Moms Are More Likely to Give Their Kids Credit Cards Than Dads & Here’s Why

Kids with credit cards!

By Erica Loop August 6, 2019

According to a WalletHub survey, mamas are more than three times more likely to hand off the plastic to their kiddos. When it comes to monitoring kids’ spending, dads are the ones who hawk-eye their kids’ spending.

The 2019 Kids with Credit Cards Survey looked at the attitudes parents have about their children (under age 18), credit cards, and spending habits. So what else did this credit card survey uncover?

photo: Jeshoots via Pixabay

When it comes to the number of children with cards, one in four kids ages 12 through 18 have a credit card to use. This doesn’t mean mom enters her number, expiration date, and security code every once in a while for her kiddo to use on Xbox Live or the Apple Store. These kids have their own authorized user cards.

The survey also compared the number of teens with credit or debit cards to the number with cell phones. If you expect to see a higher cell number, you’re wrong. While 69 percent of kids (of the parents surveyed) have cell phones, 72 percent have credit/debit cards. But 97 percent of parents say they feel kids should have a cell before a credit card.

Why do so many parents give their children credit cards? The survey results list the top reason as credit building (26 percent), followed by the ability to track spending (25 percent), financial independence (21 percent) and financial literacy (16 percent).

—Erica Loop

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