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This post was mentioned on Twitter by ronstack: RT @billhanifin: What’s more frightening, talking with your kids about money, or sex? http://bit.ly/2fvZyZ They don’t teach about $ school….

I don’t see all of these as fears: those ideas, broached as areas of concern or potential pitfalls, with the ability to control the lives of those you love, are more along the lines of enemies or threats to an individual’s or family’s health and well-being. The concerns surrounding addictions to behaviors, arising out of neglect, or out of a propensity toward diversion, strike fear in a parent’s heart, through concern, but I don’t believe should be viewed as the object of one’s fear, as much as a subject for deliberation, one which presents itself when appropriate.

Finances, while sometimes being a component of some foul behaviors, shouldn’t be the subject, or even a reason, attributed to any of these behaviors. A healthy, stable mentality of strength of moral values, and a system for those values to exist, should be a precursor to parenthood. Children learn, what they live, not what they’re told to live… they understand what they see, they value what they love … a child always watches and learns from its parents, first.. so, it’s not what you tell them, but what you’re doing.

That said, finances, can be an Achille’s Heel; a place for unhappiness, uneasiness, instability, fear… to exist and fester, if allowed. We, unfortunately, have basic needs for human health to exist; we need shelter, we need renewal (in the form of caloric intake), and we need comfort which provides opportunity for rest; these are needs which require financial wherewithal, and these are the only requirements for happiness a parent can and should always provide. So, financial health = basic needs being met; happiness, then, comes in knowing strength through security (a parent’s promise: “I’ll always be there, you need never worry.”)

So, in this frightening economy, and with the knowledge that, all economic trends have control over our financial destiny, currently, I’d say these are personal financial health fears on the minds of the parents you describe; these fears should not, however, be something we should pass on to our children. My philosophy, in life, as in football*, deal with it, don’t pass it forward. (*this is for another day, another comment, I’m sure of it)

Which brings me to my final thought, for now, with regard to this post: public speaking and the fear of reproach… I’m doubtful that the speech is the fear, it’s more likely to be disinterest. We aren’t fearful of people hearing what we’re saying, we’re fearful of people not caring.

Thanks for the opportunity to free myself of these burdens … this place to harbor opinion.