Author Topic: Will FIRE'd Parents Affect the Child's Traditional Job Ability?  (Read 1649 times)

LD_TAndK

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Will FIRE'd Parents Affect the Child's Traditional Job Ability?
« on: November 01, 2021, 03:13:21 PM »
My wife and I will be FIRE'd long before our future kids become conscious. We could potentially have children that grow up never having seen mom or dad work for money.

Do you think this could negatively affect the child's motivation or understanding of the world?

Do any you have experience with kids that grew up this way?

fell-like-rain

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Re: Will FIRE'd Parents Affect the Child's Traditional Job Ability?
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2021, 07:53:59 AM »
I think it'll definitely affect their understanding of the world, but that's inevitable. I grew up in a bougie suburb where my parents and friends' parents all had vague white-collar jobs like "analyst" or "consultant" that required degrees, so my baseline assumption was that I would go to college and then get a vague white-collar job. Probably very similar in a blue-collar neighborhood, or in an area with a lot of Army recruitment, etc. Kids set their expectations based on what they see the adults around them doing.

However, in your case, you're living a fairly different life than most of the adults around you, and the kids will realize that fairly soon. From then on, and especially into the teenage years, there's a variety of extremes as to how it could play out:

A. They love all the time and investment you can put into their lives
B. They feel smothered by all the time and investment you put into their lives

A. They appreciate that you took a contrary life route and showed them there are options
B. They hate that you're not "normal" and wish you just had jobs like all the other parents

But it's also possible that they won't particularly notice or care- after all, once they're in school, whatever you do all day is invisible to them. Ultimately, I think you just have to model being fairly active and engaged in society through ways other than paid work, and they'll probably turn out fine.

AMandM

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Re: Will FIRE'd Parents Affect the Child's Traditional Job Ability?
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2021, 02:15:17 PM »
Not exactly the same situation, but my kids grew up hardly ever seeing me work for money. I was a SAHM and homeschooled them. They saw me being active and productive, and they learned that payment isn't the measure of the worth of your time. They saw my husband and me making deliberate choices about spending and lifestyle, and they learned that money is a tool but the real issue is what you're trying to use it for. They all developed a good work ethic and a good scale of values. The two youngest are still in college, but the older ones all have made conscious choices about work/life balance and taken paid work accordingly (in agreement with their husbands, where applicable).