I was recently watching this special report on CNBC about how we got into the current economic mess. The cause of the mess seems to be basic human flaws – greed, lack of judgment and jumping on the bandwagon. If Tom was making money flipping houses then, Jerry wanted to too. People knew they were making bad loans but they still continued to make them. A factory worker never stopped to think "can I really afford this house, ever?".
I felt this anxiety during the housing boom too – the prices are going up, we should buy soon. My husband, however, kept saying that the house prices are rising too fast and don’t make sense, and held off on buying a house then. And I used to think the best decision in life he made was by marrying me! I am really impressed by his judgment, skeptical mind and the fact that he never felt the need to do what everybody else was doing.
Now I wonder, if judgment can be taught? Can we take active steps now to teach our kids, and not just mouth the words but actually instill the fact, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Can we teach them that we don't have to keep up with anybody, and buy a fancier car just because our friends have one? Or is it just nature - some are born with it and some are not.
Raising kids in a non-native environment while constantly worrying about striking the right balance.
1 comment:
I am not sure if it can, but I sure hope so. The books I read suggest giving kids lots of freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. And I add to that doing a lot of talking to my kids about what my thought processes are, what I think of greed, my personal code of ethics, and so on. I hope that someday at least a little of it rubs off on them.
The book on parenting teenagers that I just read said that kids do a lot of experimenting with different rules of ethics and different ways to live their lives while they are teenagers, but then if you've given them the space to experiment as teens and kept a good relationship with them, their adult ethics are likely to end up pretty similar to yours.
I hope so. The thing I hope most for my kids, more than anything else, is that they grow up to be people who are sensible and ethical.
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