Rage against the Cash Machine

The innovation that is the cash machine is not as recent an innovation as many people would believe.  Its original conception goes back as far as 1960 – being of a certain age, I remember when these machines appeared on the high street at every high street bank, it was significant at the time.  The ability to withdraw cash morning,  noon and night was considered hi-tech and innovative in the public’s eyes but how has this now changed society in a bigger sense?

From my point of view (I’m not a parent by the way) I think its changed the whole notion of where money comes from for the generations of kids born in the 90′s and onward. My parents used all the stock phrases – “money doesn’t grow on trees” etc. and I took that the way they meant it.  I understood that money was earned and that there wasn’t an infinite supply of wealth generated by my parents.

As time has gone by, two generations of children have seen their parents use cash machines to withdraw money.  The idea that a machine just produces money on demand seems engrained in the psyche of children – the reason that money comes out seemingly is just that the person is asking, the connection to work and money being earned is severed in the childs mind.  I have wondered on a couple of occasions if a child stood watching while a parent uses a cash machine is thinking that the machine is printing the money as it goes.  This would take the child even further from the truth of what a cash machine is for and what it represents.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has encountered this scenario but I recently overheard a conversation between a parent and a child who were discussing the possibility of buying a new CD.  The parent had clearly just been to the cash point but the child used the phrase  ’Its not a problem, when you don’t have any money left you can just go to the hole in the wall and get some more ….’   I think there is something inherently wrong with this train of thought, but to me, this issue was then compounded by the parent using weak and accommodating language to try and placate the child rather than tackle the issue head on.

Ultimately its in the realm of the parents to try and get their children to understand the nature of money, where it comes from, how you earn it, that it doesn’t just grow, that machines just don’t hand it out and that understanding money and all its nuances is a valuable life skill.   Society in general will be better off if kids are educated on the fine balance that’s required to manage money and how it effects them - whether they have it or not.