Mistrust and Responsibility, My Generation’s Perfect Storm

I was a preteen at the time of the Tylenol tamperings when seven innocent consumers died of cyanide poisoning.  I remember the transition between receiving home-baked treats at Halloween and receiving only prepackaged candy with a recommendation to have it x-rayed by police before you ate it. I am now raising children who are not allowed to walk to the bus stop alone, play in our yard unattended, and they definitely don’t speak to strangers.

I am representative of a generation that drives everyone, including ourselves,  crazy. My mother’s generation grew up fearing the Russians, never having even met one, while we grew up worrying about the terrors that lurked just around the corner:  gunmen in our schools, bombers in our churches, deadly viruses in our bedrooms.

As a result we don’t trust anybody, and do everything ourselves:  We rely on information and the internet, rather than experts and experience.  At the same time, the volume and speed of information add further fuel to the flame of our generational fears.  There is always evidence, not just that something could go wrong, but that something will go wrong.

As women of Generation X, we were fortunate to have been told we could accomplish anything; nothing was outside our reach just because we were women.  We pursued higher education at a record-breaking pace while assuming we could raise families at the same time we accomplished our professional goals.  What we are facing now is a perfect storm of responsibility: we can do everything (or so we think) but we can’t trust anyone.  Our do-it-yourself attitude results in a conundrum one of my friends describes as “Choosing between to-do list items that are either ‘Important!’ or ‘URGENT!’  So I choose the urgent, and the important stuff never happens.”  Unfortunately, finance is often on the “important” list, we know we need to take care of it, but it will have to wait until we get a break between crises.

So, what can be done about it? How will we ever get our financial needs taken care of when they never rise to the top of the priority list? I consulted Eleanor Blayney on this topic as the Consumer Advocate for the CFP Board. Here is her response:

“The answer …  is not Do-It-Yourself financial management.  Women may have the information needed, but not the time, experience, or judgment to make smart financial decisions for themselves and their families.   We do indeed need financial experts, just as we need doctors and attorneys.

“As women, we need to understand how to find advisors whom we can trust … First, we can realize that there is middle ground between D-I-Y personal finance and handing complete control over to an expert.  Call it management by delegation – a concept that any Gen X-er can understand and approve of.  It involves doing your homework – checking references, background history, credentials – of a prospective financial planner. Yes, this takes time, but so does choosing a child-care provider or a car with an acceptable safety history.

“It also involves staying engaged with the advisor.  It’s not a matter of staying on top of everything the advisor knows or does, but conducting periodic gut-checks as to whether the advisor seems to be working for you (and not the other way around).  It involves having the confidence to fire an advisor because you are not being heard, or not being educated to the degree you would like.”

To see the CFP Board’s tips on “How to Choose a Financial Planner,” click here.