The deeply selfish, "I am not leaving my money to my kids!"

Why I've told my kids not to expect any inheritance from me

More below.

The truth is, I agree with the essential grain of truth at the nub, that children should make their own way, and build wealth on their own. But this article is little more than a Boomeresque self tongue bathing. Ok, Angie, you are not leaving the buck ninety you have in savings to your kids. What are you doing on the positive side to help them build the habits, the skills, and the necessary tools to build their own wealth? Crickets chirping.

Nothing, apparently. No, this is one of those creepy self tongue bathing articles which is some sort of weird virtue signaling from our intrepid correspondent. 

The other shoe: Children should be independent, should have a clear understanding of what that means, and have the tools to attain their end financial goals. 

With my children, I strongly exhorted them to work by age 16, and incentivized them by providing a car, and auto insurance, but gas and basic maintenance was on their dime. Adulthood starts with small, increasing steps. 

Both Maddogsson, and Maddogsdatir rose to the occasion, and found remunerative employment. They integrated work, school, and activities allowing them to develop valuable skills, in work, interpersonal skills, and time/schedule management. Plus, now they had their own spending cash.

Step 2 was teaching them that they had to save some of the money, while I am willing to help them with college payments (these are absurdly high, and even high earners like I was during college cannot make ends meet anymore. I made an average middle class income for the 15 weeks I worked each summer/christmas, about $14,500 in todays dollars). They will need to save some money for college. Maddogsson has paid all but a fairly small amount of his college so far. Maddogsdatir is 2 years away from college yet.

The other thing I did was to help them understand the necessity of building the habit of saving for future events like retirement, health care, and emergencies. I am very fortunate, and my condition is not average, but what I did was provide each child with a 75%-100% match towards an IRA payment while in high school, then a 50% match for a few years after. This lets them see how money grows, it teaches them to invest, and it allows them to get on their feet with other savings at the same time. 

Both have become willing savers, and have a significant nest egg which places them in the top 1% of savers in the Millennial age group. If they continue with this they will have a very large, and secure nest egg for the future.

Angie's grain of an idea may be fine, but without the essential instruction on how to build wealth, and invest assets the "You're not getting anything from me" statement is dangerous, and difficult to see how it works out well.

This does not require 100% matching on an IRA, it doesn't require any matching, although to the extent possible this would be helpful, it requires a mature adult helping the child navigate the difficulties of investing, and a steady hand showing them the value of doing so. Hopefully our intrepid correspondent is following this path.