A conversation on family & legacy: how the wisest families can preserve what matters most

A conversation on family and legacy:

How the wisest families can preserve what matters most

Please see important information at the end of this program.

Recorded on 8/2/2021.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Good afternoon. I'm Jennifer Chandler, managing director with the Bank of America Private Bank and the president for the Dallas market. Thank you so much for joining us today. At Bank of America, we have a long, rich history of working with the wisest families, generation after generation. I personally worked with a number of those families over the last two decades. And I can tell you one thing for sure: each and every family is very unique. That being said, there are some consistent findings and we learn each and every year and we work to share what we learned with the other families we serve. The Bank of America Private Bank has been here for over 200 years serving the entire family while every family is unique. We also know that every person in that family is unique with different experiences, perspectives and goals. Now, we haven't memorialized all of our work into a book, but our guests today certainly has. That's Dr. Karl Pillemer, who's written Thirty Lessons for Living, Thirty Lessons for Loving, and most recently, Fault Lines. He's a renowned gerontologist and author who went on a quest to understand what the older generations know that the rest of us should. He's interviewed thousands of Americans, and today we're going to have a discussion with him. We also have Holly Swan and Jesse Mandell with us today, two colleagues that I work very closely with. They'll take some of the ideas from Karl's work and put it into action with how we can serve you and your families. It's going to be a great dialog. And without further ado, I'm going to introduce each of them and give them the opportunity to tell you more about their background and their passion for this work. Karl, we'll start with you. Tell us more about your history, your incredible bio and what you've learned from these interviews.

DR KARL PILLEMER: Well, thanks. And let me say first, it's a tremendous pleasure to be here. I've already learned a lot from you and Jesse and Holly and others about these complex issues relating to family legacy and family wealth and how to have happy and successful family relationships over the course of a lifetime. So I appreciate it. And I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. I'm a firm believer in the use of scientific evidence and when scientific findings can guide us, that we should definitely use them. But about 20 years ago, I would say, I had a different idea. When science doesn't have a good answer for one of life's very complicated problems, let's go to what I called the real experts on living. So people who have lived through serious life problems or difficulties, found their own answers, and survived and thrived and take that knowledge and use it to help other people. So I created something called the Cornell Legacy Project, in which we interviewed over twelve hundred very old people about their practical advice about how to live a happy, healthier and more fulfilling life. I also interviewed people who'd been through difficult life situations like a family

rift or a family estrangement. So overall, we've gotten information from close to 5,000 people about how they can handle situations like child-rearing, like having a long and happy marriage, like finding a purpose in life, how they can do that and survive and thrive in difficult situations. So I would say that these are, in my view, the real experts on living. So I want to make clear to everybody I've been brought in to offer some advice on these issues, but it's not my own. It's the advice of a wisdom of crowds of thousands of people who we've asked about for how to deal with the kind of situations we're going to talk about today.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Well, thank you, Karl. It truly is an impressive background, and I have to tell you, I've personally really enjoyed the books, and you are truly an expert, but it is great to hear from these elders who you also deem experts. Now, we'll turn to Holly Swan. Holly and I've worked together for many years in the Private Bank, and she has the pleasure to work with a number of these families. So, Holly, share more about your background with us and why you have a passion for this work.

HOLLY SWAN: Thank you, Jennifer. By way of background, I was a trusted estate tax attorney in private practice for many years, working with clients on planning issues. And over the years, I really found that I gravitated towards the softer side of planning, the family dynamics side. And so now I lead the Private Bank's family office consulting practice.

I'm also a mother of an eight-year-old boy.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you, Holly. And Jesse Mandell, last but not least, I know we brought you in to focus on whole family engagement and bring a lot of our capabilities together in the role you play. Share more about that.

JESSE MANDELL: Thank you so much, Jennifer. My name is Jesse Mandell and I lead family engagement, as well as financial education for the Private Bank.

I'm really fascinated by families and the qualities and behaviors that can help them thrive through generations. And I'm very excited and happy to be here today with Karl and Holly and Jennifer so we can talk about this very important topic.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Well, thank you. Again, we're here to take the expertise of Karl in the interviews he's done over the many years, along with Holly and Jesse, to bring that all together so we can put some of the ideas and learnings into action. So, Karl, let's dive right in. There are so many learnings from all of your books that directly apply to our clients. Can you just share more with us in particular around family life? What were your findings there?

DR KARL PILLEMER: Sure, I'd like to maybe start with a general point that both my research, and that of others, shows, and it's something I think that's a critical framing for everything that we're going to talk about today. You know, there are things in our society that we just get used to, and we don't really think about exactly what's happening. And one of those is what is honestly one of the most important demographic changes in human history. And that's the extraordinary expansion of the human lifespan. And we're also learning now more of a disability free lifespan. So how does that apply to families? Well, here's one thing about the family. What all of us have now, or almost all of us, is a huge longevity bonus and that the

longevity bonus means instead of life being over at 60, it might be 80 or 90 or 100. That means for families that parent- child relationships last longer than ever. You've got your kids in your family for 18 years, but you may be enacting parent-child relationships for two or three times as long after your kids leave the household. And the same is true of siblings. I interviewed 108-year-old woman who's in daily contact with her 103 and 101-year-old, a brother and sister. So these sibling relationships are also lifelong. Here's one thing that means in the same way that we carefully nurture our financial investments, our investments in our children and in our close family relationships are lifelong investments. So I think that one point I'm going to make, and I think that my colleagues here are going to make, we have to invest in those early childhood relationships and as kids are growing up, because one thing I've learned from interviewing thousands of older people, you want those warm and nurturing family relationships around you toward the end of your life or in the last third of life. So we have to think about the kinds of decisions and choices we make early in the life course that will help ensure those positive family relationships.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you, Karl. And I know you've learned so much. And again, just reading the books, there were so many scenarios that came to mind, not just for me personally, but the families we serve. So I think those insights are so helpful for us. And but what are some of the most important lessons you learned for and as you think about families, again, there's so much in there. But as you think about the most important lesson, what comes to mind?

DR KARL PILLEMER: It is. And when you ask an academic writer to talk about his interests, you're poking the bear with the stick. But let me just give you one big point first. So having interviewed, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people about their lessons for living and what they would advise younger people, if there's one phrase that came up to me again and again and again that rang through my mind, it's the expression, "it's all about time." One thing that older people know that younger people don't as clearly, is that we have a limited time horizon, that there really isn't an endless amount of time to improve relationships, to tell someone you love them, to ask someone for forgiveness. And that kind of thing is not an endless opportunity. So they understand the importance of a limited time frame. What does that mean practically? One specific example I'd like to give of that is the issue of spending time with your children. Over and over, when I ask people 80, 90 and beyond what the magic bullet was for having lifelong, enjoyable relationships with children over and over, they said it's shared experiences, shared people rather than things. It's about the sheer quantity of time that you can spend together. And that's much more what our kids want. That's also very, very true later on in life that we have to invest in these relationships. So I think that that's a key thing that this notion that older people emphasize time, time spent together, and allocating it as carefully as you would manage your investments of tangible things like money.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you. Time is so precious. And there were so many stories in the book that talk about that. And I love the point around this quality as well. Just being in the moment with your family, I loved hearing about that in the book. So another question for you. As you know, as you think about these last 15, 16 or so months, obviously a very challenging time for so many of us. Some of us were closer with our families because we moved in

together or worked together or not at work. So obviously a very unique time frame. So did you think about your research not only in the few thousand you've interviewed over the years, but most recently? Can you talk about the pandemic and the impact that you've seen on families?

DR KARL PILLEMER: That's a really great question, and it's a fascinating time for the study of families because we have this kind of natural experiment of what happens in a situation like this. I know there are very few silver linings in this dark cloud of the pandemic, so I don't want to downplay any of that. But I believe there have been positive impacts for a number of families that were genuinely unexpected. The first is the most obvious, that people have moved in together, have spent more time together and have depended on each other more than they might have in the past. But also families have connected. And I've been looking at some research on this, but people have also been sharing their stories of how a sort of disenfranchised family member, someone who hasn't much been part of it, has rejoined the family Zooms and the family emails, how people have reached out and included more distant family members. So I think that we've seen the opportunity for reconciliation as part of this. Again, I think it comes back to that idea of a limited time horizon. Unless you want to reconnect with a relative via séance and you believe that can happen, people have realized that time is short, time is limited, and that you can't wait to express love, ask for forgiveness, give forgiveness, ask for information. So I think people have learned that the time is now for mending difficult or absent family relationships. So that is to some extent a silver lining.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you. And I'm so glad that you can find that silver lining and we've seen that as well. In fact, it's been really interesting to see some of our families growing even closer together. They've moved in together. They've had more time, to be honest, to focus on things that matter most to them. So we have found that to be great with many of the families we've worked with. But also love your advice that it's never too late to remedy those rifts and bring the families together. And I think things have been put into perspective over the last year or so where we're seeing many families do that. So thank you. And again, there are multiple lessons in your book. Let's move to the next one. Can you talk more about the second lesson in your research?

DR KARL PILLEMER: Sure, I'd like to come from the forest, maybe down to the trees, because, as you know, I asked older people for their advice about family life. In my book, I give five or six lessons. And of course, there were many more. Here's one that stood out to me, though, as I thought about our overall topic today, and that's the issue of parental favoritism or differential treatment of children. So let me just say one thing about obvious or extreme parental favoritism. From our research and that of others, I'll put it simply, is bad. That is, people who grow up in families where they perceive themselves as having been on the subject of parental favoritism, often come out more depressed, more anxious with lower psychological well-being. And even if you were the favorite child, it creates a kind of pressure on you. So there's an issue with parental favoritism. But let me tell you another secret I learned from older people. They know that there is a powerful social norm, that we should always treat our kids equally. Right. But when I would talk to them, almost all of them admitted to having favorites among their children. So, for example, over two thirds of older mothers

told me that they have a child to whom they're most emotionally close. Now, the interview usually went like this. Do you have a child you're closest to? Oh, no. I love my children equally. Then a little bit later, they would say there was always something special about Billy or always something special about Betty. So I learned that many older people have one child to whom they're most emotionally close, another one to whom they go to for financial advice, and another who they go for to tell their problems to. But the problem is the impact of favoritism on siblings is so strong they learn to conceal it. I talk to an older woman named Sophie, who is in her 80s, had wonderful relationships with her successful children and with a twinkle in her eye. She said, Of course, I have children who I'm closer to. I talk to Margie all the time and she's the most like me. Never show anybody this. And we learned in our studies that most adult children believe that they're the favorite and most of the time they're wrong. So parents in general do a good job of having their feelings, but not sharing them.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: What is so important, and I thought the candor in the book was really eye -opening, just to hear the stories from all perspectives. So lots of learnings there, but immediately it came to mind the work we do at the Private Bank because that is a particular area. I see time and time again we can come in and help with that and also see various experiences. So, Holly, I know in your work you've seen quite a bit of this. Can you talk a bit about how this might translate into some of the work we do around estate planning?

HOLLY SWAN: Sure, absolutely. Thanks, Jennifer. This comes up a lot more frequently than I think most parents would imagine with estate planning and with a state settlement. The number one place where I see it come up with items of sentimental value. So parents might be very careful of being mindful of giving each of their children items of equal value. But if one child perceives an item to have a larger sentimental value and it goes to a sibling and not them, that's something that they can take really hard, especially because when they're learning about this is usually right after the passing of a parent. So emotions are typically already very, very high and things can be misconstrued. The other part that I think a lot of parents don't realize, and this comes up when you name your children as executor or personal representative of your estate, all of your gift tax returns from your entire life have to be filed with your estate tax return, which gives your children the opportunity to go poring through them. So back in 1982, you might have given your son more money to buy a house than you gave your daughter. And then you continued on and you thought nothing about it. Right. But here they are, and you are gone, and they're poring through these documents, and they're seeing it and they might not be interpreting it the way that you meant for it to be interpreted or the way that you've thought about it at the time that it happened. And I'm in no way saying that gifting unequal amounts is a bad thing to do. It's completely fine to do. And a lot of parents choose to do that. We often talk with parents about the difference between equity and equality. So the damage isn't in giving those unequal amounts. It's really in how parents choose to talk about it or the cases where parents choose not to talk about it, that we see the harmful impact on the sibling dynamic. The other thing that parents need to keep in mind is that by not planning, you are essentially creating a plan whereby your children have to work through all of these things together. So for parents who haven't proactively done the estate plan, they need to be mindful that having no plan is in and of itself a plan. And it's a plan that can be really difficult on that sibling dynamic.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you, Holly, and I know you've worked with a number of families to get ahead of that and think the sooner you start planning, the better. And to your point, too often that dialog and communication is so important as well. So thank you. I know, Karl, you've also written about estrangements and you have your other book, Fault Lines, which is also great. Thank you. I've enjoyed that one as well. And you've touched on avoiding those rifts that we can often see in families. And again, as I was reading that book, there were so many different scenarios that I knew would resonate with a number of families we work with. But what I also found encouraging about Fault Lines in learning about the rifts is that we can do just that, learn from them. And so I'd love to get your thoughts on what you learn from family rifts in your work with the book Fault Lines, and how we can apply that with them, some of the work we do.

DR KARL PILLEMER: Exactly, and I want to just agree with Holly that these issues of how do you divide up that Thanksgiving platter that serve Turkey for 60 years is one of the hardest things for families. And we found that in our studies as well. I would say in terms of avoiding a family rift, the first thing is you want to do it, these family rifts or family estrangement. And by that I mean when either the family splits or an individual is said, I'm done, I never want to see you or speak to you again. First of all, this happens more commonly than you would think. I learned in our studies at around a quarter of the US population reports that they are in a family estrangement. So by any standard, it's a lot of people. One of the first things I learned, however, if I talk to people who are in an estrangement and I talk to hundreds of them, what could you have done differently? And I asked, how could you overcome this rift? More or less, they said, really what I need is a time machine. I'd like to go back and undo what occurred, whatever the issue was of the business deal, the financial situation, the conflict over lifestyle differences, none of them was really worth this happening. So one of the most fundamental ideas, and I'll come back to this later, I think that we all will, is thinking about the consequences of this. If as many as a quarter of the population can be affected by this almost any of us can too. And finally, to our point here, I was really surprised in this research, which overall encompass surveys of over sixteen hundred people. How much money was part of estrangements and reverse money may not be the root of all evil, but it is the root of a surprising number of family estrangements. And I think that's something that we'll get into here. Oh, you know, let me further add, though, there are many issues around this that are ones we don't think of, we don't think of this concept of money and love always being sort of inextricably combined. And that's what it was like to get to this point. Rifts occurred because in one case, there was a vase, a lovely vase that had come over from the old country. Grandmother had promised it to her daughter and her father forgot and left it to another child. When that occurred, it caused a rift, the other sister simply wouldn't give it up and a rift was caused. So you really have to look at the meaning behind those events that very often these financial issues are caught up with so many other emotional issues that it can be hard to untangle. And, you know, I had a great time talking with you folks about that. You know, Jesse, I'm wondering with you, I had a sense from our earlier conversations that this is something you folks encounter quite a bit.

JESSE MANDELL: Absolutely. Karl, Holly and I frequently get engaged to help families here, and it's often not the assets themselves that are the issue, but the way that the plan around the assets or the summer home or the vase, are conveyed or not conveyed to the children. You know, estate planning can be a very difficult, sometimes painful process, and no one wants to think about their own mortality. I came across a statistic recently that 71 percent of parents say that having a plan and a very well-thought -out plan would help them feel like a better spouse or a better parent. But unfortunately, we see in the data that the majority of people just don't decide to actually communicate that plan to their children. It's easy, even when it's been created, to stick it in a drawer, to leave it for the next generation to find. But that can cause surprises and unfortunate ones that that. Parents aren't there to explain, not there to give the background, as Holly was mentioning, about the estate, the gifts. And I think sometimes what people forget is when it comes to a last will and testament, it really is a testament to somebody's life. It is your last document. It's part of your plan. And getting these conversations right can really bring families together. And it does. It takes a plan to almost have a plan. Holly, have you seen that in your experience?

HOLLY SWAN: Absolutely, Jesse. And I think you hit the nail on the head that communication really is the most important part. And you have to communicate those plans early and often to your children. And, you know, estate planning isn't set it and forget it. Right. You might, through early communication with your children, learn about things that they disagree with. You might choose to change your plan over time or both because of changes to your family, potentially changes with the tax law. But the most important part is that you be proactive with those conversations, make sure that your children understand the plans. And it's really not just about communicating the estate plan, it's about communicating about all family issues. And if you use the estate plan to start those conversations and if your children see that you really value open lines of communication in your family, oftentimes they'll feel a lot more comfortable reaching out about other things as well. And for some families who aren't sure where to begin those conversations, we can get engaged as well and help them think through what all of the issues are, what the best way to present them are. And, you know, in some cases, they will have us come in and present on some of those issues where they feel uncomfortable. And that might be the estate plan. It's also very frequently related to prenuptial agreements that it can be easier to bring a third party in to have those conversations as opposed to the parents having it directly.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you, Holly. All great points. I love the reminder that you can't just set and forget it, too. That's key is continuing to take a look. Things evolve over time. And also just your thoughts around having a third party there. We can often be that person and just set a regular routine to be meeting with the family on a regular basis to cover not only estate planning, but broader conversations as well. So thank you for that, Holly and Jesse as well. I know you've done some great work to bring all that together. So, Karl, back to you on some of the findings and in particular around the family rift. So we've learned a lot from them, ideally how to remedy them. But what were some of the common causes you also found in that work?

DR KARL PILLEMER: One of my favorite things is when the findings of our research dovetail so well with what's going on in the real world, I guess it always should. But in this case, I really love it. I heard both Holly and Jesse talk about two things that we found overwhelmingly in our studies: expectations and communication. And I really think that it often comes down to that. You know, there's a meme going around the Internet that expectations are disappointments waiting to happen. And I think that one of the greatest causes are unchecked and unverified expectations, in which people have many expectations for families. And some of those are these ones we use as clichés. You know, blood is thicker than water. Your siblings should always have your back. Children should always respect their parents. Problem is, not everybody agrees on all of them. And there can be these differences in expectations between parents and children and between siblings that caused such a shock once they're all out in the open that it really causes problems. Let me give just one example, which came up as a surprising source of at least temporary rifts. I mean, that was family caregiving. Very often there's one person who the family assumes is going to take care of an older person. And no matter how far we've progressed in gender relations, still our research shows if there's an unmarried daughter who lives nearby, let's say, or whoever in the family has the fewest other commitments, often everybody's expecting them to become mom and dad's caregiver. So first of all, that may be faulty. That causes problems because no one's talked about it. And when a person does assume caregiving responsibility, often their siblings are disappointed. The caregiver wants more help and expects more help than was given. So as I said, this is a prime cause of rifts when these expectations were very, very different. You know, one other expectation I'd like to touch on, because I think it relates to financial planning so closely, is our kids expectations of where we older people are going to live. And we've noticed two kinds of differential expectations. More frequently, the kids are worried about their parents and want them to move into a safe senior living community. However, we've also found their parents who want to do that, and their children are resistant. Don't sell the family house. It's part of our childhood. You aren't that old, et cetera. So I think that's an issue. I did interview couples, though, who really, really found this to be among the most positive things they did. And many of the fears they had about it, you know, were actually overcome. So I think that's one other expectation families need to look into. You know, and I think the other issue along those lines, if I've still got the floor for a moment, is the issue of communication, and it ties right back to what I was just talking about. And Holly and Jesse were, well, there's a principle that families could certainly adopt, and that's no one is a mind reader, that you absolutely have to check out what is going on with everyone. People have to be honest and open about their expectations. And when communication breaks down, it leads to a downward spiral where then rifts are much more likely to occur. You know, Jesse, I'm wondering what you actually think about that. Again, we've had a couple of conversations about how these issues work out in families, and I'd be interested to hear your take on it.

JESSE MANDELL: Thank you so much, Karl. And I think you're absolutely right. It does. It comes back to communication. It's about these non verbalized assumptions about something that should be done and it's making these conversations explicit. And if it's for plans that are for costs that are associated with the care of family members, these are conversations that people have to have. And when parents are explicit and we're able to factor the cost of care into financial planning, it really helps. I think having a plan to pay for care takes the pressure

off. And having this open dialog with children about your planning and costs and wishes can really be a powerful thing to bring people together. Something I read recently was that 60 percent of wealth transfers fail because of poor communication, not necessarily poor planning or anything else. And that ability to communicate with intention and bring values across in a very cohesive way is incredible. And it's good for not only the current family generation, but also for somebody's long-term legacy. It's a real opportunity to think about what's important and to share it with others. It's very powerful thing to be able to share that legacy, whether or not it's financial or your life experiences with children. And there's a real need for people to have the language to have this conversation. I think of that 60 percent when it comes to wealth transfer, almost as a proxy that people need to learn how to have these conversations. And I think a lot of your work brings across the importance of having these conversations now, and it does come back to care and thinking about these things and being able to talk about care, particularly as people age.

HOLLY SWAN: Jesse, I think this is such an important point and one that is very personal to me because I am an only child and my husband and I are raising an only child. This idea about communicating very clearly your expectations and I loved your point about the financial planning side of that, too, because it's one thing to say if you've chosen to stay at home, hey, I prefer as a parent to stay at home. But it's very different to say as a parent, I plan to stay at home. I understand what the costs will look like of bringing care in house. And here's what I've done to plan for that. For me personally, you know, I am very concerned about both the emotional and the financial burden on an only child looking after a parent. And I want to go to a retirement community where I can age in place, and those can be expensive as well. And I do think it's strange that my son at this age hears me talk about it that often. But I regularly visit clients in these communities and I love how socially vibrant they are and how many activities there are. And so I try to be very clear about those plans, but also clear about the financial planning side of what that will look like too. Karl, you touched on it a minute before, but I would love to hear your thoughts on those sorts of community living environments for older people.

DR KARL PILLEMER: Thanks, Holly. And I'd like to take, you know, on the one point you made. There's one thing that the baby boomers in particular have to remember. There were lots of them in each individual family caring for a couple of parents, three or four or more kids. The boomers are going to enter into old age and people younger than the boomers, much less likely to be in intact marriages and much more likely to have zero, one or two kids. And we're not really thinking about that, that the kind of family support that the greatest generation got really isn't going to be available. So, I completely endorse your idea. It's not a good assumption that family care is going to take care of everybody. Yeah, we did a fascinating study where we followed people who were considering entering a retirement community and followed them for 10 years afterwards. And here's what we found. Before they entered, people were very nervous about it. They were worried about privacy, worried about other issues. These fears disappeared almost immediately afterwards. And I think what's key for people to think about, and you raised the issue, if you look at surveys of the American public, most people say they want to just grow old in their own home, close to 95 percent, and almost all of those people are probably wrong. In general, research shows us it's better for people to age in

community. And I have no ties to the assisted living industry, let me say, or senior housing. But it's we're finding out the problems of social isolation and loneliness, especially after widowhood and retirement, are so devastating that many people who are reluctant at first find that this kind of organizing community living really solve their problems. And I interviewed many people who had the same viewpoint. So I agree with you. I think that planning for that possibility is completely in line with our research on how older people stay well and socially connected in later life.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you, Karl. Great thoughts there as well. And it's not only the conversation. Say you understand what the parents want, but I think it also helps the siblings really understand that plan for care down the road as well. So that dynamic there between family members is much smoother. So thank you for that. I know you have additional advice on families and what they've experienced with rifts and estrangement as well. Can you talk more about that?

