Speaker 1: You're listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy
Speaker 1: and this is the author Snack series. Bobby Rebel is
Speaker 1: an author and host of the Financial grown Up podcast.
Speaker 1: Her newest book is launching Financial grown Ups. Live your
Speaker 1: richest life by helping your almost adult kids become everyday
Speaker 1: money smart. She was previously the Global Business News television
Speaker 1: anchor and personal finance columnist at Thompson Reuters. Bobby, why
Speaker 1: did you write this book? I wrote this book because
Speaker 1: I knew so much on paper and yet was failing
Speaker 1: fabulously with my almost adult children. And I was so
Speaker 1: almost embarrassed and baffled at the situation, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I had like two decades of covering investor news and
Speaker 1: writing about personal finance. I had become a certified financial
Speaker 1: planner a few years earlier, and yet my kids just
Speaker 1: wouldn't listen. And I realized that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: advice for parents of younger children who will They might
Speaker 1: not always listen, in that they might throw a temper
Speaker 1: tantument just ignore you, but they're not going to just
Speaker 1: kind of yes, you say, I got a mom, and
Speaker 1: like walk out the door with their friends. It's a
Speaker 1: different level and the stakes actually are much higher. You're
Speaker 1: not just teaching them lessons just as a lesson. This
Speaker 1: is actually happening to them and there are benefits and consequences.
Speaker 1: So I needed help, and I kind of looked for
Speaker 1: help and there wasn't So I went to my expert
Speaker 1: friends and there was a book. One thing that struck
Speaker 1: me was that your father was a big influence on
Speaker 1: you becoming financially independent at a young age. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about what led you to buy your first apartment
Speaker 1: at age twenty three? I mean, that's incredibly unusual. It
Speaker 1: is incredibly unusual, and you're right, my father had a
Speaker 1: huge role. And it's been very interesting watching his reaction
Speaker 1: to this book because he's sort of looking back and saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot I did sit you guys all down and
Speaker 1: just tell you had to tell me what you need
Speaker 1: for the semester. And he in that case, he was
Speaker 1: very generous. He wrote a check, but then that was it,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, I I you know I thought that, well,
Speaker 1: if you ran out of money, you would just get
Speaker 1: a job. And we did have jobs in college. So
Speaker 1: after school I went to Penn. A lot of my
Speaker 1: friends had these big fancy jobs, and I was just
Speaker 1: you know, going to my journalism job, and I was
Speaker 1: living at home, and we were looking at rental prices
Speaker 1: in this area called Lincoln Towers on the Upper West
Speaker 1: Side of Manhattan, and the rental prices were like a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month for a ground floor back of
Speaker 1: the building studio. So we did the math on that,
Speaker 1: and we realized that because it was a time when
Speaker 1: it was the early nineties, real estate was actually in
Speaker 1: a real slump in New York City, that if I
Speaker 1: had the down payment to buy basically that same studio
Speaker 1: and there were they were going for about a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So we did the math on, you know,
Speaker 1: what a loan would be in all the costs associated
Speaker 1: with it, and we realized that I could buy one
Speaker 1: and the total payments on that would be less than rent.
Speaker 1: And so oh, I you know, was able to get
Speaker 1: the down payment through having had savings. And then I
Speaker 1: did save by living at home for some time, which
Speaker 1: is something my stepdaughter did. And then you know, you
Speaker 1: do often need parents co signing for you at that age,
Speaker 1: so again I had that parental support, which is definitely
Speaker 1: privileged and definitely not something everyone has. But I was
Speaker 1: able to buy a co op in that complex it's
Speaker 1: called Lincoln Towers on the Upper West Side um in
Speaker 1: that market flop. But I will tell you no one
Speaker 1: else is buying real estate in general at that time.
Speaker 1: So I bought at a time when people were afraid
Speaker 1: to buy New York City real estate. And that was
Speaker 1: very risky in that sense. But we did the math
Speaker 1: and we felt that the amount of money I would
Speaker 1: save in even two or three years not paying rent,
Speaker 1: but paying this, you know, partially tax deductible, maintenance and mortgage.
