“Teach your children well.”

 -Crosby, Stills and Nash

 I help a young child who is  being raised by a committee.  His single mother was killed in an accident.  The child received a large sum of money from his mother’s death and lives with extended relatives.

 A judge decided to appoint a committee to handle his upbringing and named a non-related attorney as administrator.  I advise the committee.

 The child comes from a lower income family and few of his relatives are well educated.

 The first thing the administrator decided what  that the child will have to earn his allowance by working with handicapped children and others less fortunate than himself.  He also suggested that the child be involved in  youth groups and receive special tutoring.

 The boy is going to have a rough time with no parents and knowing that his mother’s death gave him a huge amount of money.  Helping children with physical handicaps will give him a sense of self purpose and recognize that others in life have adversity and learn to deal with it.

 Helping other people might keep the child from being a spoiled, rich, jerk.

 I grew up hating private country clubs and considered them the pinnacle of snobby elitism.  I won’t join a private club, although in fairness, no private club has ever asked me to join.  I can understand why rich people want to hang out with other rich people.  In that environment people are of similar financial status and the rich can feel more secure.

 
For the boy whose parenting is done by committee, one of the decisions made was to give him golf and tennis lessons.  His finances are set for him to have  money paid to him over his lifetime.  He will probably have friends who are well off too.  Being a golfer and tennis player will allow him to bond with children who grew up with similar wealth.

 If you have children, you want them to be financially secure.   There are some steps to making sure that money does not warp them.

 Don’t let them have it all at once.   Most people spend a lifetime gathering significant wealth.  Getting too much, too young, does not give a person the proper perspective.

1. Make sure they understand it is not easy to come by.  Having them earn money, rather than having it given to them, is a good way for them to find out what other people do to feed themselves.  I had a  friend who grew up wealthy and was complaining that he felt deprived because his neighbor was given a chain of gas stations by his parents and he was not.  He could not relate to the idea that many people his age were hoping to get a job pumping gas or making change at a gas station, instead of owning one.  His perspective on life was warped.

1. Make sure they know money can do good things. Too many people with inherited wealth spend it trying to impress other people with inherited wealth.  If your children know they can spend it to make other people’s lives better, they will be happier in the long run.

1. Don’t let them think in terms of a big inheritance.  I have seen many young people waste their lives waiting for a rich relative to die and leave them a big lump sum.  The relative would do a bigger favor by spending the money on educating the child and setting up a trust or other mechanism to make sure that any inheritance does not come in as a lump sum.

 Be a good role model.  If you give money to charity, your children probably will too.  If you volunteer to do things in the community, your children will pick up from your lead.

If you to teach your children not to be  spoiled, rich jerks, don’t act like one yourself.

 
Don McNay is Chairman of McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Ky  where they try not to act like jerks at any income level   He is the author of “The Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher.”  He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can read more of his writings at www.donmcnay.com   His award winning column is syndicated on the CNHI News Service and he is on the Board of Directors for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.