Counsel to Daughters & Granddaughters
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Send to a friend by YMAuthor: Simone Nathan
Girls and women need to understand that “a man is not a plan.” It is unhealthy and unfortunate that in a country where women have more freedoms than anywhere else on earth, too many of them have not seized the advantage in this and managed their own money with Jeffersonian wisdom.
My financial advisor and I have 8 young women in our families who are our granddaughters or daughters. Harper is 3. Christal is 42. Jennifer, Tara, Julie, Dawn, Katie and Arielle span the ages from 4 to 41. As we are individually involved in the world of business and finance, we are increasingly concerned about them and their peers.
We are concerned about the ethical and economic issues they face in these varied upcoming generations. We offer this counsel to them and their sisters everywhere, in the spirit in which Thomas Jefferson wrote to his granddaughter, Cornelia, in 1811, when she was 12 years old.
Jefferson, that great man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, who wanted to be remembered as the founder of the University of Virginia, whose face today appears on the nickel as well as on Mount Rushmore…this giant of thought wrote “a dozen Canons of Conduct in Life” especially for his little one. Of his 12 “canons” a quarter of them are on the subject of money. Canon #3: “Never spend your money before you have it.” Canon #4: “Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear (costly) to you.” Canon #5: Take care of your cents: dollars will take care of themselves.”
This advice is more pertinent nearly 200 year later as it was in 1811. Now that women manage most of the household money as well as their personal discretionary spending in the United States of America, how much of that is charged, or spent before it is in hand? How many girls and women have ingrained the concept of “get it on sale,” whether or not it is a thing really needed? And how many girls and women have a piggy bank, a small stash of “mad money” or better yet savings bonds and savings accounts in their own names?
Girls and women need to understand that “a man is not a plan.” It is unhealthy and unfortunate that in a country where women have more freedoms than anywhere else on earth, too many of them have not seized the advantage in this and managed their own money with Jeffersonian wisdom. So, building upon Thomas Jefferson’s advice to a very special young woman, we add the following:
- 1. Open a savings account today, for yourself, for your daughter(s) and for your son(s) in their individual name(s).
- 2. Put something in the account every week to help form the lifelong habit of saving.
- 3. Give savings bonds as gifts to the young people you treasure.
- 4. Before you make a purchase of more than $48.00 think about it for at least 48 hours, then pay cash.
- 5. Teach yourself and your children the power of giving. Dedicate a portion of all the income earned to give away to those in real need, without expecting thanks. The satisfaction will be more rewarding than the income itself.
- 6. Encourage your children to have small jobs from the age of 12 onward. Too many children have a sense of privilege, that they deserve to have all that is aggressively advertised to them, without any effort on their part. No other generations have had to face the assault of “up close and personal” advertising that today skillfully targets the tiniest children.
- 7. Create some “rules of use” for yourself and your children. Know that if you loan something to another, you may never see it again; or if you volunteer your time or attention to an individual or a cause, you may never see a thank you. But if you believe in the person or the cause, your time has been well spent and you and/or your money have not been “used.”
- 8. Value independence. You are responsible for the decisions you make---whether these are financial, career, romance, or personally related.
- 9. Value inter-dependence. The choices you make, for which you alone are responsible, will have impact on others, in your family, in the larger community, on the environment. This includes your savings and investing choices.
- 10. Especially for women, PLEASE develop your own skills and income support system BEFORE you rely on anyone else to provide for you. This will give you self-esteem, the ability to help your own family, and in the event of divorce, disease or death, the knowledge that YOU are capable.
In the spirit that made this country the longed for vision of freedom and equality, please use this counsel for your daughters and granddaughters---it will flow to all the men they love.
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