(delayed publication bc well, I’m in pain)
I’ve had a credit card since I was a teenager. My dad was big on financial literacy and was really good at money management…His mantra included such gems as “live below your means” and “never make the bank make more money off you”.
- Very early on – maybe 3 0r 4 when I hoarded my sweets and “resold” them when others had finished their share – he recognized that I had his entrepreneurial inclination. I never personally had to do chores since I was always owed from my trading in sweets for labour. Bartering is as good as cash for a toddler.
- By High School I had made so much money I started investing – not in the stock market, but in people. I had amassed such a vast network – all screened by my trusted adults – that I was having regular debates, and “reasonings sessions” at the tree stump in front of my house. My mom being the avid reader she was, passed on to me her dad’s attentiveness to current affairs, international news and bias identification. So I revelled in debating.
- As time progressed and I prepared for University, people from all walks of life were pouring love, acceptance and open-mindedness with me. Eventually, I was sharing my wisdom of several past lives, and that of my own family, with everyone – young and old alike – who had lost their way, or needed a fresh point of view.
- As I got older, my dad let me use the credit card to its limit in the name of profit. I was a serial business creator in University and saved him so much money by not requiring regular cash transfers with exorbitant fees, that I felt entitled to a reward that by right should be paid by him, of course. He wasn’t even mad when I took advantage of his generosity (or was I taking advantage of what I knew about his ethos and principles?).*
- My dad learned about my mid-semester travel plans from the airline charge on his credit card statement. My mom figured out there were two tickets and took issue with finding out who my companion was. I pre-warned them both that there will be additional ticket charges since I had arranged to advance payment for others and made money off that too.
*He still retells the story with great bouts of laughter. And no, I didn’t fail any missed work*
What I didn’t appreciate at the time, was that my parents were ensuring that I was never afraid to explore the world, even on my own. I think my dad knew how cruel the culture had been to me as a fearless non-conforming child; and my mom knew I had to seek other cultures so vast and different in their ways of living. There’s no way for them to have known though that I – well my brain – had developed unique mechanisms to keep me from believing the world was unsafe. To enable me so that I COULD go on to explore, it hides bigoted oppressive experiences from me, and very effectively, until now.
Hidden within the captured trauma responses, is a little known fact that evades me.
- Managing my money, planning for emergencies, being financially responsible, and adulting independently is my tribute to my parents’ advanced level parenting.
- Specifically, paying my credit card on time, in full, all the time – thus not making the bank make money off me – is my act of love to my dad.
Our love language is money: making it, investing it, spending it, giving it, generating it, inheriting it, and making more of it. Generational wealth is love advanced to the future.
Why?
Because it speaks to your quality of life, opportunities and freedom. Simple.
Don’t get tied up – or mistaken – it is NOT the LOVE of money, it is the unhindered constant generating flowing ACCESS to it.
I have been failing in that love.
Since escaping the torture of working in the development field, I am unable to manage even the basics of things. There’s too much debt. Too many things to keep track of. Too much peopling in carrying out any financial responsibility. My child does our banking. My reality now is that I really cant manage with my disability. If it weren’t for automatic payments, I wouldn’t be paying bills or expenses. The one credit card that cannot be automated is never paid, much less on time, and for the first time ever, I’m paying the bank interest and fees. It hurts my sense of responsibility.
Am I still my father’s daughter?
He reassures me that I am…and that I will continue my path back to myself…it only takes time…and of course, money.
Colour in International Development 