To think children should be taught financial literacy?

[HeidiHaughton]

All the threads from women in such precarious financial situations. Never seemed to occur to them the cost of not working. And the invariable refrain that it "didn't make sense to go back after maternity leave". Surely as a social good people should be educated about how finances work.

I agree they should be taught by their parents, but I assume you mean at school. The question then becomes what do you want to get rid of out of the curriculum to add it in. There are not an infinite number of hours in the day to allow every life skill you might ever need to be taught in the classroom.

As @PotteringAlong says, not at school. We have enough to do especially in a pandemic.

To be honest. A lot of the families I know who are struggling, struggle due to soaring unemployment, and a punitive system that leaves them with, by far, unreasonably low sums of money, to bring up a family.

How do you teach people to manage 0?

Not only that, childcare costs are a huge issue, particularly for women. Are you suggesting the right to a family should be reserved for those on large incomes? That those on minimum wage somehow don’t deserve kids?

Absolutely agree. I’m amazed at some of my friends - intelligent, university educated, yet don’t have pensions.

In one case a friend’s old(ish) parents bought him a house outright, but his house is in their name (ie his parents).

And I don’t know anyone in real life who doesn’t work but the amount of threads you read on here where an unmarried woman is considering giving up work because her (D)P thinks she should...

Mind boggles

@Flipflops85

To be honest. A lot of the families I know who are struggling, struggle due to soaring unemployment, and a punitive system that leaves them with, by far, unreasonably low sums of money, to bring up a family.

How do you teach people to manage 0?

Not only that, childcare costs are a huge issue, particularly for women. Are you suggesting the right to a family should be reserved for those on large incomes? That those on minimum wage somehow don’t deserve kids?

I'd argue that no one deserves kids. We talk all the time about wanting to be parents, wanting a child, but it seems to me that for a huge swathe of society a woman's desire for a baby is more important than a child's quality of life.

I truly believe that people who can't afford children shouldn't have them. Not because they are unworthy of them, not because they don't deserve children, but because children don't deserve a life of poverty.

My dd had some lessons as part of pshe and citizenship.

I wonder whether one answer is to teach men/boys that they are equally responsible for their children. I am continually shocked at how many women carry the financial hit of giving up their job for children and say, and so often on here, that the father can't because of the nature of his job. why didn't he think of his responsibility for his children? Why did he think it was the mothers responsibility and not his? Sorry - I'm working myself into a rant. PS it doesn't come from personal experience,

I think it depends on people's upbringing. My mum taught me about finances, having financial independence, she also went further to teach us about mortgages and taxes etc.
I don't think it should be a school expectation, there's already a huge curriculum children need to follow. Parents need to start teaching their children about real life things.

But no one deserves to live in poverty. It’s like you’re suggesting people choose poverty. Like it’s a legitimate lifestyle choice? (Which suggests we’re from very different walks of life.) I think when considering the wealth of this country, no one, not one person!!! should be living in abject poverty.

Are you suggesting people with disabilities and life long conditions shouldn’t have kids either? What about those that fall unexpectedly on hard times? Are they let off the hook?

We choose to have a welfare system to benefit the rich. We could subsidise childcare through taxes, but we choose not to.

Not only that, but we actually need children for society to work.

Well if you assume a lack of financial literacy is why a lot of people become SAHMs...

I truly believe that people who can't afford children shouldn't have them. Not because they are unworthy of them, not because they don't deserve children, but because children don't deserve a life of poverty

Well again, if you assume life is a straight line linear graph where earnings increase etc. Doesn’t work that way.

I voted YABU, because it’s already on the curriculum, as part of PSHE I believe, and has been for a few years.

We choose to have a welfare system to benefit the rich
^ this

Absolutely, everything from basic payslips and tax to investing ought to be taught. As well as how to do a tax return.

The thing is you can’t teach it in school in any meaningful way. It would just be a couple of PHSE lessons. The best way to teach it is parents to teach and model it in an ongoing age appropriate way.

But tbh I think in many cases it’s not that people don’t know the “right” choices it’s that they feel they don’t have choices (childcare costs more than they earn for example). You can tell people it pays in the long term all you like but if people can’t absorb the extra short term cost then they just can’t.

Yes, yes and yes again.

Imagine how we would empower our dc if instead of triangles, they learned about stocks and shares, compound interest, 🏦 loans.. Food shop budgeting!
Credit cards.. Money manege meant, ways of saving and budgeting!

It's all very well saying parents should do it, yes in a ideal world they should but I work with students who come from extremely difficult backgrounds, multiple children living across other family members because the parents are into their 2nd family or 3rd new family.
Students with a parent with drugs issues, some in Foster care with parents who don't want to know them.
These students already face enough challenges and it pains me to see them slogging over algebra, when I know soon they will be young adults and possibly begin families of their own and they can't budget.

We need all dc to learn basic money management... It would turn society around to empower them with knowledge about over drafts, loans, rent.. Owning.. Food budgets.

I feel very strongly about it and I will be writing to Boris about it.

Would be very hard to teach without risking it becoming financial advice.

Martin Lewis has actually achieved this. He got it onto the curriculum in England a few years ago and has now gotten it for Wales, NI and Scotland.

@HeidiHaughton

All the threads from women in such precarious financial situations. Never seemed to occur to them the cost of not working. And the invariable refrain that it "didn't make sense to go back after maternity leave". Surely as a social good people should be educated about how finances work.

What makes you think that not even one of those women know the cost of it and either don't care,consider it worthy or simply don't have a better option right then?

Do you seriously believe that if we had "better education " no women would be SAHMs?

That circumstances, opportunities, life choices never come into play and it's all about educating people?

@Mudmudingloriousmud

Yes, yes and yes again.

Imagine how we would empower our dc if instead of triangles, they learned about stocks and shares, compound interest, 🏦 loans.. Food shop budgeting!
Credit cards.. Money manege meant, ways of saving and budgeting!

It's all very well saying parents should do it, yes in a ideal world they should but I work with students who come from extremely difficult backgrounds, multiple children living across other family members because the parents are into their 2nd family or 3rd new family.
Students with a parent with drugs issues, some in Foster care with parents who don't want to know them.
These students already face enough challenges and it pains me to see them slogging over algebra, when I know soon they will be young adults and possibly begin families of their own and they can't budget.

We need all dc to learn basic money management... It would turn society around to empower them with knowledge about over drafts, loans, rent.. Owning.. Food budgets.

But understanding fundamental maths and algebra is exactly how you understand compound interest, annuities or mortgages, investments etc. Budgets are the basic level of maths taught at primary school before any algebra, just simple addition and subtraction. Surely mathematical literacy is the key? The practical applications flow naturally and are understandable as a result of learning the theoretical concepts that school mathematics focuses on.

How would it be hard to teach?

To the pp that said what should get dropped from the curriculum I do think mortgages, how to budget, how income tax works etc. is more of an educational benefit than different types of triangles, all the sin/cos/tan stuff and lots of other things I have never used since I left my last maths class 20 years ago

It's on the PSHE curriculum.

Parents need to start teaching their children about real life things.

Not all parents can't. They don't all possess the knowledge to do so. This is why teaching this in school would be hugely beneficial to the country as a whole. Let people know and understand both opportunity and consequence.