Help your kids learn how to keep money in perspective

Before my dad married, he worked in a South Korean orphanage. As a Christian, the destitution of the children broke his heart. I say “as a Christian” because South Koreans view orphans as unwanted and throw away children. Which is what made him commit that he would marry a Christian woman who would agree to expand their family through adoption.
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Growing up, one of the things that I remember him telling me was that all the boys became thieves and all the girls became prostitutes. And it was some of his orphanage stories that molded my view on parenting. That as a parent, one of my most important goals would be to make sure that my children had the ability to provide for themselves.
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The desperation and inability to provide for yourself can lead to a person making very poor choices…which can also make it very hard for them to accept Christ. Am I saying that people in poverty cannot be saved? NO! But if you are reading this, I doubt your children are in poverty. Mine certainly aren’t.
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But if you are living here in the U.S. in 2021, there is standard of living that either people have or they are aspiring to, such as easily purchasing food and owning one’s own home. And many, many, many young men want to be able to easily provide for a wife and children. In fact, most of the boys I talk to, when it comes to money, they always say they want to be able to raise a family on their own.
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I’ve always thought that the inability to adequately provide is what leads to idolizing money rather than treating it like a flowing resource that one can always earn more of.
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So how do you help your children to be able to live more freely? By making sure they are educated and taught how to earn. That we as parents don’t fall into foolish traps giving our kids bad counsel. By making sure they understand that by the grace of God and the sweat of their brow, they will always be able to provide for themselves and their families.