Third Friday's Lesson: Money is less tangible

My digital natives don't get money.  I mean they see coins or paper currency and identify it as money, but they don't understand how it interacts with people or functions in ther world.  They see a plastic debit card make the purchases in their lives.  There are very few opportunities when my kids witness me pay cash for anything.  My older child is learning about coin and bill values in school and knows that she can collect money in her piggy bank.  However, last week I was jolted into the reality that she totally doesn't understand where money comes from or how and why we use it.

Here was our eye-opening conversation: 
     Child:  "Can we go out to dinner?  I want La Toltecas."
     Me:  "Mommy hasn't budgeted the money to go out for dinner tonight, we are eating at home." 
     Child:  (Pouts with a huge huff) "Why don't you just go to the box and get more?" 
     Me:  "What box, honey?" 
     Child: "Mom!  The big box you drive by at the bank...you know..." 
She was talking about the ATM machine.  I tried to explain that "the box" only gives you the money you have earned, it is not an infinite supply.  No response.  We only get a certain amount of money each month.  No response.  Our bosses put that money at the bank for us when we do our jobs.  Then a strange quiet query from the backseat "How do you know?"  Now the adult is stunned into silence..."Um, well..."

See, I don't know, not in the sense that I knew when I was a kid growing up.  When I was growing up my parents each got a check every two weeks and we took those to a bank, where we stood in line and Mom talked to a bank teller, the bank teller counted out the money Mom requested, and Mom got cash in a cool little enevelope and we got suckers.  I saw the money.  I watched my parents pay for groceries with cash, for gas with cash, for clothes at the mall with cash.  Now, I didn't grow up that long ago, so by the time I was in high school many things had switched over to debit cards, but my parents still don't go out to dinner unless they are paying cash.  

So when my own kid asked me how do I know, it stopped me for a minute.  I utilize several tools of the 21st century; direct deposit, ATMs (obviously), online banking and I recognize how these work in theory.  But do I actually "know" the money is there in the bank?  According to my computer, yes.  According to my upbringing in a cash & carry world, well...no.  This gave me insight into why she doesn't understand how we budget - often digitally - yet.  My child is deveoplmentally tangible, and I am asking her to learn tangible monetary systems in school and live in a totally untangible financial world.  I get why she doesn't get it.

How do we close the very real gap for our digital natives?  Do we try to use more cash so that we value where they are and what they are learning in school?  Do we ask schools to take a critical look at how they teach money and whether or not it is preparing students to use money in a global economy that is no longer based on a tangible currency model?  I think we have to do both.  Our digital natives are often living between two worlds where money is concerned.  I believe that it is our job to build the bridge for them to ensure that they have the solid understandings of tangible currency and digital finance necessary to be successful and solvent citizens in the 21st century.