Mothers Day
May 13, 2018
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. May we raise strong and financially literate children who all go off to lead healthy and productive lives.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Or Not….
For a little radical transparency not all kids turn out the way we imagine them when they are squirming happily in our arms as infants. Some of us have kids that graduate from college and go on to great careers, marriages and give us beautiful grandchildren to dote on. And others struggle to find themselves and their way in life. I have seen it over and over, both in my family, my siblings families and the families of close friends. Even in the same families, each kid is individual, born with both strengths and weaknesses. They have to live their own truth and sometimes it just isn’t pretty, Pinterest worthy or easy.
In the book “The Millionaire Next Door”, Dr Stanley talks about economic outpatient care provided by parents to adult children. I am one of those parents and I am not alone. The tough love advice is to just let them figure it out on their own and I just haven’t figured out how to do that yet.
My only daughter was diagnosed as Bi-Polar 1 shortly after she turned 18. Behavioral changes started occurring pre-puberty and there was a lot of counseling, countless prescriptions with varying degrees of success and a lot of patient non-compliance. While the actual diagnosis was hard to hear, it is more manageable than a lot of other mental health diagnosis. There is hope if you have a compliant patient that puts their own health first. That isn’t our story, but I do hold onto that hope that some day it could be.
Along with Bi-Polar and Anxiety, we deal with co-occurring self harm behavior and substance abuse. The incidence of co-occurring alcohol or substance abuse in Bi-Polar patients ranges from 30-60% depending on which study you read. All of these combine into a toxic cocktail of financial disaster for a young adult whose brain isn’t finished developing. I can only imagine the chaos of trying to live when your brain chemistry is fighting against you. The highs of mania lead to unreasonable financial choices and the lows of depression lead to days not working.
As a parent it is gut wrenching to watch the child you love create financial chaos. And it’s even worse to try to manage their financial life and keep them from becoming homeless without wiping our your own plan. Like the airlines say: put on your own emergency air mask before assisting your child. A strong financial safety net and boundaries are a must, along with long-term financial planning. I modified my trust to provide for either a discretionary needs or special needs trust for my daughter upon my death. That was the easy part – keeping my nest egg safe to provide for her after I am gone. The hard part is budgeting to maximize the accumulation phase in the midst of the chaos of her financial life. One day at a time is how I am tackling it, some of them are good and some are disastrous. Because no matter what, we all love our kids and only want the best possible outcome for them.
To all of the moms that walk this path, I salute your strength and pray for you and your families struggle. Peace be with you on this Mother’s Day.
