The Relationship We Don’t Talk About

There’s a relationship that starts in early childhood

and continues until after our death.

It’s a relationship where the stories you’ve bought

into about it directly shapes its quality.

It’s a relationship so private and intimate

that we rarely share it with others.

It’s a relationship that influences most, if not

all, aspects of our lives.

It’s a relationship often

seeped in shame.

It’s a relationship I find so many women

shy away from.

So, what is this relationship? It’s your relationship

with money.

---

In around 2019, I became fascinated by my own relationship with money. Particularly my relationship with the concept of wealth as a female entrepreneur.

I come from a line of female entrepreneurs, so it tracks that I should feel comfortable with the concept of money, and in turn wealth, in the hands of female entrepreneurs.

That was most definitely not the case. In fact, I purposefully kept undercharging and even worse, doing things for free.

Imagine my surprise, and horror, when I got to some of the root causes of why this was happening.

Root Cause One: Our family mantra, courtesy of my father, around money was: “It’s better to give than to receive.”

Root Cause Two: You can either have a successful business or a successful relationship, you can’t have both! This played out in my childhood, where my perception was that my mother in particular sacrificed her relationship with my father. The more successful their businesses became, the more their relationship deteriorated.

Tears streaming down my face, I shared with my hubby that I believed I had to keep myself ‘poor’ or our relationship wouldn’t survive.

Root Cause Three (and this one really knocked me): Money is dirty and smells and needs to be avoided! This stems from working in my parents liquor store where I handled money. Not nice clean notes, most coins hidden in places I’d rather not think about and then used to buy the person’s next ‘fix’. I remember trying unsuccessfully to wash that smell off my hands.

To this day, I struggle to handle coins.

My invitation to you today is to answer the following questions:

What is your earliest money memory?

For many of the women I work with it’s either that they had put money into their mouth and their mother had berated them saying: “Don’t do that, it’s dirty.”

What was your family’s money mantra?

Maybe like me, it was “It’s better to give than to receive”. Some other common ones I hear again and again are: “Money doesn’t grow on trees’; “Money is the root of all evil” and my all time favourite “We’re not made of money”.

What was your family’s relationship with money?

A client grew up in a household where they lived on the wrong side of the railway tracks and her Mom constantly made sure she understood her place in the hierarchy of wealthy people.

A friend’s parents saved and saved and saved for the rainy day that was coming.

A client shared that her Dad was a gambler and there were great months and awful months but not many normal months.

Recognising the stories and beliefs we’ve inherited doesn’t wave a magic wand and instantly change things, it’s the first step toward building a healthier, more empowered future around money and wealth.

This blog article was first published in the BossBabes Magazine in April 2025. Hop onto the following link to read the article and the magazine