THE HUMAN CONDITION
Raising Children

By Alan Weiss

A generation, these days, is deemed to be about 70 years. Think about the fact that the great cathedral in Rouen took 400 years to build, or that tapestries hanging in halls of the French aristocracy took 200 years to weave, when generations were perhaps 40 years.

When you choose to have children, you can’t help but think generationally. Who will they become? Are our traits passed down? Will they remain close or drift away? What will our family look like?

Personally, I never felt it to be my duty to make my children rich. I felt it was my responsibility to try to help them be successful in their chosen fields, and to impart the values that my wife and I felt were important for growth, societal responsibility, and personal accountability. I think these attributes are important from generation to generation, but money is not. One can always earn money, but will never be able to reclaim a lost day. In many cases, giving money to your kids can ruin them, and the adage is that a first generation founds a business, the second runs it, and the third ruins it.

My kids shocked me recently—they’re in their 40s—when they advised me how fortunate they are that my wife and I paid their college tuitions. I felt this was our responsibility. My parents were poor and couldn’t pay mine, but I won scholarships, worked part time, and took college loans that required $120 a month to pay off over a couple of years. But many of my kids’ friends emerged from college saddled with backbreaking debt.

I felt it proper to pay for our kids’ schooling (I calculated it cost $450,000 for both of them from Kindergarten through undergraduate, all in private schools.) I paid that all out of cash flow over the 17 years required. I subsidized their rent and expenses for a while, but then they were off on their own. I paid for my daughter’s wedding but not my son’s, which was the etiquette of the day. And, of

course, in those rare emergencies I was there and always will be.

But I’m convinced that my being poor led to my great strengths and ability to build a prosperous career. I couldn’t make my kids poor, but I could try to avoid making them complacent.

I understand that not all of you have children, but you all do have families of some sort, near or distant, small or extended. We have an obligation to help each other, but that obligation isn’t always about finances. It’s about love, support, understanding, tolerance, forgiveness, and a place to return to when things are rough elsewhere.

My will isn’t my legacy to my family. My presence is. ■