Personal finance expert Dave Ramsey says that people who are good at handling money often try to control other parts of their lives as well, which can make parenting feel much more challenging.
Answering a question from a 28-year-old man whose wealthy in-laws wanted him to sign a prenup, Ramsey said people often become more controlling as their wealth grows. He said that having more money has given him the ability to control a lot of “variables” in life, but warned that this tendency to control can sometimes become a “bad feature” and shared how it affected his parenting.
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“What I had to face, the hardest parenting I’ve ever done in my life because when they’re little, you just freaking tell them what to do,” Ramsey said. “When they’re like grown and paying their own bills and stuff, you don’t get to do that anymore. For control people with money like me, it’s a real problem.”
Money ‘Makes Them More of What They Already Are’
Ramsey said that because of his wealth, he has become “used to” telling people what to do, but his grown-up children don’t always follow his instructions. He said he had to repeatedly read a self-help book on personal boundaries during parenting because “otherwise I invade my grown children’s boundaries.”
“Sometimes when people get money, it makes them more of what they already are, and they learn to control the variables, that’s how they get money which is good, it’s a good part of control,” Ramsey said. “But then you try to control your kids’ lives.”
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Ramsey said he has put family assets into a trust so that only blood relatives have access and a spouse cannot claim them in a divorce. He thinks this setup removes the need for a prenup and protects the family’s wealth.
Ramsey believes that wealth can make it easy to become overcontrolling and ignore personal limits or boundaries. He also shared the advice he gave his daughter and her husband on their marriage.
“I told Winston when he married Rachel, ‘she’s your problem, man, that’s it, this one’s got drama, man, you just better be ready, don’t come crying to me,'” Ramsey said. “‘And Rachel, don’t you come crying to me either, you talk to him, he’s your, you’re his problem.'”
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