Ron Lieber

Yes! Finally someone who puts onto words the reasons I am very uncomfortable with voluntourism. Besides this, there were many eye opening sections. My children are young and I appreciated the many ways to have conversations about money with them. The author uses examples of many different kinds of families and I think while many situations might seem extreme or foreign to the average reader, there will probably be at least one story that hits home.

While the book seems aimed at the upper class, most people living in America with electricity, clean water, and free public education need to remember that they are rich compared to a majority of the world's population. So many parents could use the advice to have conversations about needs versus wants, and about answering questions about the costs of things and each family's priorities in spending, saving and giving.

I do think the book could have been even better with some more grounding in psychology and sociology research. Some studies are referred to but a few times the author makes broad sweeping statements about the nature of children without anything to back it up and made my footnote-loving self cringe. But overall, the book is not a scholarly examination of human nature and economics but that's ok. It is a big bag of compelling stories, intriguing questions, and tricks to try.… (mehr)

This practical guidebook written by Lieber, a personal finance columnist and father, is a blueprint for the best ways to handle the important lessons of money matters with your children. From the basics of the tooth fairy, allowances, chores, charity, saving, birthdays, holidays, cellphones, checking accounts, clothing cars, part-time jobs, to college tuition, he shares how to help parents raise kids who are more generous and less materialistic. This is a book that will start many important conversations, no matter what age the child.… (mehr)

I found this an intensely problematic book. In fact, by the end, I was reading it out loud to my husband in the car. I picked up the book at the library after hearing the author on a regional NPR broadcast--and he seemed like a very grounded man. However, it wasn't long before I realized the book was written for the 1%. The author claims to presume the reader has a $75,000 annual income--but based on what I read in this book, that would be the minimum both parents would have to be making in order for any of this to be relatable. We read celebrations of a homeowner who sold his $2 million dollar home for a $1 million dollar home, donating the difference to charity only after he was sure he could "cover his kids' college expenses." This is a level of wealth that is decidedly not middle-class, nor even upper middle-class. If it were only that, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but we've got other advice that truly can only refer to a very narrow band of parents making far more money than they need, and who are facing the first-world problem of entitled children. I'm actually glad there's somebody out there gently helping wealthy parents understand that giving their children everything is actually harmful. However, the admonishments, such as they are, are as gentle as a falling flower petal. The most successful anecdote, about a Mexican immigrant who nannied for a family with a child in an expensive private school, is actually not about the successful immigrant as much as it is about the way other wealthy kids could not relate to the immigrant's daughter who was able to attend that same private school on scholarship.

I think the fault is mine, honestly. I didn't realize there was coded language in the title and subtitle. As a middle-class reader, perhaps even on the upper-middle class end of things, I thought I was going to read a book about helping my kids be "smart about money" as the title implies. But I missed the coded words: "Spoiled" and "Grounded" and even "Generous." The suggestion is, of course, that children with unimaginable opportunities and toys and vacations and so on, might actually need help being grounded and generous. For my own misapprehension of the author's approach, I take responsibility. But I do think that when the vast majority of your anecdotes--and there were a load of them--are about investment bankers, real estate heirs, lawyers, sociologists, and doctors--you're not speaking to the 99%. That was why I kept reading the book aloud to my husband: there was nary a public school teacher, a social worker, a service worker, a day care attendant, a business analyst among the people written about. However, considering the author himself is a successful New York Times columnist and author and his wife, Jodi Kantor, received a seven-figure advance for her book on the Obamas while also being a New York Times reporter, Lieber is really only writing about his peers. For that purpose, I'm grateful he's helping his one-percenters "be more decent."… (mehr)