Kris and I have been through a lot of stress since we met each other in 2004. Some events include being on unaccompanied tours of duty 2 times (going on a third soon), Kris having a child while I was in Afghanistan, and Kris not being able to see her mom for over 11 years. All these events are stressful. As we raise our children and prepare them for life outside “the wire”, we have to ensure that they know how to cope with stress.
We cannot predict what stressors that are kids will encounter, however, we know that they will fall into predictable categories. Life stressors include family stress, relationship stress, work stress, and random stress. Without preparing our children to cope with these issues, we are setting them up for divorce, drugs, alcohol, violence, or suicide. We also need to prepare OURSELVES to be able to assist mentally and/or financially. It is not a good practice to just throw money at a situation, however, if we see warning signs, we need to be able to pull our children back in. Sometimes as reset is better than leaving our children out in the wild. I have seen too many instances of people having no support. Bad news does not get better with time. Let’s review the different stressors.
Family Stress: This is the first kind of stress that we feel. Usually, when we are a teenager we start to clash with our parents over certain issues. We then move out. Later when we have children, we learn why our parents had to make certain decisions. As parents, the more help we can give to our children, the better chance our children have of staying married, healthy and happy. Some ways we can assist our let me rent out or homes for a discount, assist with (or pay for) daycare, or purchase them a used car. These things will be an enormous help to young couples and parents and allow the couple to focus on each other and the children.
Relationship Stress: Having a relationship with your spouse can be very stressful. I will say that, for my experience, 30% is actually inter-personal stress and the other 70% is financial. This means that if you can get the financial part of the relationship correct, you have a much higher success rate of the marriage. In order to get the financial part correct, couples need to communicate. There needs to be a mission statement (or common goal) at all times. Whether that is to save for vacation or pay of a credit card, there always needs to be a plan. That way no one feels that the other is out of control or a “wildcard”. For the inter-personal portion, we need to learn how to love each other. Always read books and discuss them together. Talk as much as you can. If you don’t have a lot in common (like watching sports or hobbies), do things together that will build unity. Kris and I don’t have a lot in common around the house, but we have done so much together over the years that we can sit and talk for hours on end. That is why it is called “building a relationship”.
Work Stress: Everyone’s favorite. Most work stress occurs because we feel that we are trapped in our jobs. We all dream of working an amazing job with amazing people, but sadly that is not always the case throughout our 30-40 years in the workforce. The best way to control work stress is to control spending and saving habits. If you have 6 month’s salary in the bank and also a nice investment portfolio, you are more likely to have a lot less stress then the next person. You know that you have options. As parents, we can help our children out by telling them that we are there to assist them. It may seem that we are making them weaker however, we are actually empowering them to fight back against the system. The system wants our children to be broken, alone, and scared. We cannot allow this to happen. Work is all about control. We need to buy our children’s freedom early.
Random Stress: My personal favorite. Just when you get a handle on everything else in life sometimes randomly happens. That is just a way of life. Besides a medical emergency, most of these random encounters can be solved with a saving account. A few months ago Kris and I had a squirrel in our attic. It costs $1400 to remove the squirrel and also to ensure it didn’t happen again. 10 years ago, I would have been crying if I had to pay $1400. Now that I have a saving account, it wasn’t such a big deal. As parents, we need to be prepared for our children’s emergencies as well. I am investing in saving bonds for my children already. When these kinds of things happen, they will be able to liquidate those bonds for cash. This is a lot better than the kids running up huge sums of credit card debt. That would lead to more relationship stress.
As you can see, parents can play a huge role in their children’s lives, if they want to. I know most parents want the children out on their own with minimum financial assistance from the parents. I can understand this, however, I have seen too often that the stressors of the world are almost insurmountable. Once you are down, they will keep you down. Kris and I choose to get involved and to stay involved. There is no point in us working for all these years, building ourselves up, and having nice things if our children are off somewhere struggling. Our kids will be okay.
Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Leave a Reply