Of all the things we can “leave to you,” money seems to us to be the least important. The most important thing parents can do for their children is to try as hard as they can to leave them a personal example in the kinds of lives they live . . . .
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In the early 1960s, we gave each of you enough assets in your own names to assure you of a reasonable ability to do with your lives what you would find most fulfilling. Each of you assumed full control of these assets when you reached the age of majority and have made your own choices ever since. We have also paid for whatever education each of you sought through the graduate school level. We believe these gifts fulfilled our financial responsibilities to you as parents.
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Putting all this together . . . we have not lived and worked primarily to maximize your inheritance any more than our ancestors lived and worked to maximize our inheritance. We have lived and worked to do our best to help prepare you for the lives and careers of your choice. We have worked and lived to make a constructive contribution to our community, church, and nation. And—we have lived our own lives the way we wanted to live them, and have had a good time so doing.
