Family vs. Money

We live in a society where two major aspects clash with each other, focusing on making money, or focusing on family. Both are important, so what are we to do?

Yes, it’s important to make sure you’re earning enough money to provide for your family. Being able to afford that roof over their head, food in their bellies, heat to keep them warm, clean running water, clothes on their back, the list goes on and on.

But many of us want to have more than just the bare basics. We want to live beyond living from paycheck to paycheck. We want some of the finer things. Many of you want to take frequent vacations with your family, make sure every member has their own vehicle (or will when the time comes), can afford college, or just want to be able to buy anything you and your family want on a whim. There’s nothing wrong spiritually or morally about wanting an increase of wealth in you and your family’s life.

What many families experience is an obsession with making that money. While this is usually the husband, the wife can be obsessed with this too. Or it could be that you’re a single parent, not uncommon in today’s world. There’s a lot of karma that comes with this and how it affects the family.

If one or both parents are obsessed with making money, this can cause feelings of abandonment and resentment toward the parent(s) when the focus is on getting that money instead of giving any attention to the children. Just this alone can lead to lashing out to get attention in various ways or causes distrust in future relationships. This is just one of a host of other potential issues, all that can have devastating effects.

Just like with children, your spouse can feel neglected and abandoned. This can lead from constant fights and up to affairs or divorce (instigated by both men and women). Money doesn’t buy love. 

These are just two examples of countless types of karma you can expect if you place too much emphasis solely on making money. Your reason for it might have started out for good reasons, but “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

But there’s the other end of the spectrum. The side where your focus is more on your family instead of providing for them, which is actually in opposition for your family. Yes, that quality time you spend with them is important. But if you’re just doing the bare minimum, just enough to barely scrape by on bills and food, there again is going to be resentment from your family from essentially living in poverty.

This can lead your family, especially your children, to always having a scarcity mindset, can be one of many avenues that leads to hoarding, causes them to be like people in the above scenarios as they grow up, and a host of other issues and traumas. Yes, family is important, but we also live in a material world, so there needs to be a focus on, well the material as well. 

At the end of the day, it all boils down to what your priorities are, but there needs to be an effort to strike that balance in life where you earn enough for your family to live comfortably and happily while still giving them the time and love they need.  You might not get to go to every event, but you still make space to have that quality time and make memories with them. You still create time to talk to them, understand what’s going on in their lives, and what needs they have. No family wants to live in poverty and always be stressed about when and where the next meal may come from, but they still need you to be present and active in their daily lives. Seek balance my friends.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have an enlightening day.