I got the above title from one of my blogging friends over at Living Richly in Retirement. It was a rather innocuous sentence embedded in a post about selling her house. But it did strike me as part of my philosophy of life. Since I have no kids the following could be coming from total ignorance but I don’t think any of us should leave anything but a pittance to our heirs when we leave this earth. It would just spoil them anyway. Let them take care of themselves as they expect us to take care of ourselves.
This is very contrary to all the latest trends going on in this country now but I am a contrarian so you should have seen this coming. We want to eliminate the inheritance taxes entirely in this country so that all the wealth can pass from one generation to another unscathed. We say a couple million bucks is just not enough for our kids. They need it all. Being that if nothing changes we will be a plutocracy in a couple more generations this makes sense.
Also given the fact that we are trying to pull the rug out from under our senior citizens there probably won’t be much left in 98% of the estates anyway. But of course it is really all about that other 2% all along so what happens to the rest doesn’t matter. They say that unless we do something to change it within this decade seventy percent of the jobs in this country will be minimum wage. So for most of us, taking care of even ourselves will be a major chore let alone leaving anything behind. But the 2% will do better, much better, and that is what these times are all about anyway.
Since I have some word count left here I want to approach another topic related to seniors and their kids. When most of us retire we dream of traveling more and having the time to just relax and read a book when we want to. But it seems that many of my co-workers who have retired become full-time babysitters for their grandkids. It is about time for those folks to tell they kids, at least on some occasions, that they have other plans for their senior years….
RJ's Corner 
Yup, two topics that seem to be something you need to experience in order understand. I don’t really disagree with you about passing on money- but family farms will dispear.
As for becoming the babysitter- that is simply a return to three generations ago. The “new retirement” of the last fifty years is incredibly selfish as far as I am concerned. I’d much rather spend my time and money on the next generation. Childhood zips by. Sharing your life and faith is a privilidge not a burden. To me it is like saying working at a food kitchen on a schedule keeps you from traveling. People depend on you as well.
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For myself, I can only hope we have something to leave our girls. It won’t be millions so it probably hit the level for estate tax, unless they really lower it a lot by the time we go. What’s wrong with leaving what you have earned through your lifetime and already been taxed for to your children? I don’t begrudge even millionaires the right to pass on what they have honestly earned in their lifetimes. It may be galling to many of us with much less, but isn’t it unfair to just snatch it away to add more dollars to the black hole of government waste? Not all children of wealth are spoiled rotten and useless…many do good things with their lives. Yes, some are unable to handle it and waste their lives, but so do plenty of people on the other end of the scale. Estate tax seems like robbery to me…easy pickings for politicians who use class warfare for their own gain.
As for babysitting grandchildren…I know several who do this often and not one of them is sorry or feeling that their golden years are being wasted. If any felt differently they would say so to their children. For most it’s a pleasure to be helpful and a golden opportunity to bond with their grandchildren. I don’t have any grandchildren, but if I ever do I will be there ready and waiting.
Our children already have much tougher economic times and it won’t be better anytime soon….if I can help by something as simple as babysitting or leaving a few dollars behind for them I will.
But, that may be just me who thinks like that.
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I think the issue is more about whether our children expect an inheritance vs. preparing for their retirement on their own. Our two daughters will very likely see a significant inheritance, but it is a byproduct of our financial prudency, rather than an intended action. We continue to live very robust and satisfying lives in retirement that are significantly below our means, just as we did during our working years. We do it because it gives us peace of mind during very volatile times, financially speaking, but it also means we will likely not come close to using up our estate during our lifetimes. I’ m fine with that tradeoff, as is my husband, and it also gives us peace of mind about our daughters quality off lives when we are gone.
Regarding our retirement lifestyles vs. time with our family – we try to incorporate both. Our daughters have access to our online calendar, and they both know they are welcome to join us wherever we are, which they do quite frequently!
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Good point about the “expectation” of an inheritance, Tamara. That could be a pretty big influence on a young person’s development. Now I remember, that’s why Warren Buffet let it be know that he is not leaving much to his children…he doesn’t want to ruin their lives.
I’ve never had any family with wealth great enough to worry about that. I guess coming from farm-family stock and marrying into plain old middle class has been a blessing in that regard. Anything we can leave behind will be greatly appreciated by our daughters, but never expected or depended upon.
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This has been a very active discussion while I have been away. Thanks to everyone for their words. As I mentioned I unfortunately am without children so I was counting on you guys to chime in here and I am definitely not disappointed. I learned a lot about this topic from your discussions. I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I sure do have more than my share of questions….
When I talk about inheritance I am primarily talking about the millionaires and billionaires. As you mentioned that Buffet and Gates have both stated that they will leave only a small part of their inheritance to their heirs. The bulk of it will go to philanthropy. Without heirs the bulk of my estate, if you even want to call it that, is going into causes to make the world a better place for everyone.
You guys make a great point that I missed, it is really the expected inheritance that seems to contaminate the rich. When a person grows up expecting to be rich will virtually no effort then it often poisons their very being. Just look at Paris Hilton and all that crowd for examples.
One of my regrets about this blog is that sometimes people take me much too seriously. Much of what I say is said in jest. I try to do it without a mean spirited tone but evidentially I am sometimes unsuccessful in that. I try to live by Will’s quote in my header to “do the best I can and not to take life too serious”. Please try to keep that in mind when reading what I have to say here.
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