. Pocket money is a gift like a toy. It is an educational toy, of course. When they spend it they find out how to buy things in a shop and how much these things cost. Making them put some of it in a "savings' jar is a bit of a con, like pretending to give a present and then taking it away again. And teaching them at home before they learn about money at school?  Without a good grasp of Arithmetic, how can they have any idea about budgeting?
You can forget about teaching children the value of money when they are really young. When they are teenagers a clothes allowance might be a good idea. They might learn the difference between what clothes are really necessary and what are not, but this is a luxury that only really well-off parents can afford.

Actually, after bringing up five children, I have come to the conclusion that thrift is a virtue that one is born with and it can't be taught. Also I think that we live in such a commercialised world, the most difficult problem is to get children to think less  of the importance of money.. . . . .

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