Speaker 1: The mass just worked and so I did it. One
Speaker 1: of the interesting things about your books, you really put
Speaker 1: it into context how both COVID and the age of
Speaker 1: helicopter parenting has changed our relationship with how we how
Speaker 1: we talk about money with our kids. How has that
Speaker 1: impacted it. It's so interesting, and that's such a good question.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's changed our relationships, and that when
Speaker 1: normally kids adult kids move home, it's often in a
Speaker 1: situation where they are in financial distress, there's something going
Speaker 1: on related to them as a person. This they were
Speaker 1: moving home because something happening to everyone. So it was
Speaker 1: a shared experience, and there were other things happening. They
Speaker 1: didn't have activities to constantly run to. They weren't making
Speaker 1: plans to go see their friends in person, so they
Speaker 1: were around and sort of a little less attached to
Speaker 1: their friend group than they might have been. We also
Speaker 1: got to witness, and this is really interesting, we witnessed
Speaker 1: our adult children working at their jobs, and a lot
Speaker 1: of parents I don't think fully appreciated how hard their
Speaker 1: kids worked, and so that was a whole new appreciation
Speaker 1: of them as individuals, not just our children, and the
Speaker 1: way that other people see them and the way that
Speaker 1: other people might have expectations for them. It also helped
Speaker 1: create an environment where after a certain point, I mean
Speaker 1: remember when it was fifteen days to stop the spread. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so you got fifteen days, so your kid comes home,
Speaker 1: so maybe you're doing their laundry and making sure they
Speaker 1: have all their meals made for them. But as time
Speaker 1: went on past that fifteen days, things start to settle
Speaker 1: in a little differently, and maybe mom is not making
Speaker 1: all of her meals for her twenties something children, maybe
Speaker 1: they're starting to make them for their parents. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: starting to have different kinds of conversations with their parents
Speaker 1: about their adult money issues that are very different from
Speaker 1: just oh, i'm short on cash, can I have some money?
Speaker 1: Maybe they're really talking more about the things going on
Speaker 1: in their life and their goals and dreams, and they're
Speaker 1: also seeing, just through general conversation, the financial realities of
Speaker 1: their parents, which may not be as perfect as they
Speaker 1: necessarily assumed. A lot of us assume our parents have
Speaker 1: things always perfect, And I learned over the last few
Speaker 1: years even that my parents had more ups and downs
Speaker 1: than I was aware of at all when I was
Speaker 1: growing up that things were not always perfect. And they
Speaker 1: kept a lot of that from me at an age
Speaker 1: appropriate time, so it was not a mistake for them
Speaker 1: to not share it, But it was just interesting to
Speaker 1: learn that their career path worn't necessarily perfect all the time.
Speaker 1: What was your personal experience during the pandemic with your
Speaker 1: almost adult kids and talking about money. It was a
Speaker 1: lot of that. I mean, we did have a lot
Speaker 1: of conversations that we never would have had because, um,
Speaker 1: the oldest one, well, she had actually just graduated college
Speaker 1: and started her job, so she was very busy, and
Speaker 1: I got to witness how as I said, how hard
Speaker 1: she was working. She worked for a consulting company. And
Speaker 1: I also was able to see my stepson was he
Speaker 1: was gosh, he was a sophomore when he moved home.
Speaker 1: He's at NYU two Film School, so it was interesting
Speaker 1: to see him adjusting and to see how they related
Speaker 1: to their friends. And you know, you just talked to
Speaker 1: them more because they're there and you didn't have distractions.
Speaker 1: They weren't going out to meet their friends at night.
