And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Several months ago, we realized we weren’t using our Hulu subscription so we canceled it. Fast forward to this week, and we saw that our favorite show, Master Chef Jr., started up again and we renewed our subscription. My husband hates the idea that we pay for a TV service and still have to watch ads (um, hello cable?), but I actually sort of like TV ads. A quick break from the show means I can be productive.

Growing up, my mom “encouraged” (that’s putting it lightly) us to be productive if we were watching TV. This usually meant folding laundry during shows and on commercial breaks, running off to put the clothes away or do some other chore. As a child I hated it, but as we watched Master Chef Jr., I noticed I was doing the exact same thing I hated as a kid. I was fervently folding all of our laundry and during ads, I was running to our bedroom to hang clothes and put folded laundry in drawers.

So, what else do we carry forward from our childhood of which we may not even be aware? For one, and this is a big one, financial beliefs. A recent article in Parents Magazine states that our money patterns are formed by the time we’re seven years old. Children learn about budgeting, delaying gratification and saving, and carry these patterns forward into adulthood, by the time they are seven. This happens because children primarily learn from their social environment - observing those around them, conversations at the dinner table, and even by feeling emotions that exist around money in their surroundings. Once these beliefs are formed, it’s hard to shift them. 

What do you remember learning from your upbringing about money? Were there conversations around money? Was there stress or anxiety? Were there discussions of “not enough”? Did your adult caregivers spend everything they had? Was financing a normal part of life? Were you ever taught how to handle money (by caregivers or through formal education)?

Think about these experiences you had as a young person and think about how you might see them playing out in your adult life. Once we can identify some of our patterns and behaviors, we can start to work through them. For so many of us, we weren’t ever taught about personal finance. Yet, as adults, our not knowing leads to feelings of embarrassment and shame. If you can acknowledge this for yourself, it will help with learning more going forward.