Don't Pass Your Money Baggage To Your Kid with Jessica Moorhouse

Christi Rae (00:00)

Welcome to the Great Canadian Piggy Bank, where we help parents raise money smart kids. Today, I'm excited to welcome Jessica Morehouse to the show. Jessica is a financial counselor, a seasoned speaker, and the host of the long running More Money podcast.

She's also the bestselling author of Everything But Money, which became a national bestseller. Today's episode is about turning our own money anxieties into opportunities. So our kids inherit confidence, not stress around money. Jessica, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Jessica (00:30)

Thanks for having me, excited to be here.

Christi Rae (00:32)

your book, Everything But Money, explores how our upbringing and culture shape our relationship with money. For parents listening, why is it important to recognize that money is more than just math?

Jessica (00:43)

I mean, money is so wrapped up into our society, we still have this ingrained belief because of capitalism. And there's a lot of history that goes into it where our money is very connected to who we see ourselves as, but also how society sees ourselves as. So it's very wrapped up into our personal identity. And there's a lot of, stereotypes that still exist and,

really unfounded beliefs about people who have money and who don't have money. we can talk about anything but that thing. We can't, we can't go there because it's just so personal and it's very

vulnerable and no one wants to acknowledge or talk about the fact that they may not have it all figured out. They don't know everything. They may have made some mistakes because we're all trying to present ourselves as, well-adjusted members of society who have it all together that have, financial security and nothing's wrong because no one wants to lead with, well, I've made some mistakes because we're all trying to,

look like, we're perfect, everything's great, but that's not reality. It's an important thing for us to all explore, but I don't think we really give ourselves permission and society doesn't give us ourselves permission to really go there because, then you're being vulnerable

is one of the hardest things you can do, especially when it comes to acknowledging certain

I have a complicated relationship, somewhat toxic relationship with money. What I discovered though, which is really great after the book came out is no one's been like, wow, I'm never gonna listen to her again because she doesn't have a perfect relationship with money. Actually, I'm so glad you said that because...

It makes you more human. And then it makes me feel like maybe I can do the internal work with myself to figure out what's going on, which has been really, really amazing So it's, really grateful for that.

Christi Rae (02:28)

I love that. we're now a generation that are becoming more self-aware. A lot of our parents weren't. And because of that, we didn't grow up with really healthy financial role models. How can we start to recognize and reset our own inherited money stories before we pass them on to our kids?

Jessica (02:33)

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Yeah, that's the one thing that I'm excited about for future generations is they're having more conversations and they're putting up more boundaries and they're doing things that, I would have never dared to do when I was in my 20s ⁓ because, my superiors at work and life were baby boomers and they had a very set way of doing things. again, a lot of set rules on what you could and couldn't explore and talk about, including money.

So I'm really excited to see younger generations say, I don't want to repeat the cycle of my parents and my grandparents.

I think it's really exciting to see this shift happen. It's uncomfortable for a lot of people, even millennials, because I think we're the last generation that had to fall in line and do this hard work. And now we're seeing Gen Z say, no, I'm not going to do that, or I need vacation, or we're going to advocate for ourselves,

And so it's really nice to see the big shift and the conversations happening. And I think a big reason for that especially is,

You can go on TikTok or YouTube or whatever and see people have these conversations publicly.

And that gives people more information and more tools and opportunity to advocate for themselves and say, yeah, we're not going to repeat what happened to our parents or our grandparents. We could actually make the shift because we have more resources and tools and more voices to advocate for all of us, which is really cool.

Christi Rae (04:15)

talking to a lot of parents, feel very anxious about money themselves. How can they avoid passing that anxiety onto their

Jessica (04:23)

I'd say, you know, just kind of like anything, you've got to do the work on yourself before you can teach your kids. I think the one thing that I've learned is, we're all doing the best that we can, but until you figure out your relationship with money, what are the things that are holding you back? How could you prevent, pushing those onto your kids? Because you don't even know that they're there. So you really do need to do the digging of who am I?

How do I feel about money? What is my first money memory? And there's a bunch of exercise in my book that can help you specifically answer some of these questions. What is my path from parents, grandparents onward? What does that look like in terms of money? And how have things flowed to me? And how can I talk about things in a different way so they don't automatically flow to my kids?

if you are in a partnership, you and your co-parent, your partner, you need to be on the same page with that as well, right? And that's difficult because then you're like, oh, my partner never talked about money. It's like, well, now you have to for your kids because one thing that frustrates me so much is that I have been talking about money for this long to first, when I was in my 20s, there's people in their 20s,

And now I'm talking more to people in their 40s and 50s, and people still have the same financial issues. I feel like we should be beyond this. The information's there. But it's because we're still figuring out, we're still at the beginning point of understanding money beyond just the dollars and cents. And so if we can start doing that work now,

you will be able to see your kids not repeat some of your money mistakes, such as getting into debt when they're a student, because they don't understand how student loans work or credit cards work. It's a thing that is life-changing if you know how to use credit appropriately and you don't. If you can teach your kids how not to do that and how to view money as it's not bad or good, it's just a tool.