Speaker 1: They were just home. And so I remember we went
Speaker 1: the first few months we were um in the kind
Speaker 1: of upstate New York at a house and we had
Speaker 1: dinner the first night there. I remember it was a
Speaker 1: Taco Tuesday, and we all sat down to dinner together
Speaker 1: at the same time on a weeknight, not a special
Speaker 1: occasion or a holiday. And my youngest who is fourteen,
Speaker 1: comments and he says, we've never had dinner together, and
Speaker 1: everybody liked it. And we did start to really have
Speaker 1: dinner together where even if someone so wasn't hungry or whenever,
Speaker 1: they came and sat at dinner time, and so many
Speaker 1: conversations happened then and just getting to know each other
Speaker 1: in a way that wasn't as purposeful. It just happened
Speaker 1: sort of. I hate the word authentically, but it did.
Speaker 1: It happened authentically, and that that was a great experience
Speaker 1: for our family, and I think that they came to
Speaker 1: respect us. They saw us as adults, not just parents,
Speaker 1: which is also really healthy. They saw more of our
Speaker 1: lives because they're seeing it from a different perspective as
Speaker 1: young adults, not kids that are in high school getting
Speaker 1: ready to go to college. They're let they weren't as
Speaker 1: only focused on themselves. Were there any kind of financial
Speaker 1: stories about your ups and downs that you shared with
Speaker 1: them during this period of time that they didn't know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that I always share them because I think it's
Speaker 1: really important, So I don't I have to think that.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of struggling about the timing of when I
Speaker 1: share things. I certainly share the fact that you talked
Speaker 1: about the apartment. Well, after I got the apartment, I
Speaker 1: then wanted to do a Hampton share and I was
Speaker 1: so tight on money that I took out a load,
Speaker 1: which is not going to do and I have shared
Speaker 1: that publicly, It's in my previous book. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: so don't do that so they know that, so they
Speaker 1: know we do all you know. Look, we are always
Speaker 1: making mistakes all throughout life, and it's really a question
Speaker 1: of being able to course correct and make different decisions.
Speaker 1: But we all make mistakes, and I think that they're
Speaker 1: more than aware of that. There's also a fine line, right,
Speaker 1: and then I think parents try to struggle with what
Speaker 1: is too much to share and how do you figure
Speaker 1: that out? Well, you look at first of all, the
Speaker 1: child's personality, maturity, age, need. For example, in the book,
Speaker 1: I started age sixteen, because they need to know things
Speaker 1: if they're going to start driving a car, if they're
Speaker 1: going to have a job, there's a need that they
Speaker 1: have to understand the basics of what's going to come
Speaker 1: out of their paycheck and and the responsibilities that go
Speaker 1: with having a job. So you focus on all of
Speaker 1: those things, but remember that you may unintentionally give them
Speaker 1: reason to worry. So if you think that they are
Speaker 1: sort of getting a sense of things, it's important to
Speaker 1: talk to them directly so they're not just getting it
Speaker 1: from overhearing things. Sometimes we aren't as discreet as we
Speaker 1: think we are, and I think that's the worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: is when you unintentionally are giving them information to be worried.
Speaker 1: About so if that's happening, you need to be more
Speaker 1: direct with them and let them in on things. But
Speaker 1: it is important to give them a general sense of
Speaker 1: you know, your values when it comes to money, more
Speaker 1: than a scarcity mindset. You want to avoid that. So
Speaker 1: you can talk to them about where you're prioritizing your
Speaker 1: resources and maybe there are times when you're gonna be
Speaker 1: a little bit more careful with money because you have
Speaker 1: a goal like saving for their college. So you can
Speaker 1: talk to them about those kinds of things. You don't
Speaker 1: have to assign dollar numbers to everything. For example, if
Speaker 1: you want to talk to them about what we call
Speaker 1: state planning, which is a terrible name because it implies
Speaker 1: that you have to be uber wealthy. But the truth
Speaker 1: is all that means is kind of where everything goes,
Speaker 1: you know when you pass, and you can tell them
Speaker 1: the general ideas that you have without telling them dollar amounts.
Speaker 1: That said, a lot of information is available on the internet,
Speaker 1: So even if you have a little kid like Aby
Speaker 1: with a seven year old, if their kids, if their
Speaker 1: friends got curious, they can all look up what everybody's
Speaker 1: houses costs and things, so they can figure stuff out.
