Should Kids Have Credit Cards

Why shouldn’t kids have credit cards?” “It teaches them responsibility.” “They

need to learn how to handle money.” These are all things you might have heard before.

Only the last one is right. I believe everyone needs to be taught how to handle money,

but you wouldn’t do it by handing someone a million dollars. Just like you shouldn’t

teach your teen about money by handing them a credit card.

A one line joke people tell is that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at

math. Well credit cards are also a tax, but on people who ignore math. Credit cards tempt

you to spend more than you have. If you have cash you can only spend that cash, but a

credit card allows you to go way further. Credit cards seem so convenient at the

time.

You’ll be able to pay it back later, right? You might, but you also pay interest. So in the

end you pay more just to get what you want a little sooner, and most of America is doing

it.

Soon enough spending on your credit card becomes a habit, a really expensive

one. It’s hard to accumulate money in a short amount of time. If you own a credit

card it makes it even harder. Its better to put your money in a bank account then

spend it paying off debt, which is exactly what you get if you don’t handle your

credit card responsibly. Most teens aren’t mature enough to be given a source of

money that they can spend however they want.

As we join this world as adults we’re eager for the privileges, but not the

cares. If we’re taught how to save and take care of our money by our parents it

would reduce the cares to a minimal amount. Credit cards and the debt that follows

just increase the problems. More kids drop out of college because of credit cards debt

problems than academic failure. I agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said “A

man in debt is so far a slave.”

Our great-grandparents thought debt was a sin. Our grandparents only borrowed

small things. Our parents are probably in debt over college, their first house, and that TV

they bought two years ago. Our mindset has changed and it’s running our country off

a

cliff. We need to reconsider our spending habits. Credit cards are like an infection. It

started with the parents and is spreading to the teens. We need an immunization.