but you need to learn the rules so you can use it in the best way possible, then you're going to set them up for absolute success and then compound that with teach them some good behaviors with saving, teach them how to start investing regularly

And so it does start with you as the parent to break that cycle for you. And it's going to be uncomfortable and difficult because you're going to have to admit and throw your hands in the air. Yeah, I did some things wrong or maybe I didn't do the right thing here. But that doesn't mean it's too late. I can change it at any point and I can set the tone.

for my kids to have a much healthier relationship with money where it's not, be careful. Like I used to be afraid of money in some respects because I knew how damaging it could be. And part of that was from the generational trauma that I learned doing research by the book.

we need to understand that so we can teach the future generation, okay, this is what we're not going to do. We're going to break the cycle. We're not going to continue.

Christi Rae (07:05)

you said some great money phrases there. What are some other common money phrases or habits that parents might be unintentionally sending negative messages to kids that they should avoid?

Jessica (07:15)

Hmm.

You know, one thing I found is most kids are very curious about everything. And sometimes when my parents maybe they didn't have the time or they just didn't know the answer, instead of really sitting with what I asked and giving me an answer, they would just shut the conversation down, And so

that taught me eventually to not be as curious about certain things, ⁓ especially with money. I remember specifically a memory of, asking my parents, how much do you earn? That is a very normal thing. I mean, just being shut down. It's like, it's not appropriate to talk about that. And so what I learned was it's not appropriate. I shouldn't ever talk about money or should never ask people about how much they make. And

I brought into my 20s and that's part of reason I never negotiated salaries because I didn't think you were allowed to talk about how much I should earn or how much do other people, how can I compare. Now, there are online resources where you can see, at this level, how much on average do people make?

really like allowing your kids to ask those questions and give them thoughtful answers. And if you don't have the answer right then and there, don't shut down the conversation. Just say, great question. Let's revisit this. I'm gonna look into that for you. I think that's the other thing with parents that are afraid to show to their kids that they don't know something about money. It's okay if you don't know something. you're not a financial expert. It's okay to not have the answer.

just say, great question. Let me look that up for you. Or we can do it together. There's so many great ways. You can ask chat GPT you can go on Google, you do the research so easily now to find the answers for anything. So it's okay if you don't know, you can find it together. And then what you're teaching your kids is if you don't know something, you can find the answer. and create that habit to really be curious.

And then again, that's a great skill to teach your kids to teach them. If you don't know the answer, here's how to find it.

Christi Rae (09:06)

So I'm hearing a great way for parents to not send negative messages then is to talk about it, find the answers together, keep everything on the table. If they ask you how much money you make, have a conversation.

Jessica (09:13)

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yes. Yeah, and if you're uncomfortable

about that number too, just like adults are, if you ask like someone, hey, how much do you make? Most people are uncomfortable talking about that. Cause again, they think that is directly connected to how you view them. And so if I say how much I earn, you might be like, ⁓ that's more or less than I thought. And then it may change your viewpoint on them. So what you can do instead is, well, so this is my job and hey, let's look it up.

Christi Rae (09:24)

Absolutely.

Jessica (09:41)

what's the salary range for that? So you could be I'm not going to share exactly how much I made, but just know it's within this range. And that's, that's, know, whenever I feel like the only time I ever found out how much my coworkers earned was when I was on the way out. So I was a little bit more bold so I can ask them much do you earn? Tell me. And I sure wish I had those conversations when I was in the job. So I had more information to use at my disposal.

to negotiate, ask for a raise or a promotion. And again, it's not about specifically telling me the dollar amount. It's just what's a good range or what's your range? Just so I can get an idea. Because honestly, most people will also know other people's ranges and then you just have more information to help you again, earn more than you probably are and earn more money because you probably deserve it.

Christi Rae (10:29)

I completely agree. So you talked about breaking the cycle, you talked about talking about money, how does talking about money break the cycle?

Jessica (10:38)

Well, I think for the longest time, the cycle was just money silence. There was no conversations about money, even though there's so many things that probably occurred that if we just had a conversation about money, we wouldn't be in this situation. And so if you can then get rid of this taboo that is don't talk about money, that still some people have really hard time with and make, money just like so many other topics that are a lot more

talked about now, such as like sex and things like that, like no one talked about sex or contraception and protection and things like that. Now those conversations are more open, which I think is good because we need to have that information so we can make better choices. And so we need to do the same thing with money because everyone is going to earn and spend and have money in their lives. And so if you can bring that topic into the conversation early, so it's not such a like, ooh, we can't go there.

then they're gonna be just so much more equipped when they're adults to make better choices or to do the research again. If they don't have the answers and if you don't have the answers for them, they feel more equipped to do the research on their own and find that information. So they can be like, okay, this is how you set up a budget or this is one way you can start investing and this is what a T F SA is and all these kinds of things.