Speaker 1: Because of technology, they have a lot more information than
Speaker 1: we had when we were young, and so don't be
Speaker 1: naive and think that they don't know things. So control
Speaker 1: the information if you think that they're getting it. I
Speaker 1: used to host a radio show. It was a college show,
Speaker 1: and people would call with our problems, and the second
Speaker 1: most common problem was a failure to launch discussion of
Speaker 1: what do I do. My child won't leave the house
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, financial independence. They don't make
Speaker 1: an of money, and my spouse says we should kick
Speaker 1: them out. How do we handle this? Every case is different,
Speaker 1: but in general, you need to sit down with the
Speaker 1: young adults and talk about your expectations, your hopes for them,
Speaker 1: and really come up with a plan. And one of
Speaker 1: the toughest things to do is tell them that their dream.
Speaker 1: You know, they may be saying, well, i'm home because
Speaker 1: I'm working on this business. So I'm working on my
Speaker 1: big project. You have to basically say, okay, but you
Speaker 1: need income too, So if you want to be here,
Speaker 1: I need to see an income producing job. I don't
Speaker 1: care if you don't like it. You need a job
Speaker 1: just to have a job for money, and unless you do,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to find another place to live by
Speaker 1: this time, and of course it depends on the context.
Speaker 1: If they've been home a week, give them a break.
Speaker 1: But they have to have an exit strategy, and that
Speaker 1: is one of the themes that I talked about in
Speaker 1: the book. But along with expectations, you also have to
Speaker 1: let them know that you have confidence in them, that
Speaker 1: they can do it, and that you believe in them,
Speaker 1: and that you're there as a resource, not a financial resource,
Speaker 1: but as a resource to come up with ideas and
Speaker 1: to brainstorm and let them figure out the details. But
Speaker 1: let them know that this is a very temporary situation
Speaker 1: and that they you know, set a timeline work backwards.
Speaker 1: If they say they need more times, they explain to
Speaker 1: me why, and make a decision if you think that's valid.
Speaker 1: But you need to really set the bar high and
Speaker 1: let them know that they can do it. That's the
Speaker 1: biggest thing, because there's usually more psychology than fact in
Speaker 1: why they're staying home. They're probably afraid to fail. They're
Speaker 1: afraid to disappoint you. They might have set a goal
Speaker 1: and set it publicly and they haven't gotten they haven't
Speaker 1: made it yet, right, so they don't want to disappoint
Speaker 1: anyone it's okay to be doing a job job while
Speaker 1: you're following your dream. So much of your book, what
Speaker 1: I enjoy about it is that it's not just like
Speaker 1: here the facts, here's how to set up a rath.
Speaker 1: I R right. It's it's infused with emotion, which I
Speaker 1: think is such a big part of our relationship with money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that was the hard part. It is more psychology
Speaker 1: then fact. I do have the factual information in there,
Speaker 1: but I had that and I was failing, and that's
Speaker 1: because I wasn't communicating well. It's important to really think about,
Speaker 1: for example, the tone in which you speak to your children,
Speaker 1: and make sure it's a supportive tone, not a judgmental tone,
Speaker 1: that you're accepting them, that you're hearing what they are saying.
Speaker 1: One of the people interviewed in my book, and I
Speaker 1: believe you've interviewed her on this this podcast, is Tory Dunlap.
Speaker 1: So she's right in this category. She's twenty five years old,
Speaker 1: and the most important thing she really said, and I
Speaker 1: think she's spot on, is listen and hear what your
Speaker 1: child is saying, because if you just yell at them
Speaker 1: to get out of the house by a certain date,
Speaker 1: date probably won't, by the way, and it's going to
Speaker 1: ruin your relationship and create tension. And what's the point
Speaker 1: of that, right, You're basically saying you're a failure. Get
Speaker 1: out of my house. So that's not what you want
Speaker 1: to do. You want to just listen to them. Tell
Speaker 1: me why you're here. What is this, you know, season
Speaker 1: of your life doing to get you to where you
Speaker 1: want to? How can I help you besides just indefinitely
Speaker 1: providing a place to sleep, I want to help you proactively,
Speaker 1: you know maybe, And I say in the book, if
Speaker 1: you have connections, life is hard enough. Make the connection,
Speaker 1: Make make the introduction, make sure your child is going
Speaker 1: to follow up, make sure it's going to be well received.
