Who are the progeny for whom you must provide?

David Wills, president of The National Christian Foundation, commented, “The average age at which a woman becomes a widow in the United States today is 57 years old.”

If there is any truth to that assertion (and the U.S. Census Bureau says it is (see Table 5, p. 11, on the referenced document); the age at widowhood for first marriages is 57.8, to be exact!), his follow-up comment deserves careful consideration: “Gentlemen, you have to redefine progeny. Progeny, for you, is your wife, your children, and your grandchildren.” And the implication: You’d best not merely “provide” for the eventuality of your death; you had best prepare your wife and children.

In the midst of quoting Socrates (“What mean you, fellow citizens, that you turn every stone to scrape wealth together, but take so little care of your children to whom one day you will relinquish it all?”), Wills said: “. . . You must not just ‘take care’ of your children, but of your spouse as well . . . because nine out of 10 husbands will turn their entire estates over to their wives.”

Point: Not that Wills believes men ought to turn their estates over to someone else; rather, that the children are not the only ones who need to be prepared for a potential infusion of financial assets at your death. Indeed, between the two of them, your wife is even more likely first to need the education and experience and training than will your children.

So, married men (especially if you are a business owner and your wife is not intimately involved in the business), the question is . . . : “How are you preparing your wife to receive her inheritance?”

Not sure what I’m talking about? Perhaps this story from James Hughes can help:

Some years ago a wealthy individual and his late sixties came to see me for estate planning. The family consisted of his wife, two children, and grandchildren. . . . [He] had decided . . . to leave his entire estate outright one-half to his wife and one-half to his children.

After I’d taken his instructions, I asked him if he would be willing to give some information about his family members selected form an impression of them. What I learned was that his wife, a woman in her sixties, had no formal or informal business education. He pay all the bills and made all the financial decisions. She had siblings who had poor financial histories and are constantly seeking financial assistance from her. His eldest son, just forty, had been divorced once, was in a second “so-so” marriage, and had children from each marriage. His daughter, and her late thirties, was single, a physician, and had already been named in two malpractice claims. Neither claim had resulted in a judgment against her, but the experience had left her frightened.

After hearing these facts, I asked him frankly whether he expected the fortune he had worked hard to create and wanted to leave to the people he loved would be preserved or dissipated by his plan. . . . I think every reader can imagine that had this planned and implemented, it would have been highly unlikely that it’s this family would be financially sound by the time the grandchildren were grown.
–Family Wealth, p. 98

And your family?

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