When it comes to parenting, everyone enjoys exchanging ideas on how to do it best. However, parents can only rely on their instincts to fly. And that can be difficult to navigate. Read this story where a parent shares her viewpoint of explaining their financial problems to their 12 year old daughter. Let us know if you agree with the parent.
Source: Reddit
My husband and I have a 12 year old daughter, Karlie. She’s an absolutely great kid and I couldn’t ask for better. She’s been absolutely great through the global situation, especially when her dad lost his job in aviation. He started as a lorry driver last march, but that is significantly less than our previous income. Karlie had some understanding of the situation but not a full one because she is 12.
Every year, her school holds a trip for each different year. It takes place at the end of the year and it’s usually given short notice. This year is no different, we were given 3 weeks notice to hand in the permission slip and payment for the excursion. There has been none since 2019, for obvious reasons.
This year it’s to a theme park for my daughters’ age group. It was a bit of a shock to us since previous years we were given at least 6 weeks notice – we had actually started to believe it wasn’t happening this year.
Karlie’s birthday is in early July, and we had been saving for that, so we decided to sit down and explain to her that she could choose to go on the school trip or to do something with her friends for her birthday, but unfortunately it wasn’t possible to do both.
She chose her birthday but asked why the trip wasn’t possible, so I took out pretend money and explained her dad’s old income, vs it now, and how things had to change, but I also explained that she is a child and she doesn’t need to worry, that things will get better again but for now money is a bit tight. I didn’t tell her any real numbers, just so she doesn’t stress.
We thought all was well until her teacher called me for a meeting today, and at the time I was like okayyy…this is weird. Apparently the teacher overheard Karlie telling her friends about the situation, and said it was inappropriate to explain finances and outgoings to a child. To add to that, I put unnecessary pressure on my daughter by “forcing” her to choose. I was talking to a mom friend of mine about it and she agreed with the teacher. Am I a Jerk for explaining household outgoings to my child and giving her a “tough choice”?
Did I go too far here?
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
