Sir, – While I agree that an initiation into provident attitudes to money is part of a child’s education, I disagree with one piece of advice in “How to teach kids about money: Put them on the payroll, €2 shopping trips and other tips” (Weekend, July 25th).
The admonition to “Put them on the payroll” diminishes a child’s experience and absorption of the concept of pure altruism, a more vital quality, which needs to be nourished early. Financial wisdom can be encouraged in many ways, as the remainder of the article rightly suggests – and it can be taught.
To reduce the benefits of working together, of “mucking in”, to a cash payment might increase their power as consumers. The absence of this tangible reward might involve managing some character-building protests – but the lessons internalised are for life. – Yours, etc,
MONICA NOLAN,
Matt Williams: Take a deep breath and see how Sam Prendergast copes with big Fiji test
New Irish citizens: ‘I hear the racist and xenophobic slurs on the streets. Everything is blamed on immigrants’
Jack Reynor: ‘We were in two minds between eloping or going the whole hog but we got married in Wicklow with about 220 people’
‘I could have gone to California. At this rate, I probably would have raised about half a billion dollars’
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.