Meet the author...Maureen Dolan Rosen
A Washington, DC native and mother of two, Maureen received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Maryland in College Park, and for the next 15 years worked in healthcare management and human resources. In 1997, she started her own human resource consulting firm, providing HR services to for- and non-profit companies in North Carolina. She also wrote a quarterly HR column for a local business publication for several years, and has been active in the non-profit arena in North Carolina. Maureen served on the Advisory Board of the Small Business Technology Development Center Regional Office in Raleigh, NC, from 2001 through 2003, and currently serves on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA Board of Directors. Additionally, she coordinates and conducts free workshops on basic money management around North Carolina to schools, Scout troops, churches, youth organizations and more. Maureen published KIDSCA$H™ in 2001, after searching fruitlessly for a tool to teach her own children how to manage their money.
What qualifies you to be teaching people how to teach their own kids about money management?
A very good question! I’m not a financial manager, nor have I ever been a banker, or an accountant, or a bookkeeper. What I am is a mom with two kids who needed to learn the basics of how to manage their cash.
What kind of financial training did you get as a child?
My parents gave me no financial training other than to say, “Don’t spend any money!” As children of the Depression, their perspective on money was simple: only spend what’s needed, and save the rest. Most importantly, and probably the biggest factor affecting my decision to publish KIDSCA$H™, their financial philosophy was to keep money matters private, no matter what, so it simply wasn’t discussed, thus I ended up entering my early twenties with little to no idea of how to manage my own finances.
How do most kids learn about money?
That’s another good question. It certainly isn’t being taught in the schools: only 7 states in the US have a financial literacy requirement for high school seniors. And the feedback I get is that many parents are just plain scared to raise the issue with their kids. But not talking about money with your kids does one thing, and one thing only: it leaves them clueless regarding managing their own money. Think about it: from the time they’re about 5 years old, and maybe start getting an allowance, or they begin to get money as gifts, their framework for “income” is that money just comes to them, for no reason. Then they start having school expenses, like field trips, and yearbooks, and here comes more money, fresh off the trees in your backyard where it grows year-round. It’s an endless cycle, with hands seemingly always outstretched for more.
What prompted you to publish KIDSCA$H™?
KIDSCA$H™ was born out of my desire to make my kids smarter about money than I was as a young adult, and less likely to make the same stupid mistakes I made back then. It’s not rocket science, by any stretch. Rather, it’s the most fundamental process of money management, and the one that must be in place before anything else can happen: knowing where your money goes. Getting kids to start this habit at an early age isn’t going to happen unless parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, foster parents, whomever, open that door and brush away the taboo that talking about money has become.
We like to say that using KIDSCA$H™ is “a year’s worth of learning that lasts a lifetime.” If you have ideas about how you teach your kids (or grandkids, students, etc.) about money management, write to us, and we’ll share them on our website to help other folks do the same. And see our “TeachingTips” page for more ideas on how to talk with your own kids about money. You’ll be glad you did. Thanks for visiting!
Maureen Dolan Rosen, President
Rosen & Associates, Inc.
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