After my talk at the Lincoln School, mothers came up to tell me that this was the first time they had ever thought to talk to their girls about the challenges of combining work and parenting. Do any of us think to have those talks?

When we talk to our children about sex, about alcohol and drugs, or about the dangers of the Internet, we give them limitations and warnings. But when it comes to the subject of work, we tell them that they can be whatever they aspire to be; that they should aim high, work hard and dream big.

What we rarely do is tell them how hard some days are. Or that along the road, they might have to compromise, or detour, or backtrack. To warn them would be to discourage them. Or so our thinking goes.  

So I was having lunch with my parents at Panera and my mother paid for my lunch as well.  This led into a discussion of a woman I’m friends with (who is my parents’ age) whom I have lunch with once a month.  Every time she insists that she’ll pay and I can pay “next time”.  I was saying to my parents that I feel bad about this since I’m pretty sure I make more than she does.  They responded by saying that she’d worked at her job for a while and was good at it, etc, etc.  I named a figure and said “do you think she makes x?  x + 5,000?” and they agreed it was probably in that range.  My response “so I definitely make more than she does”.  Parents: <open mouth stare>. 

Hello, I have a house, a job that’s in demand that I’ve been doing for a bunch of years, and an employer that’s over a barrel because they’ve driven away just about every other employee who knows about the things I do.  I know banks will extend a mortgage to people who cannot afford them, but I’m pretty conservative about financial things.  Yes, my house was a dump when I bought it, but that was on purpose so I could renovate it.  I paid that mortgage on time for several years while working only 20 hours a week and supporting a boyfriend who liked to go out to eat and who required a storage space among other monthly expenditures.  I guess they just never thought about it. 

I know I make more than my mom, but less than my dad did (job change Jan 1, so I don’t know now).  I know they have credit card debt and a mortgage, and plan to pay both off before retiring (5 years or so).  I don’t know how realistic their plans are.  They have some retirement money, again I don’t know how much.  Their first meeting with any sort of financial advisor was within the last few years.  I’m really hoping they’ve got it figured out, because I really don’t want them to call me in 15 years and tell me they’re out of money. 

As you can probably tell from the above, we don’t talk about money.  I mean we talk in a general way, about interest rates and such, but not in specifics.  I’m not sure they would tell me if I asked them to sit down and show me their retirement plans.