Apple Does Not Fall Far From The Tree

Rosina Simon
Author of "Raising a $mart Kid".

Rosina Simon is a senior banker with an extensive experience in the financial market. Having spent the past twenty years working in corporate banking, investment banking, asset management, and transactional banking, she decided to take a break from work to write her first book.

It is an honor for us to publish this article as it is written exclusively for The Urban Mama by Rosina Simon. Thank you, mbak Rosina!

A childhood friend lamented to me that it was impossible for her to teach her two primary-school daughters about savings. The eldest one was a saver, the younger one a spender. But the eldest daughter was not a typical saver either. While she used her pocket money carefully, only buying things that she needed, she was not keen to set aside money in her piggy bank. Instead she would use the pocket money watchfully until it was finished, which could last her a few days, and asked her mom to replenish. The younger daughter spent each and every cent every day, knowing that she could always ask for more when she ran out. How did two girls, with the same DNAs and raised in the same way, get such distinct money behaviors? How could she teach them about savings? She constantly reminded them to save but to no avail.

Unfortunately I did not have an answer to her DNA question, as I was not a qualified doctor or psychologist. So I asked her to describe how she and her husband managed their money. Her husband owned a small construction business while she was a homemaker. She got monthly stipend to run the household. She usually managed to save some money, especially when the business was good and there were extra incomes. However, when times were bad and business was slow, they would need to dip into her savings account so that her husband could continue paying for his workers. Her husband had no savings account and his money was either plowed back into his company or given to her. She confided that they hardly had enough savings, as they loved traveling, which also depended entirely on her savings account. But so far they always managed to “cover the holes.”

Without a doubt, and even though I’m still not a qualified psychologist, the children have picked up their money habits from observing how their parents managed theirs.

“Apple does not fall far from the tree,” “Monkey see monkey do,” “Like father like son,” all point to the same thing. We can say and preach whatever we want, however often we repeat it, our children will ignore what we say and will imitate what we do. It is futile to teach them the theory. The greatest lesson we can impart our children is to walk the talk, money matters included.