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| First Person |
Teach Your Children Well
Jamie Johnson (as told to Leslie Bennetts)
07/01/2004
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Often, there is no real communication between parents and their
children. There is both secrecy and a lack of awareness. Wealth is a subject
everyone has traditionally been told not to talk about; it is a taboo. When I
made my film, my parents were really anxious about it at first. My father comes
from the old-school belief that you do not talk about money; to do so is
tasteless.
But that attitude doesn’t really help anyone. If people are not
willing to talk about the wealth they have created, and about how their children
can be part of preserving the family business or the family wealth, you have
confusion, and you run into a lot of problems. That is when you end up seeing
the family company fail, or people losing their family fortune.
I would
suggest a more nurturing experience centered on a dialogue between the parents
and the child, wherein the parents want their child to become part of something
in which they are involved. If you suggest to your child that the idea of
preserving or creating wealth is more important than simply possessing it, you
are going to have a better result, and you are going to create a more productive
and fulfilled individual.
Embarrassment of Riches
If you give a child too much from an early age, if
you hand him or her all these goods, you are encouraging that child to feel
entitled, to assume a sense of superiority as a result of the goods. You are
suggesting that the goods themselves are more important than deeds, more
important than being productive. If you are giving young children a lot of
stuff, you are going to create a situation in which they do not value what they
have.
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