Christi Rae (11:49)

amazing. And just for the record, kids don't want to talk to us about sex. I think we would want to talk to them. That's my experience. You got shut down pretty quickly. Okay, so if parents remember just one takeaway from this conversation, what do want it to be?

Jessica (11:54)

Yeah, no, well maybe they don't. ⁓ Yeah. That's probably true. That's probably true. Yeah, yeah, fair enough, fair enough.

if money is on your mind in any way, I think the answer you may think that, this is the path I should go is I need to learn how to, but really I think the answer is you need to learn why you need to learn what is your financial foundation and not in a actual money sense, but just where did you start with money? What is your relationship with money? You need to figure out your

why because that why is what's prompted probably every financial decision you've made up until this point. And until you figure that out, you can learn as many how-to's, practical, hey, rules of thumb with money as you want, you're still probably going to make the same choices that you've been making that maybe aren't the best choices for you. it's really about doing that internal work first before figuring out, tell me how to start a budget. How can I save more money? How can I retire early?

Yeah, we're not there yet. We need to figure out you and your money first.

Christi Rae (13:12)

So, what is one simple step that parents can do today with their kids?

Jessica (13:18)

That's a great question. I'd say, again, start a conversation. Ask them questions. I bet they would be so excited to have a conversation with you about money. And very well, the conversation would be like, do you have any questions for me about money or how we earn money or how we spend money? Do you have any questions for me? And likely they will. Maybe not. But sometimes you have to, I know with kids, they're like, no, I'm fine. And so you have to kind of keep.

prodding them and bringing it up or find the right moment to kind of bring it up. I think the best thing you could do is letting your kids know that this is a conversation that can be open at any time. I'm going to give you that space to ask your questions and I'm going to give you thoughtful answers because I think a lot of us growing up, I mean, that was not on the table. We're certainly not encouraged to have these conversations. So if you can show them, you can talk about it whenever you want.

I'm free to talk about whatever you like and I think that would be really helpful.

Christi Rae (14:17)

And I know you're not plugging your book, but I'm going to plug your book. I think reading your book was fantastic. I read it and I didn't realize I had money issues. I thought I had a really healthy relationship with money. And within the first chapter, a whole bunch of memories came back that just shocked me that I now need to let go. It's just not useful anymore, right? It's very, very small T traumas, but definitely have shaped my thoughts on money that I'm aware.

Jessica (14:20)

Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right? And we all have them.

And I think that's the other thing I really want to put in the book is this is a safe, no judgment, no shame zone. Because again, when it comes to money, there's a lot of judgment and a lot of shame. And so we need to get rid of that because that is a big thing that's probably holding a lot of us back. And it's okay to...

Christi Rae (14:46)

Absolutely.

Jessica (15:05)

dive into those kind of sensitive topics like trauma. And again, you may think you don't have anything, but it could be something very tiny. Like I was bullied in school or I had a friend that really hurt my feelings when I was a kid and I haven't let go of that. Whatever it is, we need to really figure out what those things are because you may not realize from you not like really digging into and healing and, know, going, you know, doing some therapy, I have a big advocate for therapy, doing that kind of internal work.

that moment in time, that unhealed wound, which is what trauma is, an unhealed wound, it is going to impact you in all areas of your life until you heal it. And so you've got to do that.

Christi Rae (15:46)

I agree. agree. So those people who want to dive deeper, where can they find your book and how can they connect with you?

Jessica (15:51)

Yes. So my book is Everything But Money. You can find it at any book retailer. You can find more information on my website, jessicamorehouse.com slash book. I also have a bunch of book extras too. If you buy the book or read it at the library, it's also at the library. There's a thing on the page that shows you how to access some worksheets and videos and audio and stuff like that. It's also an audio book and I record it or I read it myself, which is really a lot of fun.

Christi Rae (16:16)

Amazing.

Jessica (16:17)

But yeah, I love hearing from readers what they think. So I'm always open to an email, a DM, so you can let me know what happened to you when you read that book. What did you discover about yourself and what kind of path did it take you on?

Christi Rae (16:32)

Thank you so much for joining us today, Jessica. That was amazing. I think my big takeaway that I had for today was just really working on myself and my money stories so that I don't pass it on to my kids. And the more open that we are about having these conversations and talking about money and talking about how much we earn, I think the more empowered my kid's going to be to negotiate her salary and talking about money in the future.

Christi Rae (17:01)

If you want to start to figure this out for yourself, check out Jessica's bestselling book, Everything But Money, or tune into her long running More Money podcast.

I'll link both in the show notes. So please subscribe and share it with other parents and let me know what other topics you'd love to hear about. I'm Christi Rae and this is the Great Canadian Piggy Bank, helping Canadian parents raise money smart kids.