THEn the family, money is an atmosphere and we absorb it from an early age, even before we learn to count it. That money was taken for granted or was never enough, that it embodied anguish or security, prestige or detachment, that money was always talked about or that, instead, it was always hidden within a tense silencewe are all sons and daughters of the domestic economies we have breathed. The one about money is, in fact, one of the most powerful emotional imprints we receive from parents and family, an economic family tree on which we will graft our behaviors, values and relationships tomorrow.
Financial literacy: this is how family of origin influences our relationship with money
In an essay also published in Italy, Money on the mind (Mondadori), financial psychotherapist with master’s degree from London Business School Vicky Reynal says that money is a very powerful symbol, that money exudes meaning. He writes, to give some examples, that money can represent «a security that we think we have or want to achieve. OR a powerand that we exert on others or that has been used against us, to control us or limit our freedom. Again, the freedom to pursue opportunities, to live life to the fullest, to move away from an abusive relationship. And theself-esteemthe feeling of being a person of “value” if we rely on income to feel worthy of attention, respect or love” and much, much more.
Psychological research on the meaning of money starts from childhood
Vicky Reynal thinks that to build a state of financial well-being as adults – understanding this well-being as being satisfied with one’s economic situation and having control over it – it is necessary to carry out a psychological research to understand what money represents for oneself: in doing so, he warns, we will inevitably end up go back to the first life experiences and relationships and «not because the desire to have money begins in childhood», he explains, «but because some of the aspirations that we link to its symbolic meaning date back to then».
The point is interesting: during childhood – he explains – we certainly don’t want money, we rather want love, control, power, consolation. In adult life, we will be able to try to satisfy those desires of that time through money, deep, important desires that were present in us long before we knew what money was.
A family from the 1950s, with piggy bank (Photo by Camerique/Getty Images)
The format of “financial nudism”
Annalisa Monfreda, former director of successful women’s magazines, author and today entrepreneur in the educational-financial area, clearly states that money tells a very broad spectrum of our inner world and our human experience and is very often also an emotional legacy.
Together with his partner Montserrat Fernandez Blanco, he created Rame, a platform and community (rameplatform.com) which aims to transform the relationship you have with money, relieving it of fears and prejudicesand launched “financial nudism”: it is a podcast and a format of live events in which people, even famous ones, lay themselves bare in their relationship with moneytalking openly about their earnings, debts, moments of crisis, practically everything that is usually kept quiet out of embarrassment, including childhood stories.
«Stories of financial nudism are almost never stories of good management: they are, on the contrary, tales of big financial mistakes, of extreme carelessness, of pain, like the famous actress who did not pay years and years of traffic fines or the writer who suffered economic violence from her partner.”
The emotional side of the relationship with money
And he continues: «There are those who say they have seen their parents fight over money for a lifetime and today, as soon as they earn it, they throw it away because they see it as absolute evil. Who was sent to school with a hole in her shirt by her father and mother, so obsessed with saving that she never knew how to spend when she grew up, until the meeting with her husband changed her. As soon as my partner and I began the conversations about financial nudism, we saw what we wanted happen: that is, people in the audience – and we with them – perceived the idiocy of one’s financial behavior, the highly emotional nature of the relationship with money. We all looked strikingly similar.”
Monfreda confirms that the way in which we are raised with respect to money is the emotional matrix on which as adults we will generate behaviors that will follow this matrix or will oppose it. «In stories of financial nudism, many people begin by clearly explaining the connection of their economic present with their family past, others will find it during the self-story, which we help to generate.
Financial imprinting frozen in us: money is the last taboo
In all of them, however, we notice a very strong and interesting common feature. That is the financial imprinting received as a child usually remains frozen within oneself for a long time, until a traumatic economic event – you see a crisis or failure – or the meeting with a significant person awakens it and overwrites it. This happens because money, unlike dimensions such as politics or religion, almost never comes into public discussion, a consequence of the fact that people never talk about their money. Money remains a powerful taboo, therefore it is not processed socially, told, updated, put to the test by life: I think, for example, of those who grew up in scarcity and continue to live in scarcity, even if, in the meantime, they have become very rich. THEFinancial nudism aims precisely to break the great taboo of money».
An emotional legacy for our children?
That said, the silence that freezes the financial past that Monfreda talks about risks becoming a legacy that we leave to our children, together with a great sense of inadequacy. Annalisa Valle, associate professor in developmental and educational psychology at the Catholic University of Milan, has been working for some time to decipher thethe relationship of generational transmission – from parents to children – of skills regarding money. A very recent survey of 500 parents of children and young people aged 6 to 14 found that adults do not feel capable of transmitting knowledge and skills about money.
«Just 20 percent of parents feel competent in providing financial information and support20 percent still feel capable of dealing with these topics” he explains regarding the survey, carried out by the Research Center on Theory of Mind and Social Skills in the Catholic Life Cycle and by eCampus University together with Doxa and the Foundation for Economic and Savings Education.
The importance of family money conversations for children’s future financial well-being
In short, it is feeling capable, much more than objective competence, that determines parents’ educational intentions. Which, moreover, they project the same inadequacy onto their children, in a short circuit that blocks any opportunity for dialogue.
«Only 16 percent of parents believe their children are able to fully understand the contents, while 40 percent of those with children between six and ten years old and 31 percent between 11 and 14 years old consider them expressly incapable of understanding their teachings. Yet”, he continues, “the literature clearly tells us that financial socialization, i.e. the practices implemented by parents to introduce their children to money management, predicts the future financial well-being of the children themselves.
We are talking about objective well-being – that is, that based on indicators such as the level of income, the absence of unsustainable debts, the ability to face unexpected expenses -, as well as subjective well-being, which contemplates the feel calm when you think about your economic situation or having a conscious relationship with money” continues Professor Valle.
Talk about money and gender inequality
Afterwards, mothers and fathers, male and female children, compose a gender family tapestry that shows how money is still a territory of enormous inequalities. «The evidence tells us that it is the fathers who transmit the more structured or technical explicit information about money and saving. It’s not enough. Compared to children, when it comes to boys, the parent’s intention to educate about money depends only on how much he feels capable of doing so. Compared to the female, however, the parent teaches if he is convinced that she is understanding: if he has the feeling that she does not understand, he interrupts, taking away her chance to learn.” In short, between sons and daughters, it is all too clear to whom we are still choosing to leave the keys to the safe.
