When Adam entered 6th grade I decided to begin a new tradition with him. I decided that I would take him out for breakfast once a week before school, and during that time I would take some intentional steps in helping him move from boyhood to manhood. We have been blessed to have good schools for our boys, but we know that there are some subjects that our education system is unable to tackle. That’s where we as parents come in.
We go to different places each week, but our favorite is Barksdale. Adam likes tradition, and our waiter knows what we want as soon as we walk in. We love that place.
The first year we read a book together on the topic of manhood. Last year we continued the tradition, and our focus was on memorizing Scripture. This year we’re reading another book together, but we’re also talking about money. When Adam turned 11 Mandy and I opened a car fund savings account for him. We told him that when he was ready to buy a car, we would match whatever he wants to spend. Let me tell you…the kid caught on to this. He’s a natural saver, and I’m a bit worried about what he’s going to want to buy in a few years!
This summer he got his first real job helping to teach swim lessons. He did a great job, and I think he really enjoyed it. A few weeks ago I talked to him about the power of compound interest, explaining what $500 could look like 40 years from now. It’s a little over $20k. Here’s the crazy thing. Hold it for another 10 years and it comes close to tripling! He was pretty amazed. So he took his taxable income from his summer job and we opened a Roth IRA for him. Can we say Proud Dad Moment!
I’ve always known that I wanted to take an active role in the formation of my kids. I believe that there is a unique role that dads play in this task. Like every other man I know though, my biggest obstacle was myself. I didn’t know how to do it. Fearing that this would lead to never doing anything because I didn’t have the perfect plan, I mustered up the courage to do one breakfast. The next week Adam asked if we could do it again. And then he did it again the next week. He’s grown to love the routine, and you better believe that I’m going to maximize this for as long as he wants to do it.
