"Maa, do you know where Papa has invested for you?"
"Why? Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. I just started a SIP and thought you should have one too."
"Papa looks after all that. I have enough to manage here."
And she often does. Most mothers run the house on a budget they could recite in their sleep: the milk bill, the maid's salary, school fees, gifts for every family wedding, and a small emergency fund tucked away in a steel dabba or under the mattress. However, if you ask her what the family owns, where it sits and in whose name, and the conversation mostly drifts somewhere else.
Anooshka Soham Bathwal, founder and CEO of Dhanvesttor, has spent years trying to close that gap between managing a household's money and having a say in its wealth. The SEBI-registered wealth management firm built exclusively for women has seen many such women across income groups, including in families worth crores, Bathwal says. She shared a few examples of women from ultra-high net worth families, to show how widespread this is.
One of them, a 68-year-old married for more than 45 years (identity altered slightly to maintain privacy), oversees 40+ staff at home. She fixes their salaries, signs off on their hikes and keeps count of every leave taken. Yet when a dinner guest asks about her husband's listed company, she steers the talk elsewhere.
"I don't want to look like I don't know what the family business is about," she confessed to the other women at a Dhanvesttor workshop. Whenever she had asked at home, she heard the same reply: "Tumko ghar ka kharcha mil jaata hai na? Toh jaan ke kya karogi?" (Translation: You get your household money, don't you? What will you do by knowing?)
"Most of these ladies never realise that yes, they're wealthy, but finances are being used to control them," Bathwal told NDTV Profit. "And that is misogyny."
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The 'Aha!' Moment
Bathwal keeps these classes small, sometimes under ten people, because women rarely open up in front of a crowd. Many sign up out of curiosity, looking for a break from lunches and kitty parties. Partway through a session, the mood in the room usually changes. "They realise they had no clue they needed to be financially aware to be independent, and not depend on a husband or a brother," she says. "It's like waking up after living on autopilot."
In Bathwal's view, ability has little to do with it. "If she can manage 40 people, she can certainly be skilled up to understand the business." What holds these women back is how they were raised, and how often they were told that money was none of their concern.
That silence gets even more expensive when life turns without warning. Bathwal has watched widows struggle to find out what share of a joint family business their husbands held, and whom they could trust to ask. Her firm now encourages couples to talk early, with a simple opener: "I don't want to do anything with your money. I just want to know, because life is unpredictable."
One attendee had that talk with her husband about six weeks before he was paralysed. When the crisis came, she knew exactly whom to call, and she went on to oversee the sale of their company.
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Where Children Come In
A son or daughter who has just started earning may be tempted to come home with screenshots of a soaring portfolio. Bathwal would suggest them to hold off. Tales of 200% returns or days glued to the trading terminal from 9 to 3 usually convince an older woman that investing is beyond her. "People want to bake one cake with five ingredients and serve it to everyone," she says. "But someone may be lactose intolerant."
Her suggestion is to start with the phone your mother already carries. Set up a UPI id for her. Once she's paying the sabziwala without a second thought, show her that the same app can put Rs 100 into an SIP every month. Expect questions like "What if someone steals it? What will I gain?"
"Don't tell them everything at once," Bathwal advises. "Break it down so she's doesn't think it's too much for her."
Stories persuade better than spreadsheets, she says. She often tells clients about women who began investing at 42 and, by 48, were paying for an annual girls' trip with their own money. "You have to read the room and be empathetic," she says. "Then let her ask the next question."
Sometimes, Bathwal adds, the first job is to clear her calendar. One client lost three days every month calculating payroll for her household staff by hand. A biometric attendance machine and an accountant brought that down to two hours, and she put the time she saved into finance classes. Her reaction still amuses Bathwal: "But I didn't know I was already handling finances!"
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Above all, Bathwal's primary advice for children who want to help out their mothers is to go gently. "They want affection, and they want to know why."
Additionally, in homes where the men push back, patience matters even more. She says that big, drastic moves get noticed in controlling environments, but small, consistent ones add up before anyone notices.
The One Person
We can't assume the motive behind why a woman suddenly wants to learn about money, Bathwal says. "For some women, the drive is visible. For others, it's hidden."
Often, one family member draws it out. A client of hers wanted to keep her mind active and learn to invest, but she feared her husband's reaction. Her son, who works in Saudi Arabia, secretly paid her fees from abroad. She now invests through a joint account with him and makes her own calls.
Bathwal says, "That one person makes all the difference. If nobody takes the first step, nothing changes."
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