With better stories and the right tools, kids do better.
Your kids will graduate from home someday. Will they be ready? Too many bright-eyed bambinos are not, getting eaten alive by a cruel world.
Now in their mid-20s, sleeping in the twin bed across the hall from Mom and Dad, their childhood room gets smaller by the day. Can you imagine bringing a date home?
The diploma from Big State U collects dust in the garage, tens of thousands of dollars in debt adding interest to the balance every year. What a scam, modern-day childrearing.
“Here’s how it works, kids: A dollar is made up of four quarters, 10 dimes, 20 nickels, or 100 pennies. Got it? Great. That’s it! Now who wants a juice box?’
Even worse, we mindlessly model bad behavior, spending money we don’t have on s— we don’t need.
“We’ll just put Christmas on the Mastercard, son. Oh, and listen here: All good boys and girls go to college. If you want to be successful, you have to.’
We call it a “great investment in their future” while tuitions have been bloated by years of credit infusion, all the ruined lives who choked down the bull— sandwich before them.
The first rule of investing is to allocate to value. This is not value.
Off they go anyway, like good little pigeons.
Four years later, a BA in psych and $80,000 in debt, and whoops, the world doesn’t need another BA in psych. No skills, no discipline, and no clue how the world really works…
“No worries, Chip, for another $100,000, you can go to grad school. Go get ‘em, tiger.’
Chip turns 25 with a master’s degree and no plan. He’s overeducated and under-experienced. He doesn’t know squat, just a bunch of cockamamie from academia.
So deep in the hole he can’t see the sun, Chip never learned to hustle or how to serve customers. He’s of little use to anyone except Starbucks, Applebee’s, or maybe Nordstrom.
(Well, not Nordstrom. They need you to know how to sell something).
What’s next for Chip? How does he sleep well at night, rent a decent apartment, buy an engagement ring for the woman he loves, or scrape together a down payment on a home?
The answer is, he’s doesn’t. Chip is a debt slave, and you deserve him in your basement forever. Just remember to turn off his baby monitor when he finally brings a girl home.
A better way to start
First off, don’t count on school to prepare your kids for anything that happens out in the wild.
What if you do that instead?
What if there was a line of bedtime stories that made it easy and fun? If you don’t get to them before their teenage brain kicks in, it’s too late anyway.
You don’t need a curriculum, or more lectures. Stories work better anyway. Use the time you already spend reading before bed, just one day each week, to tackle real issues.
Put down The Day the Crayon’s Quit and show them what happens to Crayon’s who don’t make wise choices; Crayons who don’t understand money and debt.
Show them what happens to Crayons who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and work, to take calculated risks, and stand out from all the quitters and whiners.
Show them what happened to the money system when the sneaky ol’ Crayons in Washington, DC stopped backing the dollar with gold.
Show them who the winners were, and who the losers are, and why.
Show them good debt, and how it’s different from bad debt, so they always know the difference. Show them what it means to create value, to earn respect, to save money, and invest for the long haul.
What happens next
Those kids of yours now get it. When they graduate from home, they aren’t naïve, like all the other Crayons. They know how it all works, and how to work it.
They don’t have to learn the hard way.
They never need to worry about making rent.
They don’t have to choose between health insurance and everything else.
They can take a date out to dinner and pick up the check.
They don’t have to skimp.
They’ll put a big down payment on a family home someday with lots of trees in the yard, still plenty left over for an engagement ring, bigger than it needs to be.
They’ll start saving for retirement early, so compounding can do the heavy lifting.
They’ll be great tippers, and give plenty to charity.
They’ll have as many kids as they want, not one or none because they can’t afford to.
They’ll take only jobs they love, or start their own business.
They’ll take plenty of time off to spend with you and their own kids, teaching them to ride bikes, throw baseballs, build fires, and catch fireflies.
They’ll buy a second home on 10 acres in the mountains, a river that runs through it. They’ll have you over for all the holidays, especially Thanksgiving.
They’ll sleep well at night, even if the world struggles.
They’ll help others, and take care of you when you get older.
They’ll walk tall but humble, hungry but smart, living a life of quiet confidence, because you trusted an instinct one day and took a chance on a line of better bedtime stories.
Then, you stuck to the program.
You got each delightful, illustrated hardcover, right to your door, three months apart. You read it with your kids just once per week until the next arrived. This repetition formed lasting, magic memories for you both.
You sat back when it was over and smiled, because parents like you don’t leave it to chance.
***Even better, we’ll take all the risk. If you don’t like the first book, just let us know. We’ll refund 100% of your money, and you can keep it anyway. We think you’d rather wait for the next.***
