Generational Wealth: Mother‑Daughter Duo Create Children’s Book On Stock Market and Investing

On the list of life lessons to teach children, stock market expertise typically is not found near the top. But seeing this lack of financial education in the formative years as a wrong to make right, Dallas mother, daughter duo Linda Garcia and Elizabeth Ruiz created My Stock Market Workbook.

The 82-page workbook teaches children how to get a head start on understanding investing to set them and their families up for financially successful futures.

“We hope families understand investing and building generational wealth is for everyone,” Garcia says. “Our hope is every time a family sees a dollar, they look at it for its potential and not for face value.”

Garcia brought 17 years of experience in marketing in television and film to the project. During her time as an executive in the entertainment industry, her focus was on designing programming catered to the U.S.-based Hispanic community.

Now, she hosts a weekly podcast on the intersection of spirituality and identity called Let There Be Luz, produces a beginner’s stock market course, and has built a community of Latinx investors on Patreon called In Luz We Trust.

Her daughter Ruiz recently graduated from the University of North Texas at Dallas with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and is currently working on getting her master’s degree in Digital Forensics at Sam Houston State University. She has also created Grow With Color, a children’s resource brand wanting to fill in the gaps of educational resources.

Both women share a drive to promote equitable education and healthy psychological development in children. The two think that this book is especially appropriate right now, as parents have been thrown into new roles as educators via at-home-learning. Garcia adds that she believes the greatest transfer of wealth is currently taking place, thus, it is vital that children are introduced at an early age to this financial knowledge.

The absence of financial prowess is especially pertinent in communities of color, says Garcia, emphasizing the inequitable distribution of tools to build wealth in Hispanic families.

Latinx people are the largest and second-fastest-growing community of color in the United States, but only 28 percent of Hispanic households own some stock, according to Pew Research Center. Despite such challenges as inadequate access to capital, the number of Latinx-owned businesses in the U.S. is growing at a rapid rate, a new study from the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative found.

The pair says that their book is designed to empower all communities of color to take control of their future, which starts with educating children.

My Stock Market Workbook introduces kids to the stock market, while providing them with a variety of activities that review numbers and the alphabet. Utilizing visually stimulating educational methods such as dot-to-dot stock market charts and coloring pages, children learn economic vocabulary and numerals. The book also covers some high-concept principles such as proper investment research, portfolio diversification, and risk comprehension.

“The Fearless Girl” stands facing the Stock Exchange American flag on Wall Street in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan of New York City. The original statue is of a Latina girl. [Photo: Erin McGoff/istockphoto]

A drawing of New York City’s famous The Fearless Girl statue, originally created by Kristen Visbal, is on the cover of the book. Unknown to many, the original statue is of a Latina girl. Relating to the idea of female empowerment behind the statue, Garcia contends the importance of motivating young girls to feel capable and free to take up space in the financial industry.

[Image via My Stock Market Workbook]

“Everything I build is for the children of my children—an intention I hope to pass on,” Garcia says. “In this way, we are always thinking about the next generation and not about ourselves.”