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
I think that I would be age appropriate. So I would not deny if you have a lot of resources. I think pretending that you don't is foolish. I also would not deny if your resource is scarce. And I think it's very important to level with kids. So you don't have to give the number? Yes. But you have to be very, very honest about it. And it happened to us recently. I will give you that example.
My daughter recently was in a situation where some kids asked her about her family situation. And she was very taken aback because we don't talk about, you know, what we have versus other people. We value values, not things. Yes. But I did say to her, I said that, you know, yes, you have a lot of resources, but they're not yours. They're ours.
Just so she understood that it wasn't, you know, it's not her money. Wow. And she said, well, will I have resources one day? And I said, you'll have a job? Yes. And she said, where will I live? And I said, you'll probably have a house. And I said, but you won't be without. You'll have enough. I said, you will have, you know, you'll have enough. And it was really interesting.
We had a very direct conversation about it.
It's a running conversation. It's a running conversation. Yeah, it's a conversation that never ends. Now, the thing about her, at least at this stage, she's not enamored by things. When we go to a store, my daughter never asked for anything. So I have to show her something and say, would you like this? But she would not ask, even though I've never told her that there's an issue with her asking.
She just doesn't. And she doesn't want a lot of stuff around her.
Yeah. So it's interesting because I think that they did the best that they could. Yes, I really do. And I think that these were hard subjects. And, you know, there was a lot of struggle. There was a lot of struggle. And I think they were at least my mother was trying to anchor me in reality. Yes. She was constantly trying to help me understand what I was going to confront in life. Yes.
And so her goal was not to sugarcoat anything. So she gave it to you straight.
So I think that is very valuable. And I meet kids today who have no idea what their cell phone costs. I'm like, you know, Wi-Fi costs money. All those streaming services cost things. So children should know that. Absolutely. The example that I give that I love so much, I love this example. Everest has this game that she likes to buy on her iPad. It's called Toka.
Since she was like five years old, she can't buy anything without asking ever, ever, ever. And she's a rules follower. So she'll come in and say, Mom, can I buy? It's called a place because you build a house or a store or what have you. So I said, how much is it? And when she was very young, she'd say, .99. I said, 99 cents. I said, let me think about it.
I take a minute, go back to her and say, yes, you can get that. Next time she comes to me, she says, I want to buy a place. I said, how much is it? She says, 2.99. I was like, I have to ask Baba. Baba is dead. Yes. So I'm helping her to see. She's like, oh, I said, that's that's more expensive.
I said, I have to ask Baba. So she's she understands that I go back because I don't want her to get anything instant, even though I know ninety nine cents is not a lot, but instant gratification. I'm trying to manage. Wow. Patience. So I said, I have to ask Baba. This is a child who could have anything she wanted in the world. And $2.99 for any of us is like a no-brainer. But I was like, no.
And it's not manufactured, but it's just letting her to see, be thoughtful and deliberate about what you spend. So the last time she comes and she says, I want to watch a movie. And I said, okay. So we went to turn on the show. It was an animated film and it was $15.99. This is Everest's reaction.
this is ridiculous she's like she thinks this is the like biggest number she's ever she's like mom this is so expensive and i said well everest you'll probably watch it multiple times it's like a toy and i said i think it'll be a good investment but i'm still going to talk to baba about it so that she sees we collaborate on money and i love this because now she knows 99 cents
Versus $2.99 versus $15.99. Wow. And that was when she was like seven years old.
Yes. Yeah. I mean, she was really she was she was upset.
I think you do it as you have already started. There's the practicality of it and then there's valuing things. So the great example with your dollar store example is they had to put a value on things and they had to give it relative value. You're not directly explaining that to them, but that's actually what's happening. And so I'm a big fan of giving kids choices. That's why I love barter.
Barter is there's actually no money involved, but it's do you want Barbie or a cupcake? One you're going to eat and it's going to disappear and one you may have. And they actually decide and start to put that value on it. So that's a great way.
I think also, and this is really important because especially for young kids, I talk about the fact that money is very mysterious because they don't actually ever see it anymore because of our cashless society. Money for children is on a credit card, a phone now, or it spits out of a machine. So trying to explain that you work for it, when you're for, that's super hard to understand.
And so as a result of that, I really encourage parents, use cash. Use cash so they can see it's finite and it goes away, that you don't have an endless amount of it. And just in a wallet, they can see that it's starting to go down. And that can be very, very helpful.
Showing 161–180 of 238 · page 9 of 12
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