My publisher just informed me that the book I co-wrote with my teenage son came out today.
I’m so excited. The book, What My Mom Taught Me About Money, is geared toward teaching high school students, college students and young adults about properly managing money. My son, whose pen name is Darian Demetri, wrote the first half of the book for teenagers, and I wrote the second half for young adults.
My son and I have a lot of applicable, real-world financial knowledge after he watched me rise from bouncing checks almost every day, having too poor credit to get approved for anything and no money to go on trips to our current well-off lifestyle despite the global recession.
I got pregnant with Darian, 15, who writes for his teen celeb gossip site, when I was 16. However, I still graduated high school with honors and graduated college four years later with a journalism degree. I had a newspaper job and was on the payroll a whole month before my college graduation from the University of Florida.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing because I mismanaged my paycheck as a sportswriter. I’ll never forget going into a pawn shop for a cash advance after landing my dream job at my hometown newspaper, and one of the store clerks recognized me from my weekly sports column. Very embarrassing, and it took me a couple years to stop getting cash advances. Don’t get hooked onto cash advances. I write about the dangers of cash advances in my book.
I’ve learned my lesson. I have excellent credit. My first house will be completely-built a few weeks after my birthday, right around deceased King of Pop Michael Jackson’s birthday at the end of August.
My son finally gets to go on vacations and his classmates think he’s rich, but we’re just middle class although I’m doing well financially thanks to my successful health and life insurance career.
In the last three years, my son has visited Disney and Universal Studios in Orlando and L.A. He’s been to Alaska, New York, President Obama’s inauguration, the NBA Eastern Conference Finals and Hollywood, where he took a picture by the King of Pop’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Keep in mind that when I was struggling with money he had only been right up the road to St. Augustine a few times and on a middle school trip to Medieval Times in Orlando.
So it’s safe to say my son and I finally have the lifestyle we didn’t during the 11 years after I gave birth to him in high school. But I didn’t struggle because of teen pregnancy. I struggled because I didn’t know how to handle money. And that’s why we wrote this book.
Most people fail with money because the basics aren’t taught in grade school. So this book will get youngsters started out on the financial path.
What My Mom Taught Me About Money is now available on our publisher’s web site, and the book can be found on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and thousands of other online book stores in 30-45 days.

By Teneshia LaFaye
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