I was recently asked to join a panel by Pathstone for their series HerPath Money Stories. This specific chat was on “How to Uncover Your Money Story and Rewrite It for Your Best Financial Future”. In case you missed it, I wanted to summarize the discoveries from the session.
My Money Story: Inheriting More than Just Money
As I was growing up, I noticed my nuclear family chose to do things differently than my broader family. We were raised in a very rural area with lots of land. I grew up with goats and chickens and playing alone in fields behind our house. To me, that all seemed very normal; that was until I’d travel the short 20 minutes into town where my other family members had a very different “home” experience. They were in suburban areas surrounded by country clubs and golf courses with different daily routines.
Neither is better or worse than the other; but looking back, I feel lucky that I had the two different worlds as juxtaposition. In the rural area, people treated me like the “rich kid” (which was confusing because I didn’t feel “rich”). When I was in town, I felt like I didn’t fit in with the discussions or routines. For example, I didn’t know to care about the luxury brand of purse people were buying; my mother never wore makeup, so any sort of vanity or primping was not part of my rural life.
As I aged and started to explore my broader family history, I realized that the infrastructure in place—including all the legacy trust documentation for my family—was set up to reward women based on societal expectations at the time. Why? Because 110 years ago, women couldn’t own property or have their own bank accounts. Therefore, women were taken care of primarily when two life events occurred: when they were married and when they had children.
While I understood those 110-year-old decisions were made with good intentions, they continued to impact the decisions my family members made to the present day about how and when they got married, and their choices about having their own children.
Personally, I knew I needed to create a larger purpose for my life; and I never wanted to have to depend on someone else’s permission for anything that I wanted to do.
Integrating My Money Story
Historically, there was an expectation that women of the family be debutantes and ladies. For example, I had to sit for my portrait being painted, and received inherited items of significance as gifts. (When my friends received Barbies for birthdays and holidays, I was given a pearl, a silver fork, spoon, or knife, or a China cup. These were part of the dowry that was being passed down to me).
It wasn’t until I was older that I could appreciate the tradition of the legacy while also being able to choose my own path. This included making a career outside the legacy industries, providing for myself monetarily, and finding the freedom to operate outside the family system. For me, that meant leaving the place I grew up to go places where no one knew or cared who my family was. It was in that liberation I was able to look back with gratitude for the lessons my family taught me, all while discovering the story I wanted to create and what I wanted to make meaning out of for me and my (future) children.
A Dichotomous Relationship with Money
Now, I’m keenly aware this led to a very dichotomous upbringing as it related to money, inheritance, and responsibilities. I was raised in the country with goats and chickens, but was bussed into town for etiquette and ballroom dancing classes.
My family was very pragmatic and has roots in the banking world. Therefore, I understood how to balance a checkbook at 8 years old, and started building credit at 11 years old when my family handed me a credit card.
In one sense, we were very aware of what the value of a dollar was; but on the other hand, we didn’t give money too much power.
Final Thoughts
At Wellth Works we are often asked, “How do I raise my children to be well-rounded, empowered, and not live off the corpus/trust?” In our work, we’ve found that the answer to this question comes down to a few things, including what:
- Gets rewarded
- Values the family shares
- Incentives we have to create our own passions outside the family.
Understanding your money story is the key to unlocking some of these pieces.
Have you given any thought to your own money story and how it was created? Was it created intentionally by you, or passed down to you as part of your inheritance? Reflecting on the story you tell yourself about money can be very revealing; it can also be helpful as you move forward in your journey.
Want to check out the entire chat? You can find it here.