Samantha Brown, 17, had to adjust course when she opened her first bank
account. She wanted her own account, but had to open a joint account with her
mother, which meant that both Samantha and her mother could put in and take
out money, whenever they wanted, without consulting each other. Samantha felt
like her mother didn’t trust her.
I sucked in my breath so I wouldn’t start to cry. I felt like my one chance at
independence was taken right out of my hands. It didn’t seem like my bank
account, it seemed like my mother’s.
The bank teller and my mother both stared at me, waiting for my reaction.
I just smiled dryly and said, “OK, no problem.” But in the pit of my stomach I
was nauseated that I needed my mother’s signature to have this account.
For a while I liked the freedom of having an account, with money that
was there any time I needed it—especially since my mom was really
cheap when it came to giving me allowance. Actually, I was cheap,
too, when it came to spending it. I hated spending my money—even
on myself. I was afraid that if I let myself start spending it, I’d wind up
spending the whole thing. So I was very responsible with my money. If I
took money out of the bank to buy something, I would immediately save
up some more and put it back.
Everything was going well, until Samantha was in her sophomore year of
high school.
I was going away for a big track meet, and I needed $100 for admissions,
plus money for food and clothing to wear. When the track meet came around, I
wanted to show my mother that I could go without begging her for money. So I
took about $200 out of my account. I told myself that I would eventually get a
job and put the money back in.
But when my mother found out that I was going to the meet, she gave me
money too. Instead of putting it in the bank to replace the money I took out, I
used it to buy more clothing—for school, for the summer, and even just to have
more clothes. I bought a lot of jeans, one for every day of the week. I bought
five of the same shirts, each a different color. I bought cardigans with corduroy