Father & Finances

This week in class we talked about the importance of fathers and also finances. I want to address a bit about fathers before we move onto the money matters. It just so happens to come close to father’s day and I believe that it’s important to honor fathers every day.

This is not a movie bash, just recognition of what I realized; I recently went to see Brave, the new Pixar movie. I thought it was cute and had some fun parts that made people laugh in the theatre. While watching the movie though I couldn’t help but noticed how idiotic the creators made the fathers and males seem in this film. I understand that this movie was meant to focus on the relationship between the mother and daughter, but that absolutely doesn’t mean that the men should be down played. I really didn’t feel comfortable thinking that children all over the world were shown this video of how the men that raises them are stupid and can’t lead their families. The father is the head of the family, the mother is meant to be there and counsel with her spouse, but ultimately he is the head. I personally don’t want my children thinking that their father is someone who is to be disrespected. He is as important in the family as I am; he has different roles that he is supposed to fulfill.

This is not the first movie I’ve seen do this to the dad, I believe it’s becoming more common. It goes along with the gender differences. The male is not stupid. I’m not sure why society is taking this turn towards the father as being someone who isn’t necessary in the home. He is vital to the family and is an amazing role in the home and family.

Now! To finances: biggest reason for divorce in the family. Why is financial trouble such a problem in the home? One of the main reasons is because if we are not financially secure then we are stressing about it constantly. Maybe we lash out on our spouse because we are stressed about the money coming in and really not because they did something wrong. You don’t mean to be upset and take it out on each other, but it’s affecting every relationship around you.

I really liked the pamphlet that Marvin J. Ashton has published. It’s called “One for the money”

One for the money

In this pamphlet he addresses the different areas that we can target and learn more about the finances. He encourages that children should be involved in making money decisions. Money decisions that they can make, as in what they should save their money for. They should be aware if there is any struggle in the bank in order to understand why they are not able to spend money on eating out.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to make sure you not only are out of debt, but have 3 months of expenses saved in the savings account.