I wouldn’t want my nephews to grow up in a non-hazardous context: skinning your knees is an important part of learning to run, of learning to heed warnings and of learning how to deal with problems.
Too much risk-avoidance won’t do the children any good.
I read about one who said he really couldnt punish his kid by making him mow the lawn, clean his room, or take out the trash since staff did all those jobs.
Taking away Xbox is pretty universal.
The staff doesn’t mind at all if you pay them for not mowing the lawn or not cleaning the kids room.
We had a housekeeper and a lawn service when the kids were little. And a dog walker. Not full time staff, but the housekeeper did come over twice a week. When the kids got old enough to really help with those things, those people went away. They can both do their own laundry and clean their rooms (though my daughters is an eternal train wreck - my son is quite tidy naturally), do dishes, cook, mow the lawn, weed the flowerbeds, clean bathrooms, dust, vacuum. They can also both do light car maintenance (changing headlight bulbs), paint their rooms and small electrical projects (changing out light fixtures). They can do these things because while we can hire them out, we can also choose to coach the kids through them and have them do the work.
Now, if I had 15000 square feet of house I probably would have a housekeeper. But there isn’t any reason that the kids couldn’t clean their own rooms and their own bathrooms and do their own laundry. My billions of dollars would not be their billions of dollars, and they shouldn’t count on leaving home and having someone mow their lawns for them.
A parents job is not to make the children happy. A parent’s job is to teach the children to survive, so they can take care of their own happiness.
America’s suburbs are full of people with rich parents. Our slums are full of people with rich grandparents. If you don’t try to teach a work ethic, you are neglecting a fundamental survival skill.
But if you are willing to give your child the financial freedom, they can develop a work ethic that isn’t driven by the need for money. A billion dollars, invested and spent wisely, should keep a reasonable number of descendants fed for a long time. So if you take your billion dollars and model a reasonable middle class lifestyle, put it in trust for your children to support a reasonable middle class lifestyle, they can have a work ethic, but feel free to be writers or dancers or artists or dedicate their time to establishing non-profits or working for or pursue a calling like a PhD in English Literature without having to worry about whether those pursuits will allow them to support themselves.
It takes a work ethic to be an actor or dancer or writer or artist or a professional athlete. And having a safety net of “an independence” can make it possible to take those risks.
How are we defining “best possible upbringing”? It sounds like people here are defining it as instilling these hypothetical kids with some sort of working middle-class sensibilities.
If you are a hypothetical billionaire, there is no way IMHO that your hypothetical kids aren’t going to be instilled with a sense of class entitlement unless you hide your wealth and live on a strict stipend of middle-class income in a middle class neighborhood.
And even then I don’t think that’s the "best possible upbringing. Because then their peers and the people they see you associate with will just be a bunch of middle-class idiots doing regular middle America bullshit stuff like drinking beers, watching sports and Fox News and opining on topics they barely understand.
I’m a hypothetical billionaire here. Why would I prepare my kids for some stupid job they would never need to do in their lifetime? How about preparing them to run a multi-million dollar business? Or figure out what their passion and talent is and use some of that wealth to develop that?
IRL I worked crappy jobs when I was in high school and college. It didn’t teach me about “work ethic”. All it taught me was that minimum wage sucked, people who work for it tend to be uneducated losers and the people who lead them are almost as big losers. I mean what is the life lesson here anyway? Learn how to follow the instructions of a community college grad or be threatened with financial ruin? Sort of a silly lesson for the hypothetical son of a hypothetical billionaire.
I think I’d try my damnedest to live a middle class lifestyle, even if I was sitting on upwards of a billion dollars in assets. After all, if I don’t spend it, it just grows larger.
With that, I think I’d make the boys mow the yard and do all the other menial tasks that my wife and I had to do in order to earn money. There’s a lot to be learned from busting your ass for very little, and yet being happy to have that little bit that you earned yourself. Especially if your parents take the tack (which mine did) that money you earn yourself is free to be spent how you see fit- your parents didn’t earn it. Of course, this freedom ultimately comes with some painful lessons in spending your hard-earned kid cash on stuff that isn’t worth it, or that doesn’t last, or whatever, but better to learn as a 11 year old than a 31 year old.
