O uso do dinheiro como recurso sustentável: uma reflexão para a educação financeira cidadã

Abstract

Financial education in Brazil is something that may be considered new to most. It is not customary for Brazilians to make financial plans, to talk about money, especially when it involves children. The absence of the basic notion of money can disrupt the child's financial life for the rest of his or her life. She may graduate from being an excellent professional, making a lot of money, but not being able to manage her financial life, because in her cradle that information was not transmitted. Therefore, one of our responsibilities as educators and parents is to leave a healthy legacy to our children regarding the subject of finance. For this to happen, we must first learn and practice this knowledge daily in our lives, giving them examples of living worthily today, so that future generations will be reached in this practice. However, this change is not easy because we live in a country, whose culture is not based on the fundamentals of the necessary consumption, but on the ideology of consumerism, which is a forged mental habit that has become one of the most remarkable cultural characteristics of present-day society. This has brought about a disturbance in people's way of acting, that is, the act of consumption loses its fundamental characteristic, which is to supply basic necessities, and becomes a matter of power and conquest. Today, everyone who is impacted by the mass media is encouraged to consume in an inconsequential way mainly the children's audience, since they are more vulnerable. In this sense, child consumerism is an urgent matter, of extreme importance and general interest. If we continue to do so with our children we will be teaching them to pass on horror and shame. Perhaps this is why we are still considered financially illiterate because we do not know how to deal with money. We need to broaden the contribution of financial education by using it to draw people's attention to the importance of their day-to-day decisions, both for their own future and current well-being, and for the sustainability of society and the environment. This issue is intimately related to the essence of the sustainable use of money today, so it makes sense to provoke people's reflection on the real motives that lead them to understand this sustainable practice related to personal well-being, Family and community, which is fundamental to each of us.