The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

4.4 | 831 ratings

Price: 16.53

Last update: 12-26-2024

About this item

We may not realize it, but children are hyperaware of money. They have scores of questions about its nuances that parents often don't answer, or know how to answer well. But for Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist and father, good parenting means talking about money with our kids much more often. When parents avoid these conversations, they lose a tremendous opportunity—not just to model important financial behaviors, but also to imprint lessons about what their family cares about most.

Written in a warm, accessible voice, grounded in real-world stories from families with a range of incomes, The Opposite of Spoiled is a practical guidebook for parents that is rooted in timeless values. Lieber covers all the basics: the best ways to handle the tooth fairy, allowance, chores, charity, savings, birthdays, holidays, cell phones, splurging, clothing, cars, part-time jobs, and college tuition. But he also identifies a set of traits and virtues—like modesty, patience, generosity, and perspective—that parents hope their young adults will carry with them out into the world.

In The Opposite of Spoiled, Ron Lieber delivers a taboo-shattering manifesto that will help every parent embrace the connection between money and values to help them raise young adults who are grounded, unmaterialistic, and financially wise beyond their years.

Dan Danford

The Opposite of Spoiled is the opposite of default.

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2015

Children will learn about money. What they learn is up to us. They’ll either learn by intention or by default. Default feels unacceptable in our affluent society.

Lieber is an accomplished financial writer with a passion for kids and money. The Opposite of Spoiled offers some great insight into America’s last taboo: money. In a culture that routinely exploits religion, race, sex, and violence, money may be the last frontier. Money is the one subject not discussed at our family dinner tables. Too many kids – from all rungs of the economic ladder - learn about values and money by default.

Intentionality is the strength of this book. Lieber chronicles a variety of parents and how they’ve deliberately approached allowances, summer jobs, family trade-offs, gift-giving, consumer needs, wants, values, and charities. Not all solutions will fit all families, and that’s not the point anyway. The point is to be intentional about the money lessons in our own families. The point is to be intentional about the money lessons for our children.

Lieber doesn’t lecture. Stories make this book powerful. He invites us to meet thoughtful parents with unique expertise and perspective on the child-money challenge. How would a renowned philanthropist revamp middle school gift-giving? How would a successful real estate agent illustrate the opportunities and limitations of a large monthly paycheck? How does a Utah farm family teach the value of hard work to their children?

This isn’t a book laden with scholarly studies, although those works are present. Rather, it is a dynamic presentation of ideas and thinking about important life lessons for children. The Opposite of Spoiled is the opposite of default.

D S

Lots of good practical points

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2015

Good book. Easy enjoyable read, has some good points. Stressed the give part heavily. That's hard for a child to care about. We keep 2 jars, spend and save and at Christmas discuss giving to a good cause. I liked points of discussing the cause, and what the child feels is important. Is giving to the Art museum really helping people who need it, or giving to a homeless shelter or animal shelter? The depth of these questions was brought to my attention, neat how their daughter's private school has round table discussions about it. Has made me think about this in a different light when talking with my kids about what they think is important

Olivia A.

it seemed like the perfect time to pick it up

Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2017

I heard about The Opposite of Spoiled through Ron Lieber's appearance on the Art of Manliness podcast last year. His logical, thoughtful approach to teaching kids about money struck me, especially since many of them contradicted what I'd always assumed I would do as a parent. Providing an allowance in exchange for chores was a given to me--until Lieber gave his counterargument that chores and household tasks are something that should be expected of every member of the family without reciprocation, since it's just part of being a person. We're always going to have to do chores, and at some point we're going to stop receiving a paycheck to do them. That fascinated me, and I knew at that moment I'd need to read this book before I had children. Since my husband and I are now expecting our first child, it seemed like the perfect time to pick it up.

While this book seems to be aimed at those in much higher income brackets than my husband and myself, I felt it was an incredibly valuable resource. I appreciate the depth of Lieber's research--rather than postulating theories and framing himself as a standalone expert, he spent a good deal of time traveling and interviewing families of all income levels and lifestyles to get their perspectives, as well as offering his own advice. I recommend this book to all parents, those who plan to be parents, and those who come into regular contact with children. It's truly eye-opening, inspiring, and motivating.

David

Good read--quality printing

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2022

This is an easy read with some very interesting ideas and strategies in it. Not everything was applicable to me as my kids are still very young and some strategies/issues were for people a little more well off than we are. Still this book was really good and I highly recommend it. Not sure what all the hate is about with these other reviews...

Momproff

A bit too “Raising Kids Who Are Grounded Even If You’re Not”

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2017

There were some helpful ideas in here for how to talk to kids about money, manage their allowance, and instill gratitude and a strong work ethic in them. But ultimately, it was really hard to look past the elephant in the room in so many examples: the materialism and lack of groundedness that characterizes a lot of people highlighted in his examples and, presumably, many of the people this book seems to target. The book is at its most helpful when it straightforwardly tells readers to be transparent with their kids about money—from budgeting to answering the question “Are we rich?” But it’s hard to read when it’s advising parents who send their kids to elite private schools and summer camps, when it’s talking about how to make lower-income friends given the (unchallenged) reality of housing and education segregation, or when it’s telling readers to have their kids pay for some of their college expenses as though it’s not simply the reality (and a common sense value connected to work ethic) for the vast majority of Americans. It also doesn’t ever address the idea that there actually are limits to what we ought to spend on our kids, even for the most well-off. Given the correlation the author talks about between high levels of materialism and lower levels of happiness—and the realities of climate change and a finite planet that he doesn’t ever talk about—we don’t have to struggle to articulate reasons for limiting what our kids have when we have enough money to buy them more. The reasons are all around us—Americans consume too much, and it’s bad for us and for the planet. It’s a message that kids—and their parents most of all, it seems from this book—need to hear. And they won’t listen to what we tell them about money if we don’t live it ourselves—something this book doesn’t point out to those readers who actually do, apparently, have “too much.”

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