The Poverty of Financial Literacy: No One Ever Taught Me, So I Never Knew
We had food on the table. We weren't poor. But money was never talked about in our house — not between my parents, not with us kids. When I asked for something, the answer was either no, or: work for it yourself. I hit my thirties with zero financial framework. Not because I wasn't capable. Because no one ever taught me.
We weren't poor growing up. There was food on the table. We were fine. But money was simply never talked about — not between my parents, not with us kids. It wasn't a topic. It wasn't explained. It just existed somewhere in the background, inaccessible and unaddressed.
When I asked for things — extra money, support with something I wanted — the answer was usually one of two things: no, or you have to work for it and pay for it yourself. Which taught me that work ethic matters. But it taught me nothing about what to do with what you earn.
What silence teaches
My parents didn't talk about money with each other, either. There was no model of two people sitting down together to look at a budget, plan a purchase, or think about the future out loud. Money was just something that happened — something you managed privately, or didn't manage at all.
So I entered adulthood with work ethic and no framework. I knew how to earn. I had no idea how to allocate, save, or plan. And because no one had ever sat down with me and shown me, I assumed the problem was me — that I was just bad at this, the way some people are bad at math.
Only 24% of millennial women are financially literate — compared to 39% of millennial men
Despite gains in education and workforce participation, women consistently score lower on financial literacy assessments — not because they're less capable, but because they've been historically excluded from financial conversations, education, and decision-making. The gap is not ability. It is access. (TIAA Institute / Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center)
The moment someone turned the lights on
I was thirty-two years old when someone finally sat down with me and showed me how to actually budget. His name is Scott Miller — the founder of The Poverty Solution. I was working with him at the time. He looked at my finances and helped me see, for the first time in my adult life, what was actually there — and what was possible.
I cannot overstate the shift. It wasn't just about numbers. It was like someone had turned on a light in a room I had been navigating in the dark for years. Here's what comes in. Here's what goes out. Here's the gap. Here's what you can do about it.
“Financial literacy is not a personality trait. It is a skill that some people are taught and some people are not — and the people who are not taught it are rarely the ones who didn't want to learn.”
What I noticed: I wasn't bad with money. I was untaught. The moment someone gave me the actual tools, I could use them. It was never a capability problem. It was an access problem.
Why Momera talks about money
The fear around money is itself part of what keeps mothers stuck. Whether it came from actual scarcity, or from a household that treated money as something terrifying and uncontrollable — the result is the same: you don't look at your finances clearly, because looking feels dangerous.
Momera talks about money. Not to shame anyone for where they are, or where they came from. But to interrupt the silence and the fear that was handed down to us. Because it starts with someone sitting beside you and saying: let's actually look at what's here. That is what we are trying to be.
Becky Tsadilas
Founder, Momera — Movement of Mothers Ending Poverty. Based in Cochrane, Alberta. hello@momera.ca