Stopping the "poor" mentality

[Hoot]

My husband is an eternal pessimist. I mean on a bad day, the man would seriously wear out Eeyore. One of the biggest issues I have, however, is his insistance that we're poor. It drives me crazy. We are by NO means poor. We paid off our mortgage a few years ago. We did renovations on the house around the same time. We both drive nice newer model cars. DS13 is in karate and was in private Christian school for 2 yrs. We are able to, not only put food on the table, but food of our choice, not just whatever we can afford. We all have closets full of clothes. We have cable, Netflix, XM, cell phones, and on and on and on.

 

Those things do not equal poor to me.

 

Why are we poor in his mind?

We cannot go out and spend money on whatever we "need" whenever we "need" it. Need is in quotes for a reason, by the way.

We have to *gasp* save money if we want to go away somewhere (which happens exactly never).

There are months when things are a little tighter.

We do not have a huge safety net of money in savings.

We have have 1 credit card with a balance.

 

My question for you is, how do I keep my 13 yr. old son from adopting that same "we're. so. poor." attitude? I don't want him to grow up with this skewed idea of what "poor" means.

[carriede]

Have him see what real poor looks like. Volunteer and donate to food pantries and the like. Talk about poverty in Africa and in your hometown.

 

Take DH with you when you can.

[Skadi]

This is a great time of year to volunteer as a family at the local homeless shelter.

 

You could do a kind of home ec game with your son where he is given just a little over the poverty line ($23,000 or something similar) and challenged to create a budget and live within his means. Think of it like monopoly, where after he plans his monthly budget (which includes rent, car payments, etc.), different surprises come up like his six month car insurance bill or home plumbing repairs or a medical emergency. This will also help him appreciate all those hidden advantages that he might take for granted from you guys, like health insurance. Be careful not to browbeat him with how lucky he is. The game will be enough on its own. Just sell it as an exercise in economics and budgeting in the means that millions of Americans have to live within.

[Skadi]

Let me add, however, that the behavior you both model as parents is going to almost always win out against any individual game, lesson, or volunteering experiences you have. It's just the power of psychology. "Do what I say, not as your father does" isnt going to have a high success rate. Is there any way that you can sit down with your DH alone and talk to him about it? Perhaps you could convince him to not use certain words anymore. Treat saying, "We're so POOR," as a new curse word that is not allowed in front of your son. Even if you were poor, it's unhealthy to be so negative and resentful instead of being grateful and content. You could even do a kind of Bad Word Jar where he gets fined $1 or $5 every time he slips up. I don't know if he'd go along with it, but it's worth trying.

[Luckymama]

Let me add, however, that the behavior you both model as parents is going to almost always win out against any individual game, lesson, or volunteering experiences you have. It's just the power of psychology. "Do what I say, not as your father does" isnt going to have a high success rate. Is there any way that you can sit down with your DH alone and talk to him about it? Perhaps you could convince him to not use certain words anymore. Treat saying, "We're so POOR," as a new curse word that is not allowed in front of your son. Even if you were poor, it's unhealthy to be so negative and resentful instead of being grateful and content.

 

 

I absolutely agree with this. My fil is negative about money even though they have more than enough for retirement socked away. It so annoys his children and has actually alienated my mil.

[besroma]

Reinforce with your son that although some people think they don't have enough money if they can't buy anything they want whenever they want, that it does not mean they are poor. Point out the number of rich people who have lost homes or fortunes because they kept buying more and more homes (things, etc.).

 

Remind him that no matter how much money one has, one always must make choices about what to buy, and this does not mean that you are poor. Hopefully he will adopt your outlook, and not your husband's. Hopefully your DH will embrace what you are teaching your son.

[Mergath]

I would think the best solution for all of you is to help your husband try to figure out why he has this fixation, rather than correcting the attitude in your son.

 

How long has he felt like this? Is he worried that you won't have enough money, or just annoyed that he can't buy whatever he wants? (My dh normally falls into the latter category. *grumble*) If he's constantly worrying about it, could there be some component of OCD at play? I have that, and when I've been off medication, I've gone through periods of weeks where I fixated on one thing to worry about, and just could not stop. And once that becomes habit, it's extremely hard to get past.