Speaker 1: But do the things that you can do within your
Speaker 1: power reasonably to help them leave. Did you talk to
Speaker 1: your kids before you wrote the book about the fact
Speaker 1: that you felt like you were failing. I'm connecting with
Speaker 1: them on this front. Yes, yes, And what did they
Speaker 1: and what did they say? Okay? So Ashley wrote the
Speaker 1: epilogue and it's my favorite part of the book. And
Speaker 1: I had to so and I can be a helicopter
Speaker 1: parent even though I was aware of it, and didn't
Speaker 1: want to be it. I see it. I see it
Speaker 1: all the time. And she, you know, she wrote this
Speaker 1: epilogue which gives her perspective on what I wrote, and
Speaker 1: it gives her money tips and her justification of a
Speaker 1: lot of things that we thought about. And so it's
Speaker 1: really funny. So she defends her decision in the epilogue,
Speaker 1: which I talked about in the book, how she's live
Speaker 1: thing at home, rent free. You know, we're not charging
Speaker 1: her for anything except the phone, but which has done
Speaker 1: another thing. But but we're basically and she's living free.
Speaker 1: And I am watching her savings bill that she's doing great.
Speaker 1: And the pandemic helped because she wasn't running to go
Speaker 1: out with her friends. There was a lot less temptation.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden she's like, oh, um,
Speaker 1: my boyfriend and I are buying season passes to Disney World.
Speaker 1: Now we live in New York City, Disney World has
Speaker 1: in Orlando. There's a pandemic. Her number one priority is
Speaker 1: saving for this apartment that she's wanted since she was thirteen,
Speaker 1: basically since she met me and moved in and she
Speaker 1: heard my story. She's been saving for this apartment for
Speaker 1: you know whatever, almost a decade, and I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is not aligned with what you've told me you want
Speaker 1: to do, and it's my job to help you. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm also thinking and I need you, I
Speaker 1: love you, but I want you to go out and
Speaker 1: be happy. And you know, because we had everybody home
Speaker 1: for the demic and she just was adamant and we
Speaker 1: thought about it. I was so angry and she justified
Speaker 1: it and I sort of went, well, I can't control it.
Speaker 1: She'll be home forever and this is not going well.
Speaker 1: My book will just my book, you know, my book.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, it'll work out if she buys the apartment.
Speaker 1: If she doesn't, that'll be just a reality check, okay.
Speaker 1: And in the epilogue, I'm not going to go into
Speaker 1: the whole story, you will hear her perspective on how
Speaker 1: she justified buying season passes for Disney World while living
Speaker 1: in New York City in a pandemic the Disney World
Speaker 1: in Orlando. But Ashley, he's really grown into her own
Speaker 1: and she has look she has to choose her priorities
Speaker 1: and that's the other thing. She's getting a puppy now.
Speaker 1: She waited, so she had sort of more money in
Speaker 1: her emergency fund. And she's been in the apartment for
Speaker 1: a year at this point, and so now she's literally
Speaker 1: getting a puppy in a few days. So she waited
Speaker 1: for it, and she's researched that since she researched all
Speaker 1: the costs. Do I think she should get a puppy out? No,
Speaker 1: I think she should wait a couple more years. But
Speaker 1: she I have full confidence I'm not paying for the puppy.
Speaker 1: What kind of financial grown up advice would you give
Speaker 1: to college students considering graduate school? You need to actually
Speaker 1: talk about it and run the numbers and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you are going to use the law degree and
Speaker 1: this is important to you, that's fine, but look at
Speaker 1: what it costs and really think about what kind of
Speaker 1: law you're going to practice, because that's where it really
Speaker 1: falls apart. You have to look. I mean, I saw
Speaker 1: I just opened to TikTok account, so everybody please follow me.
Speaker 1: It's just my name. But I saw a TikTok and
Speaker 1: it said and it was mortifying because it said, the
Speaker 1: five jobs from that you get an undergraduate degree, that
Speaker 1: are the worst jobs, the worst value. In other words,
Speaker 1: if you like, if you have student debt and you
Speaker 1: need to pay them off. These are the five worst jobs.
Speaker 1: And journalism, which is basically what I've done my whole life,
Speaker 1: was like top of the list of like jobs where
Speaker 1: you can kind of earn your money back. So that
Speaker 1: would be a bad move financially. It doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: don't do it, but you need to recognize. So if
Speaker 1: you're going to go into law, I think I don't
Speaker 1: know enough about which areas of law necessarily pay the most,
Speaker 1: But you should think about if you're going to have
Speaker 1: have a lot of law school debt, what is the
Speaker 1: plan to pay it off as quickly as possible. Think
Speaker 1: about what kind of law will pay really well? Where
Speaker 1: is the demand for lawyers right now? For the highest
Speaker 1: paid law You may not seeing it forever, but just
Speaker 1: go for it. Because the other thing is people think
Speaker 1: their money is tight when they're in the lowest paying
Speaker 1: jobs in their earlier in their career, but actually, because
Speaker 1: you often have no dependence, you have the most discretionary
Speaker 1: money and it's the easiest to pay off those loans.
Speaker 1: So really focusing down when you're young and just out
Speaker 1: can really help. That's something that's very relevant. Unfortunately in
Speaker 1: places like medical school, but also even undergrad I mean,
Speaker 1: think about the career you're going into and now a
Speaker 1: quick break. What is your perspective on women and money?
Speaker 1: I mean you have worked with at this point, I
Speaker 1: would imagine thousands of people and are their gender differences
Speaker 1: in In why I think there are gender different because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of women it's a stereotype, unfortunately
Speaker 1: for a reason. And I think you've seen this, and
Speaker 1: that's something that you've been such a wonderful advocate for
Speaker 1: that women are many it's it's I don't like to generalize,
Speaker 1: but women can sometimes fall into the trap of wanting
Speaker 1: someone to just take care of them and deal with
Speaker 1: that because they perceived that they're not good at money.
Speaker 1: But the truth is money is not that hard. Don't
Speaker 1: spend more than you have, make sure your money is
Speaker 1: invested and diversified. That's really kind of it, right. So
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not a specialist in that, but I
Speaker 1: think that women have more need for money because we
Speaker 1: earn less and we live longer, and we often in
Speaker 1: cases of divorce and by the way, I'm divorced, I've
Speaker 1: seen my husband went was divorced from his from his
Speaker 1: ex obviously, and so I've seen how the money goes.
Speaker 1: And what women need to understand is that sometimes a
Speaker 1: marriage will end, even not through divorce. Sometimes you can
Speaker 1: be widowed, or all kinds of things can happen. Your
Speaker 1: husband could lose their job. Both men that I was
Speaker 1: married to have had career ups and downs, and you
Speaker 1: have to step in. I have twice had to be
Speaker 1: the breadwinner unexpectedly. Right now he's the primary breadwinner, but
Speaker 1: I always make sure I'm earning money. He's been very
Speaker 1: supportive of it. He keeps saying he wants to be
Speaker 1: a kept man. So I think that you are always
Speaker 1: going to feel more confident and more secure if you
Speaker 1: have money that you control. And by the way, my
Speaker 1: first marriage that I just alluded to, had I not
Speaker 1: had both money and wonderful family support, I think it
Speaker 1: would have been much harder for me to leave. And
Speaker 1: it makes me very sad. And I am on the
Speaker 1: board of a charity that works to educate women that
Speaker 1: are victims of domestic violence on financial literacy, because without money,
Speaker 1: it is very hard to leave a bad situation. And
Speaker 1: that's the extreme version of it. But I'm very passionate
Speaker 1: about that problem. And finding ways to get women to
Speaker 1: advocate for themselves when it comes to participating in family
Speaker 1: money decisions and not just step back. What is one
Speaker 1: piece of advice that you would give that isn't in
Speaker 1: the book. I'll tell you somethings that have happened since
Speaker 1: the book that are just personal anecdotes that really show
Speaker 1: that even as far along as I have come, the
Speaker 1: journey really does continue. As much as that is the cliche,
Speaker 1: that I still catch myself doing helicopter and snowplow things.
