I double majored in International Studies and Environmental Studies, and recall first learning about colonialism and the so-called Third World. Here’s a quick video from a Princeton professor who discusses the need to reframe the global economy to meet the needs of the poorest billion people. Don’t worry, it’s not overly academic.
How do you help your children understand just how lucky they are to have fresh vegetables and comfortable shoes? I found a very talented graphic who created some genius graphics from the statistics about what the world would look like if it were a village of 100 people. I am definitely going to save this for the day when my kiddos ask me to explain the inequality of the world.
Do you feel rich?
How do you get global perspective?
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Sustainable Family Finances
The story of a family creating an abundant and sustainable life.
I think about this a lot. I spent a lot of time traveling in developing countries in my 20s, and it heavily influenced my perspective.
I don’t know how I am going to help my children with this. I went to college after doing all that traveling to start a career in a field which I could work in a humanitarian capacity in those countries, and I had assumed that I would raise my kids overseas for the most part. But now that looks unlikely.
However I think that it is a little too abstract to tell kids the old line, eat your dinner, there are children starving in Africa (obviously). I’m not sure if it is even too abstract to tell them there are children going hungry here in our fair city. I hope that volunteer work will help. I would love to find a good way to help my children really understand. And make it not even abstract for myself, since I know that it’s highly unlikely I will suffer from extreme poverty.
Just the other day I was bouncing along in my 26-yr old car thinking about how much I wanted a new one and how was I ever going to get to the point of buying a newer car with all these other expenses in my life, and I talked to myself about how many people would be desperately grateful to be in my shoes. But I still want a new car. And I would buy one if I could afford it, I admit. *sigh*