Screen Shot 2014-12-18 at 10.44.15 AMMoney is a very important part of all our lives. The understanding of money, how it works, and how we treat it can dramatically improve or diminish our quality of life.

Based on my writings and videos on YouTube, you might think my definition of money is gold and silver, but it’s not. Money is simply a medium of exchange. It can be represented by everything from gold to horse manure. Okay, maybe not horse manure, but it’s not a far stretch with the most popular form of money today being central bank notes loaned out into existence.

The state would love to have you believe that money can only originate from itself, yet people have organically started to use bitcoins and other crypto-currencies as a medium of exchange. Nevertheless, our culture continues to worship fiat currency as if it is the only type of money. I can’t change the fact that at this moment in time the U.S. dollar is the measuring stick for goods and services when it comes to prices. Trying to disprove and dispute this fact was something I struggled with early on when I used to teach my children that only gold and silver were money.

Today, I simply teach them about money as a medium of exchange.

Everyone loves making money. Just a few hours ago, my 3-year-old daughter brought me a cup of coffee with her mom. I thought it would be fun (since she helped make it) to hand her some change sitting on my desk, kind of like a tip. I told her “thank you” and handed it to her. Her little face lit up, smiling and giggling. She was so happy to run off to her piggy bank and make some new deposits.

In my house, while we refer to dollars as money, we also like to barter. I usually trade them their favorite fruit, pomegranate seeds, for kisses. We also enjoy going to the local coin store to buy some silver bullion.

While gold and silver are undoubtedly honest money, bitcoin represents a really cool medium of exchange as well. It helps us realize that money is just an idea. It’s whatever proves most useful and stable to trade with over time.

There is so much to teach children when it comes to money, but to start, I think a good step in the right direction is to not simply philosophically and intellectually capitulate by framing money solely in terms of state-sponsored currency.

Central banks and fascist governments control humanity through a virtual monopoly on money issuance and distribution, which is why I am doing my best as a father to make it clear that money can be anything. No one truly gets any added value from holding a stack of paper. It’s our time that is of value, and the things we own that make our lives better. But money itself is just a means to an end.

– Daniel Ameduri aka The Dissident Dad

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