There are many reasons why a family might live on a fixed income. Living on a fixed income might make perfect sense to grown ups, but make absolutely no sense to young children. Most, if not all young children, are programmed to do the, “I wants” at some point in their young life. Everything they see in a store, or on the television they feel they want or need for one reason or another. It can be very emotionally draining for a parent or parent’s to have to explain to their child or children over and over again the reason or reason’s as to why they can’t afford to buy the child or children every single thing that their heart desires.
Some families living on a limited budget raise their child or children on the concept of, “Money can’t buy love”. There are a lot of things that a parent or parents can do with their child or children that do not cost anything, and yet they can still have a ton of fun at the same time. As long as you take the time to show your child or children all of the love in the world, the material things will not matter. Some families might only be a single income household. Furthermore, some families may be in a situation where one of the parents has a disability and they are on a fixed income from Social Security. Another scenario might even be a single parent living on disability that is not getting any child support from the child’s or childrens’ other parent.
When a child is old enough to where you feel they might understand your financial situation, you can try explaining to them in terms they will understand. Specifically, tell them that it is not that they are not loved as much as they might feel their friends’ parents love their children. It is just that you do not have as much income as they do for whatever reason, and that you show your child or children how much you love them in many different ways.
In some circumstances, your monthly income might be higher in some months than others, and you might have a little extra spending money that you can splurge on something special for your child or children. You might not be able to do something extravagant every day, week, month or even year, but when you do have the extra money, make sure that you do something that will really stand out to your child or children and make them realize how special they are to you, and how much you love them.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is that your children go to bed knowing how much you love them. These are the important things that your child will remember for the rest of their life. They will not remember how much money you did or did not spend on them while they were growing up.