Rachel O’Dwyer: Yes. A modest, no-strings-attached payment is the way to go
When my son was four, we were given a Richard Scarry book of children’s nursery tales. Tucked after Goldilocks and The Gingerbread Man, was The Little Red Hen – or, as I like to call it, “Ayn Rand for Babies”.
You probably know the story: like a smug tradwife, our protagonist picks the wheat, grinds it to flour and bakes the perfect loaf all by herself. Along the way she pitches the idea of “help” to the rest of the farmyard animals, (but I’ve always suspected she can’t delegate and doesn’t really want them pitching in).
When the bread is ready the hen asks the other animals if they’d like to help her eat it (rhetorically as it happens). Those who say yes get a lecture on incentives and opportunity costs. Red eats the loaf herself.
“I hope all that bread sticks in her throat and makes her choke,” four-year-old Ted said, glaring like a tiny Bolshevik at the hen, now stuffing her beak with sourdough.
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My feelings about The Little Red Hen reflect my outlook on pocket money: I’m for it as a modest, no-strings-attached payment – not as a tool for moral instruction, financial training or behavioural compliance.
Pocket money as we know it emerged in the early 20th century as children shifted from mini-workers to priceless darlings – who are now, all in, thought to cost the average parent €169,000 before they turn 21. Pocket money accounts for €1,196 of that a year. Like women’s allowances and moral charity, it wasn’t always clear if pocket money was a gift, a payment, a bribe or even a lesson in economics, doled out to teach children prudent spending.
I’d rather he didn’t grow up to believe that value is tied to what society deems economically productive
Take the book A is for Allowance (2023), a financial primer for five-year-olds. U is for Utility. Y is for Yield. (B is for Budget and not, as you might expect, for Bitcoin or Blockchain). Like the “bolsa família”, a conditional benefit paid to Brazilian families, or incentives for Irish teachers to brush up on their Gaeilge, pocket money conveys not just value but values – shaping the future consumer-worker-citizen.
Today, many apps allow parents to send money directly to their children. In Ireland, we have Revolut <18. In the UK, there’s Go Henry. Along with a cash transfer function, Revolut’s Pockets app teaches them how to save. Pockets even lets parents link chores to financial rewards. (One pocket money app I see on the Apple store even has a spuriously named “Teach” – which lets a guardian subtract money as a punishment for bad behaviour.)
Most have built-in oversight. Parents can see how children are spending their money and even embargo things such as vapes and Fortnite computer game V-Bucks. (Revolut <18 automatically blocks the purchase of alcohol, cigarettes and gambling products.)
My son, who is now eight, gets €3 a week in pocket money – no strings attached. While writing this I’ve learned that this is a relatively stingy stipend; many sources suggest a euro for each year.
While his basic income might seem low, he’s often paid extra for larger chores (last week he and a friend were given €10 each for serving drinks at a football tournament). Otherwise, he’s expected to help out around the house and water the plants – but his pocket money isn’t a reward, an incentive or a lesson. It’s about having a tiny slice of economic freedom.
I’d rather he didn’t grow up to believe that value is tied to what society deems economically productive. That’s less about the kind of financial actor I want him to become and more about how I’d like him to relate to and value others. Less “work or you don’t eat”, like the Little Red Hen, and more “to each according to their needs”. This matters more to me than whether he opens a high-yield savings account, or invests in a sweet 10X trade by his 10th birthday.
Rachel O’Dwyer is a lecturer in digital cultures in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and the author of Tokens: The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform
Conor Pope: No. Linking cash to chores might actually teach them something
While I understand that manythink giving children pocket money is a fine idea, one which promotes prudence and fiscal responsibility, it was a disaster for me as child.
I was poor with money and, despite parental efforts to make me a richer, more rounded person, I remained a financial dunce for decades. Every week, the same dance of the dullard would unfold. I’d get pocket money, starting at 5p – rising incrementally as I aged. Once the coins landed in my sweaty palm on a Friday, I’d race to my local newsagents and blow it on comics. After the unbridled joy of Fridays, there would be the lean days – six of them.
Occasionally, like a latter-day Oliver Twist, I’d ask for more and, like a latter day Mr Bumble, my father would recoil in faux horror. While he didn’t sell me to an undertaker, he never extended credit, urging me instead to learn from my mistakes. (I learned nothing except how to say “warning”, “God in heaven” and “hands up, for you the war is over” in German, thanks to the popularity of comics of a particular genre when I was small.)
Pocket money creates a sense of dependence and a reliance on the bank of mam and dad
I’m not convinced anyone learns much from pocket money. While the accepted wisdom suggests it teaches the young how to spend and save wisely I’ve never seen convincing evidence.
Instead, what pocket money does is create an illusion of financial independence while working as an expensive financial crutch. And, boy, is it expensive. A recent study from Laya Life put the annual cost of pocket money at €1,196. It’s a lot to spend on treats and comics.
It’s not all about the money, though. There are logistical issues, too. Physical cash is increasingly uncommon. While apps can dole out dosh, I’m unconvinced money magically appearing on fake credit cards weekly can teach many life lessons. It certainly lacks the theatre of times past.
Instead of pocket money for nothing, linking cash to chores is a better option. This nakedly transactional approach might imbue in children a better sense of how money works while allowing parents to sidestep jobs they lack the time or desire to do themselves. Mind you, even the chore-based model can fail.
Not long ago I charged a sweet child of mine with the job of reuniting socks that had lost their partner in the perilous journey from laundry basket to washing machine and back to bedrooms. We settled on some trifling sum, but while 20 cent or 50c doesn’t sound steep in insolation, when hundreds of lone socks miraculously find their “sole-mate” it quickly becomes financially ruinous.
I stuck to the deal, and it was only after the money was spent that I discovered the word “matched” had been loosely interpreted. If the colours of two socks found in a ball were even vaguely similar, it was considered a win. That child didn’t lick her cunning off the stones.
Linking cash to chores – even ones done badly – gives parents more control over how and when money is handed over while actually teaching children something about the value of money, and where it comes from.
By contrast, pocket money creates a sense of dependence and a reliance on the bank of mam and dad. It can be viewed – as I certainly viewed it – as a spending target to be reached quickly to ensure the well of magic money doesn’t dry up. And while that might prepare people for life as a government minister, it doesn’t remotely prepare them for real life.
Conor Pope is Consumer Affairs Correspondent
