David Owen on Parenting, Money, and the First National Bank of Dad

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2012

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

David Owen, author of The First National Bank of Dad, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how to educate our children about money and finance. Owen explains how he created his own savings accounts for his kids that gave them an incentive to save and other ways to teach them about postponing gratification, investing, keeping money in perspective and other life lessons. The conversation closes with a discussion of the value of reading to your kids.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts
0:13.9	of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org
0:21.3	where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to
0:26.5	other information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mail at econtalk.org. We'd
0:33.6	love to hear from you. Today is May 1st, 2012, and my guest is David Owen, journalist and author.
0:44.2	His latest book is the conundrum which we discussed a few episodes back on econ talk. Today we're
0:50.1	going to discuss an earlier book of his, the first national bank of dad, a foolproof method for
0:55.5	teaching your kids the value of money. David, welcome back to econ talk. Thank you. Now, people
1:01.8	tend to think of economics as being about money. It's something that frustrates me as an economist
1:06.1	that people often on an airplane if I tell them I'm an economist will ask me advice about the
1:11.1	stock market or tell me that must be handy during tax time. And of course, I don't know a lot about
1:17.0	the stock market and I pay someone to do my taxes. But people do, there is a part of economics
1:23.8	that is about money, obviously transactions and investing and saving are all have to do with
1:29.0	money and those are economics. But what I also like about money and about your book is that it
1:36.0	reminds me of what a student told me that she had heard from a former professor that economics is
1:41.1	the study of how to get the most out of life. And this book while about money is really about
1:47.0	helping our children get the most out of life. And of course, that would help us to his parents.
1:52.7	The National Bank of Dad, which the title of your book comes from, is your way to encourage
1:58.4	your children to postpone pleasure and to learn about savings, which is a very valuable skill.
2:03.5	So how does the National Bank of Dad work? Well, what happened to the story it was that when
2:09.8	my daughter was very little, I did the thing that parents always do. And when she was about three,
2:15.9	I took her down to the bank and made a big show of opening a savings account for her
	...

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