Jumoni (주머니), children and trust

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
July 13, 2014

When we lived in Korea, I always carried around a jumoni (주머니), a small Korean bag. My mother said I wouldn’t leave the house unless she put a few coins in there. Even though she would buy me whatever I needed, I wanted to have some change to make my “own” purchases.

When we moved to the U.S., I told her I needed to bring my jumoni to my first day of kindergarten. My father asked me, “Why?”

I said, “Because you said smart kids get money to go to school. I need something to carry my money home.”

I had overheard them talking about scholarships and assumed that I, of course, would qualify. I had a lot more confidence in my academic ability than I do now. 😉

My brother says that even though he and my sister were older, I always had the most money saved up as a kid. That’s not quite true, but I was always a good saver. I learned from my mother, who knew how to stretch a dime and wasted nothing.

My son is learning about saving. He’s only 6, so there’s only so much he understands about money. And, like most children, there are a lot of things he wants and thinks that credit cards are a magic way to get things without actually having to pay for them.

We’ve had talks every now and then about the value of money, why we need it and how it’s good to help those who don’t have as much as we do.

When my mother gives him money — as she does every time we visit — he puts the bills away in my purse for safekeeping. He trusts that when we get home, I will give him the cash for him to store away in his piggybank. Every once in a while, we’ll take the money out of his piggybank and take it to the bank to put into his savings account. He thinks it’s fun. But honestly, he’s more interested in the lollipops that the tellers lavish on him. 🙂

Most of the time, though, he forgets about the money, so I have to remind him to put it away.

When he was younger, I didn’t trust him with money, because he didn’t know the value of it. One day, a friend was over for a playdate. I didn’t notice until the little boy had left that Kyle’s piggybank was open and all the contents were spilled out on the floor. They had wanted candy from a bubblegum machine we had in our house. I had told them no, because we would have dessert after lunch.

Kyle knows he’s not supposed to withdraw money without permission from his dad or me. But my guess is that he wanted to show off for his friend, who admitted to urging him to pull off the heist. 😉 They retrieved a few quarters for the candy. But lying amongst all the coins were $10 and $20 bills.

We talked again about how it’s good to be generous, but that it was important for him to put most of his money away for the future.

Of couse, the future is a long time away when you’re 6.

A couple years ago, I read “Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter” by Melissa Francis. A Harvard grad and news anchor, she had worked steadily as a child actor. She’s still remembered for playing Michael Landon’s adopted daughter on “Little House on the Prairie.”

Francis became the primary breadwinner for her family growing up. She had assumed that her parents were saving her earnings for her. But, like countless of other child actors before (and after) her, Francis later learned that her mother had spent virtually all of her money.

“It’s not something you or I could imagine doing, because most parents want to protect their children and do what’s best for them,” Francis told me. “But that wasn’t the case here.”

My own parents dipped into my college fund to add onto the downpayment of their house many years ago. (My mother still resides there and is reticent to leave her “dream house.”) They asked me for permission first and told me their plans. Even though I trusted them completely, I admit I was still a little nervous.

I’m lucky. I have ridiculously honest parents. They put everything back into my account well before I started my freshman year of school and added on a generous bonus.

But, I could see how easy it was for Francis’ mother to siphon her money. She was about the same age my son is now when she started acting. I’m sure that at the time, she trusted her mother just as my son trusts me.

Whenever Kyle gets money for his birthday, holidays or just because, he gives it to me. Often, he’ll say, “You can have this, Mommy. I don’t need it.” I tell him that when he is older and gets a job, he can give us some money if he wants to (or is living in our basement! Ha!).

But, this money is his and should only be used every now and again for special occasions, like gifts for his teachers, grandparents and a Nerf gun for himself. Mostly, though, this money is for college.

After we deposit his money, we always show Kyle his bank statement. It has his name on it so he knows he has ownership of it. He enjoys watching the numbers go up (especially since he understands numbers now).

I don’t want it to sound like I’m a financial whiz, because I’m not. I’m wary of taking risks and couldn’t tell you which stock is the best investment. And anything I’ve learned about saving was from watching how my parents did it. Thanks to their diligence — especially that of my mother, who we all acknowledged as the financial mastermind in our family — I’ve always been able to lead a comfortable life.

But, there are also extenuating circumstances when people have little control of their finances.

I have seen friends run through all their money and then some, because of medical bills that were insurmountable.

But, I’ve also watched friends dine out every night, get spa treatments and squander their small savings away. When they lost their jobs, they had no means to support themselves. And yet, some of them blamed their parents for not teaching them the value of money. (These are the same parents whose homes they were living in when they lost their income.)

Kyle is so trusting. While I don’t want him to obsess about money, I also want him to learn how it can be a burden not to know how to manage it.

Money isn’t the root of all evil. But not knowing what to do with it can be.

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