 

If he is just annoyed that he can't have every new toy that comes onto the market or whatever, I don't know. Tell him to strap on a pair of big girl panties and deal, maybe? Which is what I do with my dh. Which, tbh, doesn't work all that well. :p I agree with pps that seeing a dose of actual poverty would help. Once you've been to certain countries and seen entire villages made from metal scraps or three-year-olds begging on the streets, you find it very hard to complain about money ever again. :(

[elegantlion]

I grew up with a father like that, he still is. Part of it was he grew up very poor, yet raised a family with a good lifestyle on little money. I never worried about food or bills or housing because he was frugal. We didn't have a lot of extras but we had security. For my dad, I think it's not just a habit, it's a tool to keep him from taking it for granted. However, he was so focused on being frugal and making right financial decisions he never taught us how to manage money. So I would:

 

1. Teach money management skills to your dc sooner than later. They need to see for themselves the value of a dollar. Ds started getting allowance early and he's already been through the buyer's remorse stage., You know where you have money and just have to spend it on something. Better a 5.00 toy than a shopping spree at the mall. Unless your kids are actively involved in helping you pay bills and deal with the details, modeling won't help. They need to experience some of it on their own. Our state requires a personal finance class over economics. I think that is a more valuable option.

 

2. I also think parents need to be aware of what pitfalls may happen in their children's generation that we haven't had to deal with. My dh's father saved and paid cash for everything. He never dealt with credit, he passed away before credit became an important part of daily life. My parents never taught me hot to manage credit/debt ratio. They hadn't dealt with that by the time I left the house except for house and car. Student loans are a big issue. Make sure you're talking about the reality of debt to your children.

 

3. Read books like the Millionaire next door. Wealth and poverty are such nebulous term when it comes to looking at them from outside. You really can't tell. For years I bought high end clothes at thrift stores, I looked good, but I was frugal and broke.

 

3. volunteer where the less fortunate are. As others have said, a dose of reality helps.

 

4. This may not be something you're comfortable with, but I address my shortcomings and dh's shortcomings with ds. I don't do it to create a divide, I do it because I want ds to realize neither of us is perfect, but we love each other anyway. There are a few areas of life where I have a diametrically different outlook than dh, I share mine with ds, I remind him that dh feels this way and that's okay.

 

We've gone from having enough to broke in the last few years. Things are getting better, but I've had to bite my tongue a few times around my dad. He's complained about not having money yet they eat out and go shopping. He worked hard, they deserve those things, but don't tell me your broke when I'm sitting home because one car is dead and we'd have no gas money even if it wasn't.

[FaithManor]

Have him see what real poor looks like. Volunteer and donate to food pantries and the like. Talk about poverty in Africa and in your hometown.

 

Take DH with you when you can.

 

I agree.

 

My teen boys went through some sort of woe is me phase that I suspect may be a result of attending youth group where they discovered that many teens have cell phones, ipods, new laptops, drive nicer cars than we do, and well.... you get the idea. So, we got them involved in some volunteerism. They worked packing groceries for people who truly do not know where their next meal is coming from and they've done physical labor for a crisis pregnancy center that needed remodeling, renovating help...their they encountered some women in SERIOUS need and it made an impression on them. They have helped collect clothing and toys for an orphanage in Moldova and were involved in a fundraising effort to put together the necessary resources to provide a well to a village in Africa that loses many people to dysentery due to lack of clean water supply.

 

I had them help me take blankets and quilts to a family that is living in a pop-up camper this winter due to losing their home and not finding a rental they could afford. We took one of those gas-grill propane tanks with us and they'll ration that to the max.

 

They don't complain now. They know they are blessed beyond measure.

 

For some people, they need to be confronted with what true poverty is in order to understand they are NOT even close to that.

 

Faith

[2squared]

Sounds like your dh may have a larger, overall issue if he's a pessimister in areas other than money. For me, though, I definitely feel "poor" if we don't have a large savings account. I feel a lot of financial stress without a large safety net. Our finances sound similar to yours (but not quite as well off, probably b/c we have 5 kids vs 1), but I was super stressed until we had the large cushion sitting in the bank. Ever since that arrived, my stress level has plummeted. Perhaps your dh feels the same?

 

ETA: My dh is much more relaxed now with a large savings account.