I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it actually means to raise financially healthy kids.
Not rich kids. Not “successful” kids in the traditional sense. But kids who understand money without worshipping it. Kids who can hold abundance in one hand and purpose in the other.
My wife and I are in a different season now. Our kids are 18 and 21. They’re standing right at the edge of adulthood, and I’ve noticed that the way we parent around money has changed almost completely from when they were little.
Some of what we do probably sounds unconventional. Maybe even reckless to some people. But the older I get, the more I realize that most of us inherited financial scripts rooted in fear. And fear has a way of disguising itself as prudence.
So in this week’s Earn & Invest podcast, I shared ten things we do with our adult kids when it comes to money, work, and building a meaningful life.
The first thing is this: our financial life is completely transparent.
Our kids know our net worth. They know our asset allocation. They know where the safety deposit box is and who the beneficiaries are. If something happened to my wife and me tomorrow, they’d know exactly what to do.
But this openness isn’t just about emergency preparedness.
I want them to understand how money actually works. I want them to see investing as normal. I want them to have a measuring stick—not to compare themselves against us, but to model healthy financial behaviors in their own lives.
When I was growing up, money was often hidden behind closed doors. It carried mystery and anxiety. I don’t want that for them.
And maybe the most controversial thing we do?
We don’t believe in waiting until we die to pass on wealth.
Every quarter, we gift our kids money. Then we help them invest it immediately into S&P 500 index funds and real estate.
Some people hear this and immediately worry about entitlement. Laziness. Dependency. I understand the concern. But I think we often underestimate the power of teaching young people how to manage wealth while they’re still young enough to benefit from compounding.
If generational wealth is eventually going to happen anyway, why delay it until they’re 60 years old and exhausted from life?
Why not give them runway now?
Why not allow them to make mistakes with smaller sums while they’re learning?
Why not let time work for them?
The point isn’t to create idle kids sitting around waiting for trust funds. The point is to remove enough existential fear that they can think creatively about their lives. Because despite what personal finance culture sometimes tells us, the goal of life isn’t maximizing net worth. It’s building meaning.
I remind my kids of this constantly. Money is a tool. Nothing more. I don’t care if they become millionaires. I care if they wake up excited about their lives.
I care if they build things. Help people. Create relationships. Solve problems. Take risks.
In fact, one of the biggest things I actively teach them is to think abundantly instead of scarcity-mindedly.
I spent years in the financial independence world where every decision was filtered through optimization and fear. Save more. Spend less. Avoid risk. Protect the downside.
There’s wisdom there, of course. But there’s also danger. Because when your whole worldview becomes defensive, you stop believing the world is full of opportunity.
I want my kids to believe they can start businesses. Move across the country. Reinvent themselves. Learn difficult skills. Pursue strange ideas. I want them to believe the world is expansive.
That said, abundance is not the same thing as a free ride.
There are hard boundaries in our house.
Once college is over, the parental credit card disappears. Completely. They can live with us. They can eat our food. They can lean on family emotionally. But they are responsible for figuring out work, income, and adulthood.
They need skin in the game. Always. And honestly, the older my kids get, the more I realize how little advice matters compared to modeling.
My wife and I try hard to model lives we genuinely enjoy.
I still practice hospice medicine because it feels meaningful to me. I podcast and write because I love the conversations. My wife gardens and refinishes furniture because it brings her joy.
We take walks by the lake.
We laugh a lot.
We enjoy simple things.
And I think our kids notice that happiness in our house has very little correlation with how much money we have.
That may be the most important financial lesson of all.
Especially right now.
Because if you spend five minutes online, you’ll quickly conclude the future is doomed. AI will take all the jobs. The economy will collapse. Climate change will destroy everything. Housing is impossible. Nobody can get ahead.
There’s an ambient hopelessness everywhere. But I refuse to hand that worldview to my children. So maybe the final lesson we teach them is relentless optimism.
Not blind optimism. Not delusion.
But the belief that human beings are adaptable. Creative. Resourceful.
I want my kids to believe they can build skills that matter. Solve meaningful problems. Create lives they love. I want them to assume things will ultimately work out beautifully—not because life is easy, but because they are capable.
And honestly, that mindset may end up being worth far more than any inheritance.
In the community segment of the podcast, I also reflected on a recent Substack piece I wrote about jobs we don’t love.
One thing listeners kept bringing up was how even unfulfilling work often serves an important purpose. Bad jobs teach you what you don’t want. They sharpen preferences. They help you subtract.
Sometimes they also give you skills, friendships, confidence, and resilience you carry for decades afterward.
The “perfect” path is overrated.
Often the real value comes from slowly figuring out what fits—and having the courage to change when it doesn’t.
Kids need money in their 20s-30s (esp when they have a young family, buying house, etc.). Waiting until they’re 60 to give them your inheritance, probably when they don’t need it anymore, is totally missing the point.
(assuming you can do this while they are young)
My children are 22 and 25. We are struggling with a lot of what you talk about here... finding the right balance between helping and supporting because we can vs. Forcing them to be fully independent. One is a lot closer to flying on her own. The other has had some pretty serious mental health struggles that have made it harder to withdraw financial support. We actually had a pretty serious conversation with him about money last night. This was a timely article. I'd be interested in reading more on how you're navigating this stage of life.