How to Raise Grounded Kids When Your Family Income Doesn’t Match “Normal”
I was idling in the soccer pickup line last October, half-eaten granola bar in the cup holder, when my 10-year-old Mia climbed into the backseat, dropped her shin guards, and asked, “Why don’t we have a weekend cottage like Lila’s family?” The other moms in the cars around me had been chatting about Disney spring break bookings and new backyard pools for the last 10 minutes, so the question didn’t come out of nowhere. My husband is a carpenter, I work part-time as a paraeducator at the elementary school, and we bought our 3-bedroom house here 11 years ago, right before the neighborhood boomed and all the software engineers started moving in. These days, our annual income is less than half the median for our zip code. So questions like this come up a lot.
A month later, Mia planned her 10th birthday sleepover. Six girls, all from school, and halfway through planning she mentioned that a couple of them had done those $40 matching friendship bracelet kits at their last sleepover, and could we get those? I snuck a look on Amazon later that night and my chest tightened a little. Forty dollars for beads and string? That’s our whole weekly budget for extra snacks and produce. Instead of panicking, I grabbed my reusable shopping bag and headed to the dollar store, picked out 10 different packs of beads in every color, a pack of stretchy string, and called it done. Halfway through the night, one girl offhandedly mentioned that these beads were way cooler than the pre-sorted ones in the fancy kits, and Mia agreed. No one left feeling like they’d had a bad time.
Early on, I used to handle these moments wrong. I’d mumble “We can’t afford that” with a tight, embarrassed smile, or I’d stretch our credit card to buy the thing she wanted just to avoid the awkwardness. When Jax, my 12-year-old, was 8, I bought him a $100 pair of brand-name basketball shoes because all his friends had them, and we ate plain pasta for every dinner for two weeks to cover the cost. I was snappy and stressed the whole time, and Jax even asked me what was wrong halfway through the second week. I realized pretty quickly that kids don’t care as much about the thing as they care about how you act about it. If you’re ashamed or apologetic about what you can’t afford, they pick up on that and think there’s something wrong with our family.
Now I use one specific line for almost every question about something we don’t buy: “That’s not what we spend our money on right now.” It doesn’t frame our family as lacking, it just frames it as having different priorities. After Mia asked about the cottage, I followed it up with, “What we do have saved for fun this month is that hike and pizza night at the state park next weekend, remember? I thought you were excited to look for salamanders.” She shrugged and started telling me about the goal she scored that practice, and that was that.
Another small thing that works for us is we involve the kids in our small fun budget every month. We set aside $100 total, split evenly between Mia and Jax, and they can choose to spend it however they want, or save it for something bigger. If Jax wants to blow his $50 on arcade tokens and slushies one month, that’s his call. If Mia wants to save for three months to buy a new set of art markers, that’s hers too. It doesn’t add extra strain to our budget, and it teaches them that every person, every family, gets to choose what matters to them. Last year Jax saved for four months, added in money he earned pulling weeds for neighbors, and bought a used skateboard from a kid down the street. He still talks about that board like it’s a fancy new truck. He worked for it, and he values it way more than if we’d just bought it new for him.
For birthday parties, when everyone seems to expect a $50+ gift, we never force ourselves to hit that price point. Instead, we make something. My husband has scrap lumber from work stacked in our garage all the time, so he’ll cut out a simple shape, we paint it together with the kid’s favorite colors or a silly slogan, add a bag of the birthday kid’s favorite candy, and that’s our gift. Last spring Jax gave a friend a “Game On” sign for his new gaming setup, and the kid’s mom texted me a week later saying it’s still hung up right by his TV, the first thing you see when you walk in. No one has ever turned up their nose at it, and it’s way more personal than a generic gift card anyway. I also never badmouth other families for spending more money than we do. I don’t say things like “They waste their money on stupid stuff” because that just comes off as bitter, and it teaches kids to judge other people for their choices. I just say “That’s what their family likes to spend money on, and that’s okay. Our family likes different things.”
Last month, Mia came home from school and told me Lila was upset because her parents bought that cottage, but now they have to work extra weekends to pay for it, so they’re almost never there. “I’m glad we don’t have a cottage,” Mia said, kicking off her shoes by the door. “You’re home every afternoon to help me with my art projects anyway.”
I still have those twinges of worry, sometimes. Last week Jax asked if we could go to the new fancy water park that opened up north, and tickets are $60 a person, which is more than our whole monthly fun budget. I told him we could go to the city pool for $5 a person and get blue raspberry snow cones after, and he said that sounded great. I still stood at the kitchen sink after he left, wondering if I’m shortchanging him somehow. But then that night, we all sat on the front porch after dinner, eating popsicles we got on sale at the grocery store, and Jax was telling a stupid joke about his math teacher that had all of us laughing so hard our sides hurt. It didn’t feel like we were missing anything. We’re still figuring it out. Some moments are awkward, some weeks we have to say no to a lot of things. But so far, the kids don’t seem to mind. They know what we have, and that’s enough most days.
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