The incredible power in telling your kids about your biggest money mistakes

The incredible power in telling your kids about your biggest money mistakesListen(8 min)Listen(8 min)Samantha Bird was not comfortable talking to her three young children about money. She and her husband had just dug themselves out of $40,000 worth of debt. They were glad to be free of their financial burden, but it also left her with the sense that she had made a lot of mistakes with money. Bird felt it was critical that her children learn what she hadn’t known about money and avoid the same traps she had fallen into.“I tell them that I made mistakes,” she said. “We had a conversation on debt, explaining the basics of what it was, how it can be a helpful tool but dangerous if you’re not careful with it. And then I explained my story with debt, that we didn’t have self control with the debt, we weren’t careful with how we were using it, and it built up so much and took a while to manage.” About the AuthorVenessa Wong is a personal finance reporter for MarketWatch based in New York City. She previously covered business, inequality and culture during her tenure at BuzzFeed News, and reported on the food industry for Bloomberg. Venessa is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and Middlebury College. Follow her on Twitter @venessawong.A Dow Jones CompanyCopyright © 2026 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved.