Room for a child, not a life already chosen

Warren Buffett wrote this in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders dated 25 November 2024. He was describing a single gift within his own family. When his wife Susie died, most of her estate of about $3 billion went to their foundation, and each of their three children received $10 million. The figures come from the same letter. They are background, not a benchmark for your family or a calculation for you.

The belief itself is a narrow one: hugely wealthy parents, he says, should leave their children enough to do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing. Nobody should read that as guidance on how an ordinary household saves for a child. What makes it worth a second look is the line it draws between two things people tend to blur, namely giving someone room to choose and choosing their life for them.

For most families only the first half carries over. Money you put aside for a child is not yet a degree course, a city or a start date. It is really a question of which doors you want to keep open for later, and which ones you may be closing today without quite noticing. The warning about leaving too much belongs to a fortune this piece is not about, so it is no reason to save less.

Mara is 38 and works full time. Her nine-year-old daughter is in the next room doing homework for a subject she will probably drop next year. On the kitchen table lies a printed illustration: €40 a month at the top, used purely as an example, and a much larger figure at the bottom.

“So what’s that number supposed to be for?” her partner asks.

Mara starts to answer. A degree, maybe a flat in some university town… and then she stops, because she realises she hasn’t been working anything out at all. She has been sketching a life for her daughter that hasn’t happened yet. A shout comes from next door: has anyone seen the pencil sharpener? The girl has no idea there is a number about her on the table.

Her partner tries a different angle. “And if she wants something completely different at nineteen, who gets to decide?” Mara has no answer. She isn’t sure what the money could actually be used for later, which parts of the illustration are assumptions and which are fixed, or how much would be tied up for years. She hasn’t even asked herself whether €40 a month would still be comfortable if her own pay dipped for a while.

Nothing is signed that evening. Mara turns the sheet over and writes three questions on the back: What should stay open for her? What would I be tying down? What don’t I know yet?