would you tell your kid how much you earned?

[theStallionOfSensibleness]

big discussion about this on hol wiht our mates.

he - yes hwy be secretive
she( and me) no wasy kdis go onandon abotu " my dad is richer than yours"

ditto voting - my mum owudl never tell me that

My parents also think it's vulgar to talk about money, so I was quite resistant to telling ds when he first asked. But he has asked lots of times, and as I generally do answer all his questions, I got to thinking why am I hiding this from him? The children often ask why can't I stop working and be at home with them, and I've always said because then there would be no money for food (ds games) etc, so in some ways I think it is their business. So in the end i told him my monthly income, and then explained about mortgages, bills, food etc. Interestingly he hasn't asked about it since, so I think that not telling him probably made him more curious. He's 8 (dd at 7 has never been interested at all btw)

My dc asked this recently because they were always worried about not having money when we were still a student family. They remember me buying bread with a pocket full of coppers! I just told them we now have 3 times as much as then and that we can afford everything we want and that we are very lucky. Infact we've got more than 3 times but that was enough to reassure them and all they need to know.

My parents wouldn't tell us a thing about money not even how much the phone bill was!

What was with all these parents in the past not even telling any of us what thge phone bill was/a washing machine cost etc?

odd.

My parents lived in a house where you had to go upstairs to get to the front door so they usually sent us to pay people (they also used to wait in the car when we took money into shops to pay bills on their behalf)

So we knew how much the milk cost, papers, window cleaner, rental on the tv, video etc but didn't know what they earnt.

We knew what treats were (ie one offs) and what our limits were for holidays etc.

It is why at Christmas in my house now with my sons "father christmas" buys a token gift like pants and socks or a new dressing gown so that they don't think they can ask for whatever they want for christmas because me and dh are paying for it. Cough cough, that would be that dh earns the money, I am a sahm

I wouldn't tell my children what dh earnt unless I was willing to tell them what the mortgage was, utilities etc as they wouldn't understand where it all goes.