Learning the value of money

[WALMART]

I can't remember ever not knowing the value of money and the purpose of work. Making money and spending it did not make it feel any more special. But I am not suggesting that the guy in the OP is like me.

I was going to comment the other day, I believe it is something inherent to our nature.

 

[Giggly]

Okay, so I don't think this guy was spoiled. I think it was quite the opposite actually. I'm guessing he was deprived of "things" throughout his childhood, for whatever reason (probably poverty).

Does living in poverty teach you the value of money, or does it teach you the value of things or does it teach you the value of hard work? Does it teach you anything?

If it does, can these lessons only be learned by people who have lived in poverty and not by those who've not lived in poverty?

 

[93JC]

Living in poverty teaches you that having money is much more preferable to not having any.


I don't think being 'spoiled' or not has much to do with this guy's dad having told him to get a job at 15. It really goes back to that very first sentence in that very first post: "Someone I know told me that he had been working since the age of 15 because his father told him that if he wanted anything he had to work and buy it for himself to learn the value of money."

That's it, it's self-evident. If you want to buy something you better have money. Don't have money? Get a job and make money. I don't understand why it needs to become anymore complicated than that. What does a 15-year-old learn when he is encouraged to get a job?

- you don't get money for free; usually it requires having a job. Usually that means being an employee.
- what you do with your money is ultimately up to you; it can buy you all sorts of things
- if you don't have enough money to buy whatever it is you want or need you will have to accumulate money, which requires the self-restraint to not spend it even though you have it
- if you spend all of your money you will have to go without whatever it is you want or need until you have acquired more money

These things are apparent to a kid with even a modicum of intelligence, but there's a difference between knowing and understanding the ramifications of earning money and maintaining a budget and actually having to earn money and maintain a budget.

So this guy's dad told him to get a job. That's how he chose to go about teaching his kid these life lessons. That doesn't mean he was cruel and wanted his kid to 'suffer': having a part-time job flippin' burgers or whatever isn't glamourous and doesn't pay well but it is hardly 'suffering'. It isn't some "weird rednecky" phenomenon either. It's extremely commonplace, it happens to 15-year-olds all over the place.

 

[Giggly]

Living in poverty teaches you that having money is much more preferable to not having any.


I don't think being 'spoiled' or not has much to do with this guy's dad having told him to get a job at 15. It really goes back to that very first sentence in that very first post: "Someone I know told me that he had been working since the age of 15 because his father told him that if he wanted anything he had to work and buy it for himself to learn the value of money."

That's it, it's self-evident. If you want to buy something you better have money. Don't have money? Get a job and make money. I don't understand why it needs to become anymore complicated than that. What does a 15-year-old learn when he is encouraged to get a job?

- you don't get money for free; usually it requires having a job. Usually that means being an employee.
- what you do with your money is ultimately up to you; it can buy you all sorts of things
- if you don't have enough money to buy whatever it is you want or need you will have to accumulate money, which requires the self-restraint to not spend it even though you have it
- if you spend all of your money you will have to go without whatever it is you want or need until you have acquired more money

These things are apparent to a kid with even a modicum of intelligence, but there's a difference between knowing and understanding the ramifications of earning money and maintaining a budget and actually having to earn money and maintain a budget.

So this guy's dad told him to get a job. That's how he chose to go about teaching his kid these life lessons. That doesn't mean he was cruel and wanted his kid to 'suffer': having a part-time job flippin' burgers or whatever isn't glamourous and doesn't pay well but it is hardly 'suffering'. It isn't some "weird rednecky" phenomenon either. It's extremely commonplace, it happens to 15-year-olds all over the place.

I thought you were getting out of my thread?

 

[93JC]

Don't worry, I'm done. Adios.

 

[Nijntje]

Things cost too much money. And I like things. Damn.

 

[Mole]

...or for keeping your body healthy!

The salient point is that now manual work has changed status.

The change of status serves to conceal the nature of manual work, so gosh 'it's just for keeping your body healthy'.

 

[Mole]

Manual Scripts (Manuscripts) and Manual Work

Interesting!

When manuscripts became the content of books, manuscripts rose in status. And now books are becoming the content of electric media, books will rise in status.

And in the same way, as manual work becomes the content of fashionable gyms, manual work rises in status.

So manuscripts (manual scripts) and manual work have both risen in status.

 

[Mole]

I prefer exercise that is also work, like walking or riding my bicycle to get somewhere, or chopping wood and doing yard work.

No one who does manual work for a living does it for exercise.

It is only when we cease doing manual work for a living do we raise its status to exercise.

We demonstate we are so free from and so far above manual work that we do it at our discretion in fashionable clothes in order demonstrate our new and higher status.

