And Why I Now Talk About It Openly with My Children
I grew up in a household where money was discussed openly.
Budgets.
Household expenses.
Saving.
Living within our means.
What we never talked about—not once—was investment.
Not in my immediate family.
Not among relatives.
Not casually, not seriously.
The word simply didn’t exist in our daily life.
Looking back, this wasn’t ignorance or fear.
It was a deliberate and sensible choice for that time.
In post-war Japan and through the years after the bubble economy collapsed,
the strongest way for an ordinary family to survive was simple:
Don’t borrow.
Don’t inflate your lifestyle.
Save consistently.
Protect daily life at all costs.
That mindset worked.
Our life didn’t fall apart.
We weren’t crushed by debt.
I don’t reject that way of thinking at all.
But times have changed.
Today, saving alone no longer allows time to work in your favour.
When I was younger, investment felt like something risky, unclear,
something for wealthy people—not for families like ours.
Now, it’s different.
Today, ordinary people can access investments gradually,
with small amounts, while learning how the system actually works.
That’s why I now talk openly about investment with my children.
Not because I want them to make money.
But because children are allowed to fail.
When adults fail financially,
it affects the household, the stability, sometimes the entire family.
When children fail,
the amounts are small,
their daily life is untouched,
and they have plenty of time to recover.
Failure becomes education—not damage.
So yes, I’m comfortable with them trying shares, funds,
even volatile assets like Bitcoin or crypto.
Not to chase profit.
But to experience:
- how emotions move with price changes
- how easy it is to get overconfident
- how fear feels when numbers go down
- and that doing nothing is also a decision—with a cost
The core of investing isn’t the product.
It’s time and compounding.
By the time my children are adults,
the investments we know today will likely feel outdated.
New systems will exist. New opportunities will appear.
I don’t want them to become people who say:
“I don’t understand it, so I won’t touch it.”
“It feels scary, so I’ll avoid it.”
What I’m doing now is simply planting seeds.
This isn’t about rejecting my parents’ values.
It isn’t about breaking a negative cycle.
It’s about updating what we pass on,
so the next generation can move through change without fear.
Teaching children about investment
isn’t about increasing money.
It’s about teaching them
not to waste time.
That’s how I see it.
#financialliteracy #moneyandfamily #parentingandmoney #thevalueoftime #investmentasmindset
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