To help us gain a better understanding of women’s relationships with money, I offer a brief review of our history and traditions. While many influences shape women’s relationships with money, I will focus on three main areas: family, culture, and society.
What Does Family Have to Do with It?
Your family history and place of origin play a significant role in forming your ideas about money. Taking a look at how money was regarded and handled in your family can have a powerful effect on your relationship with money.
Families use money in many ways: to express love, to reward, to control, to support, to punish, to share, to respect, to fear, to give thanks, to cultivate responsibility or dependency, and much more. Money can also stir up feelings of envy, competition, comparison, a sense of belonging, and power. These experiences shape your feelings about money — whether you trust money or whether it causes anxiety; how you share, accept, and receive money; and how you use money for your own means.
Perhaps you saw your grandmother or mother turn over the household finances to your father, grandfather, or uncles. Perhaps you heard that there was not enough money for college, so the males in the family received a better education than the females. Maybe you have heard your family and relatives arguing over money or the contents of a will.
Or maybe you witnessed the positive, empowering ways that the women in your family dealt with money. Perhaps the women in your family were just as well educated as, or better educated than, the men. Maybe as early as you can remember your mother also had a career and contributed to the family income. This was the case with my own extended family. Everyone — males and females alike — was required to have an education and secure a career or job outside the home. As mentioned earlier, my mother had a career until she reached retirement age, so my sisters and I were expected to attend a university, become professionals, contribute to society, and pave the way for the next generation.
Historically, in most families, the husbands and fathers were the breadwinners who controlled the financial decisions, which placed women in dependent roles. Women’s roles traditionally have been identified with nurturing, homemaking, caring for the children, and so forth, plus supporting their husbands with their careers. That is why divorce can adversely affect women’s finances, often causing them to experience a dramatic drop in their standard of living and quality of life.
Every family, including yours, has its own money story or legacy, and every generation adds its own. And when emotions are added to the story, it can become legendary. Whatever your family story with money is, these experiences are likely deeply ingrained within you and the cause of some of your internal struggles with money.
LAURA’S STORY
Laura is a happily married writer with two children. When she was growing up, her family had little in the way of material things, and her parents let her brother and sisters know it.
Her parents were not frivolous with money. Laura watched her mother “stretch the dollar” quite effectively. She would go shopping with her mother to buy groceries and clothes for everyone; everything was purchased on sale, never at the regular price.
When we began working together, Laura was having a hard time shopping for clothes. Her husband, Nick, who’d had a different experience with money growing up, was the opposite. Sometimes he even told Laura to lighten up. It was hard for Laura to let go of her money, especially if an item was not on sale.
She described to me an internal battle that took place when she shopped. It took Laura a long time to decide whether to make a purchase. This exhausted her because having the money to pay for the purchases wasn’t even the issue — her family’s history with funds (or the lack thereof) was.
Our work included helping Laura to heal her emotions of fear and anxiety related to her family’s beliefs about money. The root of her internal battle came from not wanting to disrespect her parents, so she continued to uphold their old beliefs, even if they didn’t serve her.
The turning point came when Laura forgave her parents and herself for adopting these false beliefs about money, especially since she saw many examples of abundance (not lack) in her own life. Once Laura released these false beliefs, and adopted new and empowered beliefs about money, the internal battle that took place when she spent money while shopping finally ceased.
A Cultural Shift: The Joy of Financial Independence
Our culture defines the role money plays in our lives and dictates the right behaviors and ethics relating to money. Making good money is valued in our culture as a sign of prestige and status. Today in most Western cultures women are no longer expected to depend on men for their financial security. You are fully responsible for your financial independence and for how you earn, invest, save, and spend your money.
As any advertiser can tell you, a key aspect of our culture of consumerism is devoted to women and shopping. After all, women control 85 percent of all purchasing decisions. In the past, women were financially marginalized and did not have the opportunity to consume. This is no longer the case. Women’s shopping behaviors are now glorified by the phrases “shop till you drop” and “born to shop.”
How do you feel about shopping? Does it relieve loneliness and boredom by offering distractions? Does it provide a means of interacting with others and the world at large? Does it enhance your self-confidence and image? Does it provide an endorphin high, a form of self-soothing? Or do spending sprees, like various addictive behaviors, produce a remorseful low? The fact is, shopping can be a way to compensate for feeling unappreciated, devalued, or neglected. It can be an expensive way to fill a void in our lives. Driven by these emotions, shoppers can often be driven to compulsively overspend.
While consumerism is widespread in our culture, there is also a shift toward less consumption, in part to help protect the environment and in part due to the recognition that human connections are a more important part of leading a fulfilled life than material things.
JANET’S STORY
Janet admitted that she was a compulsive shopper. She loved to buy luxurious gifts for herself and her loved ones. After all, she was making a good income, so she could indulge herself. Her husband, Joe, disapproved of her spending habits and tried to curtail them.
Janet had a way of hiding her purchases and would tell her husband that the items she purchased were on sale, even if that was not the case. The problem was that her spending was getting out of control. She was simply spending more than she was making — plus, her credit card debt was ballooning.
As we worked together, Janet admitted she was not being honest about money with herself or her husband. She also uncovered the real reason for her compulsive spending. At the core, she was unhappy and experiencing midlife blues. Janet regretted that she had never made time to have children. She also resented working long hours in her business because it was consuming her life and affecting her health and well-being. Janet also took exception to the fact that despite her working overtime, her hard work did not seem to be making any difference because for the past three years she had not been able to break into six figures. This insight was the catalyst that enabled Janet to come to terms with her anger toward herself.
Janet resolved to take three necessary actions to change her relationship with money. First, she had an honest conversation with her husband about the state of her finances and the root cause of her behavior and sadness. The conversation she most dreaded turned out to be a blessing, bringing her and Joe much closer together. Second, since Janet felt loved and supported, she took another big step to create and follow an action plan to pay off