 

[gromit]

The salient point is that now manual work has changed status.

The change of status serves to conceal the nature of manual work, so gosh 'it's just for keeping your body healthy'.

Well, I agree that manual labor is no longer the norm for most people in an industrialized culture.

However, human bodies are "designed" to move, not sit around at desks. So now we need to find other ways to give these bodies of ours healthy levels of physical activity (or face pretty substantial health consequences). People working long hours at low-wage desk jobs might not have time or energy to go to the gym or go running. So I suppose it is a status thing, in that sense.

Not sure what you mean by "concealing the nature of manual work" though...

 

[Mole]

Not sure what you mean by "concealing the nature of manual work" though...

No one here thought that working out in the gym was manual work until I drew attention to it.

But once our attention is drawn, we can see that the gym is not scholarly work, or artistic work, or philosophical work, or scientific work, it jumps out as manual work.

 

[gromit]

I wouldn't call it manual labor though, since it's for health, not for income/sustenance.

 

[Mole]

I wouldn't call it manual labor though, since it's for health, not for income/sustenance.

You won't call it manual labour because you are trapped in the dominent paradigm.

I reach out my hand to pull you out of the dominent paradigm, but you spurn me.

 

[Coriolis]

No one who does manual work for a living does it for exercise.

It is only when we cease doing manual work for a living do we raise its status to exercise.

We demonstate we are so free from and so far above manual work that we do it at our discretion in fashionable clothes in order demonstrate our new and higher status.

Fashionable clothes? You have obviously never watched me do yard work. No, I don't chop wood and ride my bike places for a living, I do it just because that is how I live. Same as I cook my own meals, mend my own clothes, and paint my own house. No one pays me to do those things either.

No one here thought that working out in the gym was manual work until I drew attention to it.

But once our attention is drawn, we can see that the gym is not scholarly work, or artistic work, or philosophical work, or scientific work, it jumps out as manual work.

Exercising at the gym is not work because it has no productive output other than the exercise and enjoyment itself, just like friends playing basketball after work, or even kids running through the neighborhood and climbing trees.

 

[Habba]

Money has no value, other than the things it gets you. By itself, money is worthless.

I never had summer jobs, never had to work for minimum wages, yet I still spend my money better than people around me. Guess it came along with ISTJness. I'm very low maintenance and always looking for efficiency (= good price/value).

What I would teach my kid is not the worth of money, but worth of hard work, persistence and self-sufficiency.

 

[Mole]

Exercising at the gym is not work because it has no productive output other than the exercise and enjoyment itself, just like friends playing basketball after work, or even kids running through the neighborhood and climbing trees.

Exercising at the gym produces status.

Of course it is not fashionable to say we work for status, so we say it is for health, or to build our body, or just for fun. But just look at the intensity on the faces of those exercising at the gym and we can see they are in deadly earnest.

And as we move from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, we have transformed manual work into a symbol of status in the gym.

 

[Mole]

Likewise with people no longer tending farms, they tend elaborate gardens sometimes with ridiculously expensive gadgets to make things

Precisely, when we stopped farming for a living, we started hobby farms to give us a tax break, and if we couldn't afford a hobby farm, we started our own hobby garden, even in pots on a balcony.

So farming become a hobby and rose in status to middle class.

 

[SD45T-2]

Dave Barry said his dad taught him a lot about money, such as if you want to have any, don't be a Presbyterian minister.

 

[Coriolis]

Exercising at the gym produces status.

So does wearing an expensive watch, or dating the capt of the football team. We don't mistake these activities for "work" either.

 

[lowtech redneck]

But what about people who love their job, or who love to go to work? Would they not value the money they make from it?

There's a crucial difference between people who simply love their job, and those who love to go to work, and they will probably take away different lessons from the experience. Teenagers who fall into the latter category are very fortunate, well-poised for success in life*, though they may have to be made intellectually aware of what money represents in terms of personal sacrifice for other people (so no, they may not value the money they've earned as much as other teenagers). I would assume teenagers under 18 who fall into the former category to be freakishly rare (who enjoys flipping burgers or washing toilets for its own sake?), but the experience might actually inhibit career ambitions for such people, though they may learn to live within their means.

Could the reason you were unsettled by the parental lesson be due to its 'one size fits all' nature?

*This is something I've had to realize on an intellectual level; I feel no sense of pride, accomplishment or self-worth from any work I don't enjoy, only relief when its over mingled with resentment that my precious time on this earth was wasted. I recognize a work ethic as a virtue, leading to higher levels of personal happiness and higher societal standards of living, its just not something I've ever understood at an emotional or intuitive level.