Warren Buffet famously said: I will leave my kids enough so that they can do something, but not enough so that they can do nothing.
Years back, when I was an independent IT consultant, one of my clients was a law firm that specialized in estate planning / wills / etc. As such, I got to see lots of the family issues that they deal with regularly.
I can say with certainty that a sure-fire way to screw kids up completely is to give them lots of money
Its completely rational that an 18 yr old - that knows they will inherit say 20M - will choose to do nothing with their life. Why study hard at school? Why start out at the bottom rung job stressing out during monday morning commute? Why do any of those things when, by the time dear old dad dies, you will be getting more money than 99.9% of the population.
Most of them wind up dealing with the feeling they've wasted their life. When you live in a nice house, but your dad paid for it, it winds up undermining all your feelings of self-worth. Notably, these types of kids tend to lean very far left....which is an interesting dynamic.
Very interesting thoughts. What’s your recommendation? I have two young boys and will be able to provide them with a lot, but don’t want to do too much.
Its a really tough balance. I think about that father alot (who had 500M and left his daughter 100M). I mean sure you can only leave your kid $1m but then what....give the rest away? That leads to its own turmoil with the kids as they feel you gave the money to strangers....
I don't pretend to know the answer honestly. The lawyers in the office used to say "giving away money is 10x harder than making it" and I understand their view.
Some families do a tiered approach: $1m trust at 25....then $5m at 35....$5m at 45...etc.. Others try to do "merit" based giving: $1m when graduating college, $1m when you get married, etc etc
Neither system is perfect and both can be either gamed by kids or abused in the sense that it just leads them to do nothing substantial with their lives.
One father invested all his money back into his company at time of his death (of which his children werent at the time shareholders in) and said that his kids should get jobs in the company and work their way up into an shareholder position.
Purely anecdotal in this case. It was just that, for whatever reason, those kids wound up disproportionately driven the leftist causes.
There was one that stands out to me (because I know it turned into a big lawsuit within the family). The father had made 500-600M in medical device development. His adult daughter became a big Bernie supporter and brought her new BF to dinner and they all had a big argument. This led to the daughter then saying she was refusing anymore contact with her father, no more visits, dinners, etc.
The father was obviously pissed off by this and contacted the lawfirm to see what he could do to alter / reverse the trust. His point was, its fine to not like my politics and lecture me about the evils of money....but then you can't simultaneously live off the money I made. In the end, wasn't much he could do, so it led to them not talking, and both parties only communicating via the lawfirm.
I don't know anyone like this but it rings true. Makes me think that it's the same exact problem on the micro and macro levels -- in macro, it's often called the resource curse.
It has already been said, but I’ll say it again. We as parents should be looking to erase generational trauma. Im thinking that could include the trauma of not having any direction due to inheritance. I don’t like calling that trauma, yet I’m struggling to find the words to describe it.
Nope, this is a leftist meme to destroy families and convince people to "donate" their money i.e. give to organizations they are beneficiaries of, truly diabolical -- but keep listening to friends of Bill Gates, maybe after your tenth jab you could just "donate" most of your stack to Pfizer directly.
OR raise your kids to not be unambitious losers you want to have fun watching stay weak.
For me it has less to do with a percentage of my stash and more to do with a fixed value as a booster. The other commenters talk a lot about "not a dime" and I understand their reasoning but their logic is off. It's rare you'll get to choose when you die and as a bitcoiner you'll likely have a lot of wealth left, taking it with you to the grave I think it's foolish. If you taught your kids well they should know how to not squander it.
Long story short I think setting up enough for college or a down payment on a house would be what I do.
I'm with you, actually spend the time to teach you kids financially literacy. giving your kids an inheritance (more freedom and options) is so obvious a good thing, anyone who cannot see that is on the wrong track. the whole point of being a good parent is to fix the things that were broken in your childhood and heal generational trauma. leaving your kids better off than your parents left you is a part of that. the whole "they'll squander it" mentality reflects badly on you, the parent, it's arrogant.
Zero, zilt, nada. And I have a daughter. And she know it.
If they are not capable to obtain it from me during my life, then they do not deserve it.
I will go with my BTC stash, forever.
I’m leaning this way more and more. No better way to squander wealth than by getting it for free. My eldest has already won half a million sats beating me at chess in the bear market.
I’m also giving them opportunities to earn it as they get older.
Thanks for sharing, that’s an interesting viewpoint I hadn’t considered. My parents couldn’t afford to give me anything besides bare bones. Same with my wife. We can afford to do a lot more with our kids. So we need to balance how.
I am guessing that you will use steganography to bury it in a picture. Like the sword of Excalibur placed in a rock for all to see, only the worthy can draw it.
I understand where you're coming from. But you are pretending you can choose when you are going to die to give the next generation time to earn it off of you. What if you are dead by this time next year?
That's it, you die and you are gone. Puff.
What's the problem? I will take the sats with me. Why should I care anymore? I am dead right? I can't do shit about it.
They should take care of me better if they really want me to give them my sats.
All this inheritance stuff is just a bullshit crap.
If they know there's a deed for them or a seed, they will do everything in their power to see you dead. THIS IS THE FUCKING TRUTH.
So that's why I told them: you want my sats? You will see no inheritance, you will get them ONLY if I give them to you. So be wise.
Is my own choice and absolutely nobody can stop me doing it.
You have yours.
You have much to learn about Bitcoin.
If you still do not understand what I just said, you still do not appreciate bitcoin at its true power.
If you have been stacking sats why would you not leave it to your kids? Yes I would leave some to charity but everything I do and earn is for my kids. The values they have are my responsibility so it’s up to me to ensure they are well rounded as they grow.
I hope I never have to touch my Bitcoin stash, as I plan to save it all for my children. I will use resources from @DarthCoin and @BTCsessions to educate them about Bitcoin and its underlying principles. We will learn the philosophies and writings of @dergigi and Shinobi (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/authors/shinobi). By doing this, I want to pass on not only my Bitcoin but also the knowledge and values that come with it.