I think I’d also try and resolutely avoid buying them everything they want; if they want an Xbox, they have to save up for it, or go in with their brother, or otherwise not expect me to just cough up 500 bucks, even if I could do that as a billionaire the same way I buy a coke today.
Ultimately the point would be for them to live a life free from serious worry about shelter, food and environmental factors like that (I doubt it does children any good to worry about whether they’re going to get to eat, or if they’re going to have a home to live in.), but without very much in the way of rich-kid toys or treatment. They’d have to drive shitty cars in high school and college, unless they can afford newer ones.
I went to high school at an affluent private school. I hesitate to say “rich”, as most of my classmates were from upper-middle class families, mostly doctors’ sons, lawyers’ sons and small businessmen’s sons. But even they got some stuff that was just outrageous by the standards of my solidly middle/lower-middle upbringing. And a lot of it came with the typical high school aged obliviousness and arrogance, so there was pretty much no awareness that not everyone lived like that.
I don’t think it would have hurt me to not have to have worn Sears Outlet clothing in middle and high schools (or garage sale clothing like my wife did), but I do think that growing up in an environment where Mom and Dad bought me plenty of whatever clothing was fashionable at the time wouldn’t have done me any favors either. There’s a middle ground, and I think that’s what I’d aim for. No stress about environmental stuff like housing, food, college tuition, but not too much in the way of mollycoddling and spoiling either.
I would read to my kids every night, and spend a half hour or forty five minutes a day playing with them. Even when they became teen agers, we would have dinner together at least three nights a week. I would love and respect their mother. I would give them a reasonable allowance to show them how to handle money responsibly.
Kids need time and attention.
Regards,
Shodan
As for making your kids mow the lawn and such, do you, as a billionaire mow the lawn? Or do you pay someone to do it for you? Kids learn by example. If they see you out there mowing the lawn when they’re little, and when they reach 12 or so you hand over that responsibility to them, that’s a lesson learned. If they see a team of Mexican guys landscaping the grounds every weekend while you sip champagne on the veranda, and then when the kids are 12 you suddenly fire the landscaping crew and insist that they start doing it, then the lesson they’ll learn is that you’re a miserable prick.
You can’t teach your kids the value of manual labor if you never engage in manual labor. You can’t teach your kids the value of volunteering at the soup kitchen if you never volunteer at the soup kitchen. You can’t teach your kids the value of working hard at a shitty job for pocket change if they never see you working hard. You can’t teach your kids the value of treating people decently if they never see you treating people decently.
If all you do is write a check to the soup kitchen every year, then they’ll learn that’s what sensible people do. There’s nothing saying that’s the wrong lesson, either. Bill Gates does all kinds of work with the Gates foundation, but he doesn’t go incognito down to the soup kitchen and mop floors, if he wants to help the soup kitchen he writes them a check. And they’d rather have a check. The only reason these charities let people volunteer is that volunteering is a great way to get people committed to a particular cause so that they’ll write the checks. They don’t need your ass down at the kitchen doing a shitty job mopping the floors, but that’s the way you get people committed.
So what exactly are you trying to do for your kids? Teach them how to function as a respectable middle class wage-earner? What for? If the kid was destined to be a middle class wage-earner, then yes it’s super important to teach them how to fill that role and not fuck up. Except they’re not going to learn how to do that no matter how hard you try, because the way people learn how to be middle class drones is watching their parents and extended family be middle class wage-earners.
Instead they’re going to be watching you do your job, whatever that is. Are you a super-successful entertainer? A driven business owner? An old money style investor? Thing is, reversion to the mean is the likely result. The factors that made you a super-star entertainer are not likely to make your kid a super-star entertainer, or super-star businessman, or superstar investor. As a billionaire you’re not in the 1%, you’re in the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. How did you get there? Well, even if your kids are extraordinarily talented they’re not likely to have the exact combination of luck and skill that you did to land in the 1 in a million class.
The best thing you can give your children is your time and undivided attention. If you are wealthy, use some of that wealth to buy yourself that time.
You don’t need a billion dollars to do that. We play with our kid and read to him every night.
People can’t comprehend how much $1 billion is. You could spend a million dollars a year and it would take a thousand years to spend it. And that’s before interest and investments.
The City of Hoboken, NJ has an annul budget of around $100 million. IOW, you could run an entire town of 50,000 people for ten years on a billion dollars.
That’s because you (presumably) have to work for a living. The life lessons you are talking about are important if you have a relatively small income and are forced to get along with other working class nobodies in some office somewhere where you have to kowtow to some mid-level functionary.
The purpose of this thought experiment is how you would give your kids the best possible upbringing AS A BILLIONAIRE. I’m more inclined to figure out how to teach my child how to use the money he will inherent wisely. Ideally, running and expanding my empire after I’m gone.
My point exactly.
He will need to be emotionally stable, and willing to work for his living, in order to do that.
The notion that only the inferior work for a living, and that he is above all that because he is going to inherit money, does not strike me as a good lesson to teach him if you want him to succeed in managing your business or investments.
"See that guy over there? He works for me, He’s nobody, because his father isn’t a billionaire. He has to work - you don’t. He has to get along with the other working class nobodies - you don’t. He has to kowtow to somebody - you don’t.
You’re above all that. No go out there and have a happy, successful life!"
Sure, that’ll work.
Regards,
Shodan
Why exactly is busting your ass for a pittance such an important life lesson for kids? Because as adults most of us have to bust our asses for a pittance, and so the quicker we get used to the idea the better off we are.
Sure, as a middle class parent the best thing you can teach your kids are middle class values that will let them succeed as middle class adults, because nobody’s winning the lottery any time soon. Except in the hypothetical posed by the OP, you’ve won the lottery already. Now what? Pretend you didn’t?
If having a billion dollars will ruin your kid, why hasn’t it ruined you? Wouldn’t you be better off giving that billion dollars away and going back to your office job earning $65,000 a year?
The point of middle class values is that you only earn so much a year, and even if you’re a superstar in your field your earnings are only two or three or four times greater than the average guy. So you have to learn to budget, you have to learn to delay gratification, you have to learn what is important and what is superfluous, you have to learn to get along with people who are important in your social safety net, because you never know when you’re going to be looking for another job.
Except if you’ve earned a billion dollars, it wasn’t by being the best accountant ever hired at your company. Either you were handed a billion dollars from your parents, or you’re so far off the bell curve in terms of talent that it’s ridiculous to even talk about bell curves in your presence. If you actually earned a billion dollars, then it will be impossible for your kids to emulate you, because you’re literally one in a million. If you inherited your fortune, at least you have a chance, because your job as an old money heir is to manage and preserve the family fortune, and since you’re probably nothing special yourself you should be able to teach your average kids how to do the same job. Then at least you have a family tradition of how to handle and protect your vast fortune, and your kids can observe you and your extended family and learn how to act. But that isn’t preparation for life as a middle class wage earner.
Again, if it’s so great for your kids to learn how to be middle class drones, then what’s the point of you having a billion dollars? Why not chuck it all to lead the good life of the typical American cubicle drone?
I had a middle class upbringing.
I don’t think I would try to teach them to do so by telling them that they don’t have to work.
The traditional American story is rags, to riches, to rags. Or consider how so many who win the lottery wind up broke. They didn’t think they had to work either. Easy come, easy go - that applies to the children of billionaires, at least if they have been taught that all they need to do is sign checks, and/or look down their noses at everyone else.
Regards,
Shodan
I wouldn’t want my kid to run my empire. She might have no desire for it. Or no talent for it. And god knows what the following generation will bring. I’ve watched a couple of profitable businesses passed down - it usually doesn’t end well.
Understand the investments and how money makes money. Learn how to make those choices (or put a trustee in place to make them for her if she can’t). But the business - I’m assuming that was my passion, and nothing is sadder than forcing your passion on your kids.
There is ample middle ground between “middle class values are the only values worth learning” and “entitlement is a virtue.”
Everyone, no matter how rich, has problems-- quarrelsome lovers, family friction, difficult classes, substance abuse, existential angst, whatever. Money gives you more options and not having money is a problem on its own. But money doesn’t mean everything comes easily.
So kids need to learn resilience. They need to learn learn to bounce back from minor setbacks. They need to learn how to have compassion and empathy, and how to put their own lives and problems in perspective. They need to learn how to find internal validation, and how to think through and find fulfillment in however they live their lives.
This doesn’t need to necessarily be learned by mowing the lawn. But it does require experiencing challenges, taking on responsibilities, and slowly become more and more independent.
There is ample middle ground between “middle class values are the only values worth learning” and “entitlement is a virtue.”
Everyone, no matter how rich, has problems-- quarrelsome lovers, family friction, difficult classes, substance abuse, existential angst, whatever. Money gives you more options and not having money is a problem on its own. But money doesn’t mean everything comes easily.
So kids need to learn resilience. They need to learn learn to bounce back from minor setbacks. They need to learn how to have compassion and empathy, and how to put their own lives and problems in perspective. They need to learn how to find internal validation, and how to think through and find fulfillment in however they live their lives.
This doesn’t need to necessarily be learned by mowing the lawn. But it does require experiencing challenges, taking on responsibilities, and slowly become more and more independent.
What’s so great about middle class values, that enable someone to survive as a billionaire?
It seems to me that the values you absorb from your early life implicitly assume certain truths about the world. And they make sense in that context. So take the famous ‘culture of poverty’, that traps people. Yes, the culture of poverty makes it extremely difficult to get out of poverty. But it’s also essential to surviving poverty. But then the values that let you endure poverty don’t work when you’re aspiring to a middle class life.
My point is that middle class values are unsuited to life as a billionaire. Sure, teach your kids the value of work. As a billionaire parent, do you work? If you don’t work for a living, how can you teach your kids how important it is to work for a living? It’s impossible, no matter how many times you push them out the door and point them at the lawnmower, because they know it’s fake. You don’t mow the lawn yourself, you don’t do any of the things you’re supposedly trying to teach them, so it’s a pointless exercise in cruelty rather than a chance to learn. It’s like the parents who believe that the world is a tough place, so they physically and emotionally attack their kids at every opportunity, so they won’t grow up soft.
My point is, in a world where it is extremely important that an adult is capable of bringing in a paycheck every week, and it doesn’t matter whether that’s super fullfilling or not, is a world that requires instilling certain values in a kids if they’re going to succeed. It requires teaching them certain ideas about money and how to spend your life. But what about when that paycheck is no longer the difference between a roof over your head and food on the table?
Yes, the family fortune could crater, and the impoverished aristocrats are now waiting tables. Or maybe they could have learned to manage the family fortune rather than squandering it on cocaine and race horses. But managing the family fortune requires different skills and outlooks than the guy who gets up every morning at 6:15 to be on the train at 7:15 to get to the office at 8:00 and sits in his cubicle busting his ass on the Peterson account.
Not just charity work. Priscilla Chan, Mark Zukerberg’s wife, is a pediatrician. She completed her residency after marrying a billionaire. Many others run businesses. Those who think that “of course” one would stop working once they have billions, are precisely those who will never be billionaires.
I am a mere millionaire and will never earn billions, so perhaps I’m not qualified to say. But the values that was instilled in me, by my poor working class family, and that I want instilled in my children, is that first and foremost it is important to contribute to society, to make yourself useful, to have an impact. Hard work that benefits the world is in and of itself worthwhile and noble, paycheck or otherwise. I am an Asian atheist but I think the set of values is similar to what one would call “Protestant work ethic” in the US.
At this point, I no longer work for money. I work because I love the work that I do. I can’t imagine this changing because I have even more money, because I already have more than I care to spend. So as a hypothetical billionaire, I would have no problem modeling the kind of work ethic that I want my kids to have, and not so that they can make a living, but so they can make a contribution to society in a way they find fulfilling.