Mellody Hobson
speaker
238 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard May 2025
Mellody Hobson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Now, the very important point is also to make sure it doesn't become something that builds fear in them or feels like a hardship. You know, you want to Be light about it. It's a fact of life. It's a conversation you can have, but not in such a way that you either feel punished or you feel very, very put upon. I'll give you one quick example with Everest.
So Everest, when we told her, just like your children at about the same age, she said to us, all kids have toys. And we're like, all kids do not have toys, Everest. And so George, to his credit, my husband, he was like, go and show her. He's like, don't explain it to her, go and show her. So I said, okay. We went to Father Flager's church in Chicago, St. Sabina.
I sent her without me to sit with five-year-old children and take toys for the holidays. And that was the first time she saw...
I think that's really important. And that was visual, and it was a reaction. Not only the enthusiasm they had for them, she said a lot of the toys, she said, I said, what did you see? She said, broken toys. I mean, it touches your heart. I said, what happened? She said, they said, well, who do you live with? She said, my mom and dad. They said, mom and dad. Wow.
She said, they said, where's your mom? She said, my mom's at work. They said, work. Wow. So we were explaining to her at five years old, we're like, everyone doesn't have a mom and dad. Some people have neither. Some people live with their grandpas or their grandmas or their aunts or uncles or a friend. Everyone doesn't have a job.
It was this living example that we could explain to a five-year-old. But George is the one who said, go and show her, don't explain that.
But you also get a great sense of value out of working and getting a paycheck. It's something that creates self-confidence.
Okay, I think you laid out a lot of very useful and interesting facts about how you're setting this up. I'm struck by one thing, however, I will tell you. I also would great humility say, I am not here to tell you what's right for you and your family. I'm just going to react to one thing, which is the 80-20. I think that he will feel that that is very aggressive. Yeah.
And I think that that will make him resent saving. Yes. And if he's already pushed back on it, it is so, towards the saving versus the spend. You're doing a great thing, but you might be hardening him against, and at some point he just wants to rebel from this and not do it at all. That doesn't feel balanced to me.
off balance it's a little aggressive and then therefore it puts you in the the pickle on the other things about supplementing and if he's earning it he should be able to spend a larger portion to me and i don't know what the absolute dollars are that might be something you're trying to control and that doesn't mean going out being whole hog the other thing about it is if you went to a larger percentage those in between times wouldn't be a drought
You know, he actually might be able to keep himself going during those in-between times. What I don't like is when the kid has to come back to the parents constantly, I need this, I need this. And so then they think, you know, you're never sort of putting them on their own two feet because they have to ask permission from you.
If you had said 30, if you had said 50, I would have been doing the Hallelujah Chorus. But I would I think 20 percent is a bit austere. Yes. Yeah.
You might do what I call a family match. It's like a 401k plan. So in a 401k plan, if you put in a dollar, your company might put in 50 cents up to a certain amount. You might do something like that. So I think that's better because it also teaches him once he becomes someone who works and the company gives free money, he knows not to walk away from the free money.
And if you've got money on the table, he might say, I'll pony up to that. You also could change the match based upon the percentage. So you say, okay, if you say 30%, this is what I match. If you say 50, it's even more. Wow. The one thing I would say, which is super important, some parents get themselves in their own financial trouble by being too aggressive with their own money.
And so just making sure that whatever you do is within the means that you also feel comfortable that you can afford. And, you know, from allowance to whatever it might be, the family match, whatever it is, so that you're not overextending yourself. I also want to point to the debit card, which I think is great.
Everest and I are going to get her a debit card actually very soon because I think you need training wheels. And most parents give their kid a credit card when they leave for college. I call it a weapon of mass destruction at that point. Because now we know the credit card of a child has to be tied to the parent. You have no control over them once they leave the house.
And if you haven't taught them at that point, your own credit could be affected by recklessness if they haven't been taught how to spend and what to do.
I had Amex calling me in my dorm room with Bill Collector because I went on a ski trip.
And I owed $2,000 to Amex and I had so much anxiety and I was kicking myself. I was like, I can't believe I've repeated what I grew up with.
It felt like a million dollars. Like a million dollars.
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