Speaker 1: So just recently, for example, we notice we're going so
Speaker 1: we're going on this trip to Alaska, but we have
Speaker 1: to go through Canada, and so we want to make
Speaker 1: sure our passports are up to date, which everyone should
Speaker 1: do anyway. So Bradley is twenty two years old, and
Speaker 1: we noticed his passport was expired. So we because we
Speaker 1: know that when you have children, you have to go
Speaker 1: to the passport office of the post office together to
Speaker 1: get it renewed. My husband and I went to the
Speaker 1: post office to get it renewed, and we were informed
Speaker 1: that he's an adult and he has to do it himself.
Speaker 1: We wanted to renew his passport. Are you getting the connection,
Speaker 1: like we don't perceive our child like it didn't occur
Speaker 1: to us to just like tell our twenty two year
Speaker 1: old to renew his past for it now. When we did,
Speaker 1: he was like okay, and he just like made an appointment.
Speaker 1: He did it like he's perfectly capable. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that happened that's not in the book is for
Speaker 1: the high holidays last year. So we're Jewish, we go
Speaker 1: to the synagogue, and the way that it works if
Speaker 1: you get tickets for the high holidays and you write
Speaker 1: to them and you say how many you know you need,
Speaker 1: and they allocate appropriately depending on you know your membership.
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, we need to for my
Speaker 1: husband and I we need three for our children. And
Speaker 1: I get back a note that said, well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: give you, you you know, two adult tickets for um, you
Speaker 1: and your husband will give you. You You have a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old, no problem, you can or he's thirteen at
Speaker 1: the time, um, and you can, you know. And then
Speaker 1: there's a college student ticket, no problem. And they said,
Speaker 1: but Ashley needs her own membership. I was so offended.
Speaker 1: I was like, what do you mean? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I went to my husband, like they want her to
Speaker 1: have her own membership, and you know, I wrote back
Speaker 1: and I was like, what do you mean, and she said,
Speaker 1: she's twenty five, she needs her own membership. But she's
Speaker 1: my child. And they're like, but she's an adult, and
Speaker 1: so all this this day, but it keeps happening, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying. I'm right there with all of you.
Speaker 1: I guess it's my advice that's not in the book
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't magic like go away. We always
Speaker 1: see these adults as our children and they're fine. I
Speaker 1: mentioned Ashley and she was like, we ended up not
Speaker 1: going because Delta Vera got crazy and we didn't want
Speaker 1: to be in person. But she was like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll look into my own membership like it's not them,
Speaker 1: it's us. And so that's the advice I would give.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of like check yourself because we all
Speaker 1: have these moments where we just can't like process that
Speaker 1: even though there are children, like literally legally they are adults.
Speaker 1: You legally cannot do certain things. You cannot renew your
Speaker 1: adult child's passport for them. Society is stopping us. But
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's really hard to let go and it's
Speaker 1: hard to understand that they are fine. The book is
Speaker 1: launching Financial grown Ups, and that was Bobby Rebel. I
Speaker 1: am going to be giving this to every teen parent
Speaker 1: on my list and highly recommend reading it. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy What's Her Story with Sam and Amy, please do
Speaker 1: leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, and do
Speaker 1: let us know what you think of the author snack
Speaker 1: series by commenting on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast