The most enduring gift Mom and Dad gave all ten of us was their abiding faith that hard work and education create independence.

When I was nine, I asked Dad for a bike because several kids in the neighborhood had gotten one for Christmas. Dad said, “Sure you can have one. Take some of your brother’s paper route, and you’ll save up enough in no time.”

I remember hating the job because I had to get up so early to deliver the morning paper, then still catch the bus to school. Worst of all were the Saturdays when I had to go “collecting.” I hated asking for money!

But every Saturday, I’d deliver all but a dollar (for baseball cards) to my mom, and one year later, she told me I had enough to buy the Schwinn Spitfire I’d been eyeing all along. Today I can still see my hands putting down $53.28 on Mr. Baker’s counter. I can remember riding it, washing it, and putting baseball cards in the spokes to create sound knowing this bike was not a gift—it was “mine.” Mom and Dad couldn’t tell me what to do with my bike because I bought it.

Alice and I provided more materially to our three children than my parents did to us, but the one lesson we remembered was to insist that they work once they reached their teens, which all three did.

My brothers and I disagreed strongly over this point.

“What is a kid going to learn after their first week at McDonald’s?” My brother once asked me.

“Life,” was my answer and that would have been my mom and dad’s answer too.

Working teens learn early that work can be fun on some nights and horrible on others that your supervisors have power that is often used unkindly, and that Uncle Sam takes a lot out of your paycheck. They also learn that some days you watch the clock and other days you leave work exhausted and that some of your best friends are found through mutual suffering and success in the workplace.

Many parents do not allow their children to work and then wonder later why those same kids cannot balance life and work as adults. I see their uncertainty as a lack of faith in our kids. One friend actually told me, “I must include my kids in my wealth planning because they will not have the same opportunities I had—no matter how smart and hard-working they are.”

Really? Do we really think smart, hard-working people will go out of style?

This need to help our children avoid some dreaded future is best expressed by a reader of mine whose definition of “adequate wealth” included “providing for family members I will never know.” It would exhaust me (and frankly embarrass my children) if I thought so little of them that I felt I had to provide for them and their children’s children.

Only now, with millions of dollars in my own bank accounts do I realize the point of Mom and Dad’s approach. That is, once you’ve gained the comfortable lifestyle that America uniquely affords, piling up more money is like spilling gasoline onto the pavement after your tank is full . . . meaningless, empty abundance.