Reality Bites: The Frugal Teenager, Ready or Not (NY Times)

From cell phones and designer jeans to graduation parties that felt like a show biz event, many parents treated their kids like royalty (or did they spoil them rotten).

With homes as cash machines a thing of the past and the credit faucet being turned off, reality bites and the grown ups have to explain the birds and the bees of money to their baffled teenagers.

Thrift shops are not cool for most of them as The Frugal Teenager, Ready or Not by Jan Hoffman (NY Times, October 10) reports.

The article mentions the Postle family as an example:

“No” could no longer be the starting gun of family fights. It would have to be an absolute.

“I tried to tell Kaitlyn, ‘We’ll get the Hollister jeans at a thrift store,’ ” Mrs. Postle recalled. “She got angry and said: ‘That’s gross! Other people wore them!’ ”

Jan Hoffman notes how many of us parents created a sense of entitlement:

"Indulged. Entitled. Those labels have become hot-glued to middle-class and affluent teenagers born after the last major economic downturn, in the late 1980s. They were raised in comparatively flush times by parents who believed that keeping children happy, stimulated and successful, no matter the cost, was an unassailable virtue."

We will all survive it and maybe even become better persons.

Another aspect of going from Consumed to Thrifty.

Related: Is Middle School Graduation turning into A Fashion Display?