Written by Clara MacMeekin 

Art by Lucas Eglin 

As soon as I turned eight years old, I was already tired of being a kid. I was bored of math tests I could never ace and reading comprehension I could never comprehend and having chaperones and not buying all the things I wanted. The only thing that combated this boredom was fantasizing about being an adult. If I couldn’t thrive in elementary school, I would spend my days planning all the ways I’d prove myself once I was a grown-up. Luckily, I had a lot of good role models in my life to look up to: when I was a grown-up, I’d be smart like my mom, have a well-paying job like my dad to do the things I want and live my life like Andie Anderson from How to Lose a Guy in Ten days. 

 I labored over this plan; I even had it all written down, so it was bound to happen exactly like I’d planned it: 

1. Get out of elementary school; these losers underestimate me. 
2. Get into a good college. My grades will somehow work themselves out. 
3. Get a good job and live in New York City. 
   • Note: look into what a good job is. I’ve never aced a math test so doing whatever it is my dad does is out of the question, but starting out as a receptionist and climbing the corporate ladder is the ideal outcome. 

The constant battle between my obsessive type A personality and my crippling laziness has resulted in a lot of disappointment in my life—but none more discouraging than finding out my childhood dreams of thriving as an adult would be thwarted by the need for understanding finances.

Taxes? A myth. Rent? That can’t be too much of an obstacle, our government would never make it nearly impossible to afford a home. Salary? First of all, what’s a salary? Second, I’d obviously be making the exact amount that the job says I’d be paid. Job? No worries, I’m going to have a great one because it’s definitely not completely hopeless finding a job right out of college. I’ll be lucky, somehow—I’ll be the exception! I’ll never be overlooked for a position because I’m a woman.  

I’ll be the first to admit that I had a biased view of finances growing up. My family’s finances were not discussed with my brother or I. As I’ve grown up and been able to have conversations with my peers at college, I’ve come to understand that it is also a part of my social class’s culture to not openly discuss finances (thank you Atlantic article for educating me as well). We were comfortable, and I believed that such comfortability would follow me into adulthood; in a lot of ways it has, but I have no real idea of how to gain comfortability for myself. In other words, my plan for being an adult requires me to be financially literate, so this is me trying to do that. 

When I started dabbling in research for this piece, I had to start with what financial literacy is. The first thing I googled was the definition of financial literacy and that even stumped me: the understanding of financial components and skills such as budgeting, investing, borrowing, taxation, and personal finance management (thanks Corporate Finance Institute!). I’m not sure if I was expecting to become a master at finances after a couple of hours on the internet, but I ended up more confused than when I started. What the fuck does that mean? Who failed me? I know I had more important things on my mind in high school (namely: boys, popularity, adulthood), but I couldn’t have missed an entire lesson on this stuff, right? Is part of turning 25 also suddenly becoming totally aware of personal finances? 

No thanks to high school economics class, “financial literacy” was a term I had heard being thrown around. My dad works in finance (I think?) and I’m sure he dropped the term in conversations in my ear-shot before. My family was the you-don’t-need-to-worry-about-that type when I would ask invasive questions about our financial situation (which was not very often, I knew when to shut up once my mom gave me The Look). That is not unique to me; I’m sure many people had families who held those same speeches in their back pockets whenever their kids inquired about their mortgage. And my parents were right—I really didn’t need to worry about that because those were their finances. Yet, when it came to how I spent my money (their money, yes), it was an “our” problem all of a sudden. 

I cultivated a taste for materialistic goods at a young age. You love spending your money and you are so high maintenance were often said in the same breath. My parents just couldn’t understand that, yes, saving up my money for a few months would get me the shirt from Justice I’ve had my eye on, but spending my allowance the first day I got it would get me this purse from Claire’s right now. What did they know, anyway? You’re not cool in elementary school because you saved money, you’re cool if you have this purse from Claire’s. So, no Dad, I’m not going to explain to you why I’m spending the only $20 to my name on this fashionable bag (you’d never understand the burdens and politics of 4th grade anyway) just because you’ve never made a financial mistake in your life (not that I would even know about that, I’m not even sure how much money you have). 

