My 14-Year-Old Says We Make Her "Feel Poor"

[Music] brought to you by y refi refinance your defaulted private student loans today at y rei.com Ramsey today's question comes from Alexandra in Arizona my 14-year-old daughter claims that all the kids in school dude we just I just had this in my house my 14-year-old daughter claims that all the kids in school are buying lunches from local eateries and spending as much as 20 bucks a day on takeout food rather than bringing their lunch it's not allowed at our school no no outside take out food keep going my wife and I are on baby step two and have another $65,000 to go we simply cannot afford this how do I explain to this to my 14-year-old without in her words making her feel poor um I think underneath all of this I'm just going to tell you Rachel how I experienced this very similar um the school my son goes to has an extraordinary cafeteria and I for me and Sheila it's less about the fun finances and it's more about I want him to participate in food um creation and food consumption I want him to know that food just doesn't materialize out of thin air right and so that may that's a little Little House on the Prairie for us I know but so you don't let him buy from the cafeteria is that what you're saying that's right he has to be a part of making his food um go so underneath this though I struggled with my kid's the only one m um and so I think Alexandra it's less about you worrying about your 14-year-old feeling poor and it's more about you feeling guilty that your 14-year-old has any sort of uncomfortable feelings and that's where you need to deal with this so if you can't afford it then the way you go straight into that is sitting down with your daughter and letting her walk through your budget with you she's 14 she's a freshman high school she can do that and you look at her and say we're working really hard to change our family tree we don't have enough money and by the way for a 14-year-old they don't care they're going to have feelings they're going to get mad oh my gosh we're poor let a 14-year-old say 14-year-old things there's a reason as a society we have all said 14-year-olds can't buy beer and cigarettes and guns cuz they're 14 the other side of that is you need to become more comfortable with your 14-year-old being uncomfortable yes cuz that's life well that's life and if it's not the lunches it's going to be the type of shoes it's going to be the backpack it keeps going and then on into college what college is she going to I mean that feeling continues um so the greatest gift you can give 14-year-old is not $20 a day for lunch it is the ability to tolerate discomfort and go forward anyway yes and that's a lesson every human will learn that you have to learn most days now adults yes call into the show saying I'm $140,000 in student loan debt I'm trying to live in New York City and I want to be a painter and it doesn't work and nobody had reality conversations um I read this in a parenting book I can't remember who go I can't remember who it was but they were saying that you know the generation 10 years ago 15 years ago was the helicopter parents and now it's the snowplow parents the bulldozers just we just like make a smooth path so there's no bumps we don't feel anything we are good no hardship no bumps in the road it is just a smooth walk and everything is fine and that's not that's not reality teaching your kids this is an amazing moment for your 14-year-old and can I just say this too not that this matters but they're buying lunch from local eateries this isn't even like a cafeteria Buy they're yeah they leave campus it's yeah like it's a it's even a Step Beyond normal reality like some kid you know what I mean like yeah it's not even like oh we're not even going to pay for school lunches from the cafeteria this is like another Step Beyond so I think even even for her to have some level of reality my parents did this of like there's tears in life the highest tier is that a 14-year-old is getting a $20 lunch from Panera or whatever the local eery is the second tier is yeah maybe you get to spend some money and buy lunch at the cafeteria and then you got to bring your you know your lunch I don't know like like we don't all get to live at a high level like there's going to be ups and downs in life so a great gift you can give your 14-year-old is let her experience that now and let her just know that she's not alone experiencing that let her know I wish I could just give you 20 bucks every day that'd be awesome and that's not reality that'd be cool it's crazy um and just for what whoever's listening because evidently there's at least two of us in the country dealing with this um the two ways we've mitigated this in our house and you don't mitigate it you just walk through it is a lot of the time our kids participate in cooking the night before and so the leftovers are not just leftovers that um were shoved out in the fridge it was something that they participated in cooking the night before and they've got a steak in it right they got skin in the game or um just yesterday my son was cooking chicken nuggets or something before school in the oven and that's what he's going to put in a container to take to school so he gets to take as luxurious a lunch as he wants to but he's going to be he's going to make it and it's going to be from our what we have in the fridge in the house and so that comes with planning and meal planning all that kind of stuff so all I have to say is the goal is not to have 14 yearolds that don't feel certain ways they're going to feel however they feel 16 17 18 whatever the goal is your feelings are okay and they're right and I'm going to sit with you while you feel that way and then we're going to be Tethered to reality we don't have the money we just simply don't and by the way if you did I would recommend you not do that anyway that's right that's right why refi refinances delinquent private student loans for struggling borrowers learn more at 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