Your Children and Your Money

This is a guest post by Taylor Buzzard:I wanted to take a moment to share something that God has been reminding me of lately. Hopefully this truth will encourage parents out there.The simple truth is this: children don't need our money.Children need our time, our touch, our teaching, our attention, our interaction, our encouragement and discipline. But, children don't need our money. Sure, they need us to buy them food, clothes, and health insurance. But they don't need the extras that we feel the pressure to tack on in order to be an adequate parent. Our children certainly benefit from our money: a class can teach them a new skill, a trip to an amusement park can give them fun memories, a costly birthday party will probably be a lot of fun. But, they don't need it. They don't need the hoopla that we so often turn life into. What your child needs is you, not your money.Another truth the Lord has been opening my eyes to is how malleable children are. God essentially gives us a clean slate child, and hands us the chalk. The parents get first dibs to write on the blackboard. Our children come equipped with a fully functional sin nature, but the slate of their perceptions and understanding is blank. That means that we define what fun is. We define what celebration looks like. We define what vacation is. And we define whether those occasions require big price tags, or don't. Wield this power! If you don't take up the chalk and write, the consumer culture of our day will do the writing for you. And I don't think you'll like the result.I hope that this reminder will relieve some of the financial pressure that parents out there might be feeling. Your children don't need your money. What they need is you.Touch your child. Converse with your child. Hold your child. Wrestle with your child. Write biblical truth and wisdom on their blackboards. And remember that, oftentimes, money just complicates and spoils things.