The New Normal

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

At my husband’s business school reunion, at a seminar titled “Raising Financially Fit Kids – It’s Not Just About Money,” the lecturer began by discussing what she calls “the new normal.”

“We used to be shocked when jeans cost $200 or our kids wanted Nikes that cost $150, but today, that’s just the new normal,” Joline Godfrey, author of “Raising Financially Fit Kids” (Ten Speed Press), told the hundreds of parents that had gathered to hear her advice on raising responsible, self-sufficient children.

I wrote down those words, “the new normal,” and put a huge asterisk next to them.

In an instant Ms. Godfrey had articulated what has been bothering me since I returned home after being in Cape Town, South Africa, for a few months. When it comes to “normal” in New York, jeans and the sneakers are just the tip of the iceberg.

“I sat at a women’s lunch where we spent a full hour discussing different private planes,” an acquaintance told me. “These women spoke about G4s and G7s as if they were talking about the Yankees and the Red Sox. And there seemed to be no awareness of the fact that most people – even in New York – are still flying coach.”

I guess it’s the new normal.

“My nanny’s been sick all week,” another acquaintance with two boys told me as she yawned.

“You must be exhausted,” I said sympathetically.

“Thank goodness for the housekeeper, or I’d really be crazy,” she said, as if it’s par for the course these days for families to have housekeepers and nannies. “And I guess I really can’t complain because my weekend sitter works Friday through Monday,” she added.

Is that the new normal?

“When I taught at this nursery school 20 years ago, parents actually picked up their children at the end of the day,” a teacher on the Upper East Side told me. “Today, forget it. We know some children’s nannies as well as we know their parents. And you should see some of the emergency contact lists for these kids. There are two housekeepers, several nannies – it never used to be like this.”

I asked some of my friends who, like me, were raised in the city during the roaring ’80s, how much staff they remember seeing in their friend’s homes. “Everyone had one housekeeper. That was it, regardless of how much money the family had,” a friend and mother of two said. “She took care of the house and the kids. There wasn’t someone there to entertain us all the time, but I’m not so sure that was a bad thing.”

Another friend who was raised in New York and is now raising three children in the city recalls being aware of who did and who didn’t have a country house. “Today,” she said, “my daughter thinks we’re weird because we don’t have a ranch in Wyoming. Or a ski house in Colorado. She’s 11 years old and she knows exactly who has what.”

Ms. Godfrey told the audience that children are far more aware of financial matters than their parents imagine. “A father recently discovered his 9-year-old son looking online to see how much all his friends’ houses cost. He’s 9. Your kids are curious and understand much, much more than you think,” she said.

And what about teenagers? In those years of intense peer pressure, what messages are being sent to adolescents?

“A few families are chipping in $500 or $1,000 to buy one child a laptop for his bar mitzvah. Since when did that become the appropriate amount of money to spend on a kid for his bar mitzvah?” a mother of two asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. Armed with my new vocabulary, I told her, “I guess it’s just the new normal.”

“Just because you have a half a million to blow on a bar mitzvah doesn’t mean you should,” she added. “What responsible lesson can your child possibly take away from that?”

Of course these stories don’t reflect how most New Yorkers live, but this new normal certainly makes for a ratcheted-up version of keeping up with the Joneses. No matter what goes on in your home, your children are going to be exposed to other homes – not to mention the hundreds of millions of marketing dollars that are spent by Abercrombie, Apple, Nike, Nintendo, and their competitors.

According to Ms. Godfrey, 76% of all adults say that giving their children financial guidance is a moral obligation, yet only 36% of them say they know how. So my next four columns will present different ways of teaching children, at different ages, how to responsibly value and handle money. Financial advisers will give their most successful ideas, and so will the troops in the trenches: parents themselves.

There is no silver bullet to teaching children how to become self-sufficient, conscientious adults, but ignoring the issue because it is too uncomfortable or requires too much work has a hefty price tag attached. As Ms. Godfrey said, it’s not just about the money.

sarasberman@aol.com


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