Estate planning that is not simply boilerplate

Treat your kids uniquely. 

Of course, but what does that have to do with my estate plan? After all, my attorney suggested we give all kids the same amount but in thirds, at three separate ages, isn’t that fair? Fair is good right? 

Maybe. Equal in thirds is boilerplate. 

I’m not against this boilerplate solution on its face. I am against this solution if applied without any effort, thought or intention. At the end if you give your kids money in three chunks that isn’t bad, but doing it without much thought is not great.

Let’s unpack this. 

While parenting you reacted to each kid, differently right? My kids are young but I talk to them differently even now. When your 18-month-old granddaughter is playing with knives. Logic and reason don’t work. You simply take away hurtful objects.  

We don’t talk technical theory on investing to 6-year-olds. A better approach is to talk about giving, saving and spending. They can understand give, save and spend. They can’t understand Efficient Market Hypothesis or Modern Portfolio Theory.  

In the same way we parent for age of our children, our estate documents need to plan for ages, wiring, gifting, and for personality of our heirs. Treating kids differently is a good thing. 

With my employees this is true too, right? I have one guy who is always in early to work; he drives hard and needs to hear the message, “go home to be with your family.” With another one, we’ve had several conversations about not using internet for personal use while at work. They are different and need to be treating at work differently. We get this idea with parenting and employees but why then do we default to the same treatment of kids in the will?

I’m a big advocate of just, not an advocate of arbitrarily equal.  

Now what? No idea. 

I have no solution for now. Today I want to give you thoughts, and questions to help you press into these decisions. Justice and equity are not synonymous.