Being a wealthy parent has plenty of advantages.
Expensive schools aren’t so expensive anymore. You can travel to exotic and educational locales. You can buy your kids the best of the best, whether it’s cars or ballet school.
But wealthy parenting also has its downside — the fear of raising unmotivated, entitled children. Of all the challenges that come with being wealthy, raising kids is at the top of the list. Today’s rich want to teach their kids the work ethic, not the wealth ethic. Many try to shield their kids from the knowledge that they are wealthy and may inherit millions later in life.
It’s a noble effort. But the Internet is making it harder and harder for parents to hide their wealth from their own kids. My print column today looks at how a growing number of rich kids are going online to find the answer to that age-old question: “Mommy, are we rich?”
Not long ago, kids relied on their parents for the answer. And parents usually demurred until the kids were in their 20s or old enough for their trust fund. The new Silver Spoon set doesn’t have to wait. They can go online, where a flood of publicly available information on their family wealth awaits them — from SEC filings, the business press and financial sites.
Wealthy parents need to start adapting to this new reality. They need to be more open with their kids at earlier ages. And they need to start preparing them earlier and better for the realities of managing wealth.
Many rich parents I talk to refuse to tell their kids about the family wealth, saying, “It’s not their money and they don’t have a right to know about it.” But today, the kids know already, and they may be planning a life of leisure built on that wealth — regardless of what their parents say.