How much does one give and how much does one hold back? Do we promote greed and sloth by giving or by not …? There is always stuff in the gossip mags (I can protest that I don’t actually read them but I do occasionally have to go to the hairdresser and the doctor so they are always first choice to someone as self-deprived as I am) about billionaires withholding inheritances from their kids to instil a work ethic in them. Hmm, thin line I think. If someone is wealthy, they simply can’t pretend they are not and if someone inherits, let them. We get to an age (hopefully) when we start resenting having to work to live and some of us are fortunate to not have to …. some of us can do what we really want to, whether that is through having previously worked to live, hard enough to sustain us, or whether by inheritance or a windfall.
I say this now as a pledge to my child: you will reach an age, having studied and worked and lived to learn values and then whatever I have will be yours too. You will be able to work to be fulfilled knowing that I do not have to die for you to be able to do work that might help change the world.
Because, let’s face it, work that helps change the world doesn’t seem to pay so well. I’m sure parents think they are doing what’s right for their kids making them slog for a living when they are well off enough to enable them rather than disable them in their quest to make a difference.
I save every month for my child just in case I am not in a position to enable him when he is older – he’s got a nest egg even if there is no inheritance as yet.
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