Family finance lessons: ‘The Simpsons’ Michael Price
The most important lessons we learn about money don’t come from our accountants or our radios. They come from our family. Each week, we invite someone to tell us about the money tips they inherited from the people they grew up with.
Our guest this week is Michael Price, a writer for “The Simpsons.”
Price was raised in New Jersey and describes his upbringing as blue collar. His dad was a construction worker and his mom sold tires and batteries at Sears.
“I loved TV as a kid, I just watched TV all the time, but I didn’t know that was a thing you could do, in terms of making it instead of just watching it,” Price says.
His parents didn’t discourage Price’s creative dreams, but when he decided to major in theater, gently urged him to be more practical.
“They never said ‘don’t do it’ but I think they worried,” says Price.
When Price’s family attended a local production of ‘Man of La Mancha’, his mom read the program and noticed that the lead actor had a dayjob as a doctor. She suggested that might be a good option for Price. “I remember my mom leaning over to me and pointing to the thing and saying ‘See? He’s a doctor during the day and does his acting at NIGHT!'”
Price did wind up taking lots of dayjobs, including a stint as a teacher, but by his mid-30s, he was being paid to write. “I chased my dream and I got it. And my wife, her name is Monica Holloway, she’s an author writes books, she got there, too,” he says.
But now that Price has a son, he understands his parents’ advice a little better.
“So we want to be able to encourage him to do whatever he wants and to go for it,” Price says. “But I understand that I’ll feel the same pangs of ‘I hope he’s ok, I hope he’s alright.'”
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