The extent of my financial relationship up until just a bit ago was the checking account I opened in high school in order to get direct deposits from work and the savings account I opened in my senior year of high school. Little saving was actually done, I treated it mostly like a piggy-bank with a hammer right next to it. 

My actual piggy-bank didn’t charge me a fee when I withdrew money more than six times in one month. It’s my money! Why can’t I have it? 

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According to The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, women are often found to be less confident than men in their financial skills and decisions. Traditionally, with men being the “head of the household” and all that, women need not to worry about such things that do not concern them. Well, I’m concerned. If I have to listen to another “finance bro” talk about investment bonds while I sit there looking pretty, I’m going to scream. 

 I know they want me to ask them to explain it to me, but I shan’t. 

Women have been overlooked when it’s come to finances for most of history. It wasn’t until 1900 that the Married Women’s Property Act, which granted married women the right to keep their own wages and own property in their own name, was passed in all states. Before then, should a woman become a widow, her house would go to the closest male relative. Women didn’t begin working outside their homes until the mid-1800s, but couldn’t open a bank account or have a credit card until 1974. Oberlin College was the first college in America to allow all women to enroll in 1837, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that Ivy League schools admitted people besides white men. Still, in 2024, women earn 16% less than men on average, making just 84 cents for every dollar a man makes. I know for a fact these things were skipped over in high school history classes. I know because I would have actually paid attention then. 

“Girl-math” blew up on TikTok mid 2023– a trend that was started with the intention to poke fun at women’s irresponsible financial habits and justify them by dubbing them “girl-math.” Anything under $5 is free–girl math! If I buy a sweet-treat at the end of the day, it doesn’t cost anything because, girl math! I thought this trend was cute at first; I am always looking for ways to justify purchases. I’ve been told repeatedly throughout my life that I am bad at spending money—Clara, don’t spend all your money in one place, Clara you need to save your money. Got it, so I’ll open a savings account that I’ll have for five years until someone tells me that they charge me $5 a month because since I’m technically “not earning an income,” they get to take money from me at a time when I’m not making any. 

I’m not going to be able to tell you how to be financially literate; because I still don’t really know. But herein lies the issue. We can try to make light of how women know less about finances, but all it’s doing is immortalizing stereotypes against women instead of trying to fix them. Do I think that my dad purposefully kept our finances a secret from me because I’m a woman and therefore couldn’t possibly handle such information? No. Do I think my family was trying to undermine my gender when they teased my questionable spending habits? No. But when we see statistics like “women take an additional two years on average to pay off student loans,” it’s not because we just can’t help ourselves from buying a pair of shoes, it’s because we get paid less so we have less money to pay off our loans every month! 

We can’t “girl-math” our way out of student loans, or taxes, or borrowing limits, or credit scores, or whatever other jargon banks want us to know but also not know so we just put our blind trust in them. Teaching women about finances is not going to make our heads explode. I promise you, we can handle it. I’m not saying I need to be a stockbroker but you don’t get to roll your eyes when I’m spending my money even though you are perfectly capable of teaching me financial literacy and I’m perfectly capable of understanding. 

Eight-year-old Clara’s “Plan For Being an Adult” may have proved to be flawed. But it got me through most of my early schooling years, so I can’t say there was anything wrong with the dream. The dream is just different now.

1. Stop spending money on clothes I don’t need.
2. Learn the benefits of having a credit card and building a credit score. 
3. Ask Dad to sit down with me and teach me everything. 
   • Note: try not to cry when he goes into math like we did when we were nine. 
4. Take it one day at a time, stop pestering Mom and Dad about their rent, master the concept of bonds so I never have to listen to another finance bro again.