How will you handle generational gifts to your family?
It's giving season in the extended Habbershon family.
No, it's not a particular holiday on the annual calendar.
It's the season of life when Allison and I are thinking more about our later-in-life sharing with my four kids and their families.
I've talked about having generational wealth in previous reflections.
It's a point in your financial journey where you determine that you can live as you want throughout your later-in-life years.
And no matter what the amount-from taking family vacations to giving larger financial gifts-you start sharing it with your family.
As Allison and I move into this season of life, we are reflecting on what it means to share with our generational family and how to make it a more intentional part of our estate planning process.
There is a lot to consider, a lot to learn, and, being me, a lot of conversations to be had.
Here are some gifting experiences and guiding principles from our sharing journey.
Life circumstances aren't always equal I have a grandchild who needs 24/7 nursing care.
And we have no idea about the nature of care she might need throughout her life.
These circumstances raise the question "Does 'fair' mean 'equal' when it comes to gifting and helping?" What if we can't help everyone equally because of the costs of her special needs?
Here's my guiding principle: "All things being equal, fair should be equal." And here is the reality: "All things" in life and families are seldom equal.
This is where it gets more challenging.
Can we talk about what is not equal in our families, whether it's a child in unique circumstances or two adult children with very different life and financial situations?
Different things for different people at different times One of my go-to sayings in child rearing was "Different things for different people at different times." Whether it was one child getting to have a sleepover with a friend when the rest did not, or the timing of helping a kid buy a car, that was my mantra.
Today, this guiding principle is just as important to me in our gifting and helping.
For example, Allison and I helped one of my children buy a larger house due to their family situation.
We were transparent with the other three kids that we would give them a similar amount at some point in the future.
We explained that we were not in a position to give each of them the same amount at the same time.
And we talked about how this approach fits with our family principle of "different things for different people at different times." Like everything in life, there are trade-off decisions, and it's an ongoing conversation.
Families often don't talk about gifts A younger colleague told me a great story about his first Christmas with his wife's family.
He watched his father-in-law hand his wife and her brother cards.
They each opened theirs, looked inside, laid it aside, and went on to the next gift.
Later, he asked his wife about it.
She told him there was a check inside.
He was shocked by the amount.
He asked if she had talked to her parents about it.
She said, "No, they wouldn't want us to." When he told me the story, I thought, "Who would do that?" Then I realized, "Wait, we do that!" Every Christmas, Allison and I do annual gifting to the kids and their spouses.
And we just put it in a card as part of gift opening.
There is usually some acknowledgment with a head nod, thank you, or hug, depending on the kid.
But we've never had a larger conversation about our intentions or how it's part of our planning and theirs.
What's the principle here?
"Talk about your gifts." They need to know our intentions, and we often need to clarify them in our own minds.
There is always a hierarchy of needs I recently facilitated a dinner with a group of baby boomer couples.
One father asked me how to support the grandchildren's education when his children didn't all have the same number of kids.
So, I shared my principle of having a "hierarchy of needs" to guide decisions that we can all talk about.
I explained that if we make a commitment to provide for our grandchildren's education, it doesn't necessarily mean we need to make financial circumstances equal across all the families.
The idea is that every family can talk about what "needs" we are committed to meeting as a family and then be guided by that principle.
Whether it is education, health, housing, or even family vacations, we can identify our priorities and discuss how we will meet them.
Coaching hints for navigating later-in-life giving as a family Here's a handful of hints you can use to apply these principles to your conversations around gifting and helping.
You can see from our experiences that we are mid process.
We are just learning how to do this and have a lot to talk about as a family.
Clarify gifting versus helping.
Be clear whether you are giving a gift or helping.
If you give a gift, you don't get a say in how it is used.
If you're asked to help, you can decide if and how you want to help.
Align on your "right" to give.
Don't assume you can give any gift or help you want, especially to adult married children.
Just talk to your family about your giving interests and go from there.
Start planning conversations.
Make your gifting and helping a conversation starter.
Talk about your giving intentions and how you see them fitting into your generational planning.
Develop skills for talking.
Gifting and helping can raise some hard conversations.
(You can see some of them in the experiences I shared.) Commit to building the skills you need to talk about as a family.
what gifting and helping conversation do you want to have first?