Permission. Authorization. Consent. Each of these words implies that, before taking action or making a decision, a higher power of some sort is involved and needs to be sought out and consulted. Even as fully-grown adults, we often find ourselves seeking approval and the unspoken permission that comes with it, whether consciously or not. Dr. Henry Cloud, a noted clinical psychologist, makes it clear, however, that “becoming an adult is the process of moving out of a ‘one up/one down’ relationship and into a peer relationship to other adults. Becoming an adult is assuming the authority position of life. Adults have the power or right to give commands, enforce obedience, take action or make final decisions.” (Cloud, 1992)

“It seems that when you get to a certain age you almost give yourself permission to misbehave and say what you think. People allow it, with very old people.” — Julie Walters

As an adult then, with some level of financial wealth, the spending decisions you make do not require anyone else’s permission, approval or even acceptance. I find this to be heady stuff for many seniors, especially when children are asking nosy questions about the cost of your lovely apartment or wondering whether you could (read: “should”) have taken a less expensive trip or given “so much” to charity. As an adult, you can shamelessly slap the bumper sticker “We’re spending our children’s inheritance” on your RV and head south!

Wealth is now more commonly transferred during a child’s growing-up years and not just at the parent’s passing.

If this raises your kids’ eyebrows, and it very well might, it wouldn’t take you long to catalog the inheritance you’ve already passed along to them. As noted by John H. Langbein, Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale University, this infamous bumper sticker bespeaks jocularity, not resentment or hostility toward inheritance. It is a sign of the times, as ordinary people have come to sense that the patterns of inheritance are in flux. (Langbein)

If the bumper sticker was rewritten to articulate the true state of mind of the cars’ owners, it might read:

“We have already transferred to our children during our lifetimes most of what would formerly have been their inheritance from us upon our deaths, and we are presently enjoying spending some of what’s left.”

A bit unwieldy, to be sure, and not nearly as amusing.

Langbein points out that wealth transfer now includes investment in human capital such as education. As a result, wealth is now more commonly transferred during a child’s growing-up years and not just at the parent’s passing. What this means for Mom and Dad, assuming the math works in terms of your net worth and your earnings, is that you get to spend it, stuff it in a mattress, live in a nice home, make large donations to charity, travel to exotic destinations, take up expensive hobbies at any age, and know that you’ve done well by your children along the way.

Easier said than done? Consider these recommendations when you get the hint from your loved ones that your lifestyle, actions or decisions somehow need your children’s “permission”:

Invite your children to a meeting with your financial advisor. I encourage my older clients to include their kids in an annual meeting because, just as nature abhors a vacuum, heirs will make wild guesses when they don’t know the financial facts. This meeting can provide context for your financial capacity to continue your current lifestyle and serve as an opportunity to talk about the choices you made to defer spending in your earlier years so you can enjoy your retirement now.

Provide clear expectations if you choose to transfer wealth during your lifetime. I had a client who wisely made annual exclusion gifts to her four children to lower her estate below the Federal taxable level. However, it became clear after a couple years that these gifts were creating a false sense that Mom was a replacement 401(k), as two of the four children were using the gifts to increase their current standard of living rather than saving the gifts for their own retirement years. We combatted this problem by providing a reasonable estimate of what each child would inherit in total. This gave them the necessary reality check that Mom wasn’t going to replace the need to save.

By providing the Will before your death, you can help settle up some of these perceived wrongs and explain your decisions in depth.

Give each child a copy of your Will and explain the thought process you went through in its drafting. I strongly believe that some of the snarky remarks made by heirs about their parents’ financial decisions are due to unresolved feelings of unfairness or entitlement. By providing the Will before your death, you can help settle up some of these perceived wrongs (Jimmy was the baby and got so much more than me as the oldest!) and explain your decisions in depth. This makes for a powerful opportunity for this conversation during your lifetime rather than at the funeral.

If you are the child in this scenario, consider asking your parents for this information if you are hearing murmurings among your siblings (and even if you aren’t). Let your folks know that you think it would be good if they filled the vacuum with fact to replace fiction.

Bottom line, permission has already been granted by the simple fact that you are an adult. Conversation with your heirs that provides some context around your money decisions can help to clarify any misconceptions they might have, as well as yield non-financial dividends.