DR KARL PILLEMER: Sure, I think the one thing people often ask, you know, asked me about really is how do we prevent it, and what do we do? And unfortunately, we could take another hour and talk about those. I do want to give a few tips, though, from people who either avoided family rifts or who were able to reconcile them. And one key part of my study was talking to over a hundred people who had reconciled after one, five, 10, 20 or more years in an estrangement. The first point I'd make is engage in first aid. Now, here's one thing that if you've ever talked to anybody who's in an estrangement, you've probably heard them talk about one very significant, transformative event. Something happened that might even sound trivial, but it sparked the whole estrangement. And that's very common, I call them volcanic events because that's how they feel. Well, what people told me is go back immediately and do first aid. If there's a conflict over an unpaid loan, a caregiving situation, an inheritance issue, if it festers and moves its way into stonewalling, it's very hard to roll back the clock. So engage in first aid and really deal with these kinds of dramatic events early. Second, I live in the part of New York where the Onondaga Nation lived, and they had the seventh generation principle. Don't do anything without pondering what its effects on seven generations might be. There's so much collateral damage from these kinds of rifts they extend across generations and down generations that it's critical to take a very long view of if you and your brothers and sisters split apart, what does it do to every family reunion for the next 50 years? So it ripples in that way. Finally, and this is key, and Jesse and Holly, I hope you both can add to this, many people either found that their rift was prevented by involving an objective third party or wish intensely that they could go back and get that kind of help. People who had conflicts over the sale of a house, sale of a summer house, the division of property, a family business, almost invariably said, I wish we'd gotten mediation. I wish we'd gotten advice from a disinterested third party who had all of our interests in mind. So, I would say getting that kind of help as this is developing is critical.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: It's staggering to hear the numbers that you've shared and then in reading in the book to the point you just made, too, in so many cases, it was one small thing. I found it fascinating as well. Even with social media, I think you had some pieces and they were maybe someone had posted or texted one small thing was misunderstood and said just

in this day and age, I think communication is even more valuable. And to your point, sometimes bringing in that third party, and while we're not formal mediators, we're always happy to have family meetings and just bring those discussions together and help with some of those dynamics. And so thank you for that. And again, it's an area where we truly can be helpful and family meetings are something we find to be incredibly helpful for a number of reasons, not only to help with communications to prevent things like this, but it's the overall planning. It's like anything else. You make time for the dentist to make time for exercise and things that are important for you. We have found that some of those family meetings are a way to keep that routine and keep communication ongoing with the families we serve. So thank you, Karl, for all of those points as well. When you transition again and there's so many findings. But let's move on to the next one.

I'd love to hear more about that.

DR KARL PILLEMER: Sure. I think I've touched on it in the previous one, so I can probably be brief, but one of the things I know people are concerned about, especially when they reach my age, but even younger people, you know, are concerned about how they have good, strong and positive lifelong parent-child relationships. And as I say, I've interviewed very old people about their regrets in life. That was one of the questions we asked. When I asked that question, I expected big ticket items like, you know, an affair or a shady business deal. So for so many people who had major regrets, it had to do with this kind of a breakdown in family relationships and especially with their children. And it's really easy to lose track of our need to nurture lifelong good relationships with our kids. I discovered something in these interviews I call the Middle-aged Blur, where, you know, you're in the midst of career, you're in the midst of child-rearing, you're in the midst of all kinds of things, and life just blurs by, and you aren't really thinking about the importance of this relationship. So here's one thing I learned. People need to treat their children like they will need them for the rest of their life because they will. Now, I want to tell one secret and I don't want it to be depressing, but it's a really important thing that people should be aware of. And this is not just from my research. It's from research over 40 or 50 years. I'll put it simply. After children become adults, this relationship is usually more important towards us older parents than it is to our kids. So in almost any way you do a survey, older people describe themselves as valuing the relationship more. Now, it's not that our kids don't love us, but they have other options, other things going on, and they're less bound by some of the traditional views that you stick with your family no matter what, especially if they're geographically mobile. So parents actually have to work to keep these relationships good. Those first 18 years are the time to invest, but they're the shortest part of the time that you're going to be relating to your adult children. So I always recommend to parents, based on these studies we've done before, you draw the line in the sand, before you object to a partner, before you, you know, create an ultimatum about a lifestyle choice or disapprove of a child's achievement, think about the long run and think about where you want this relationship to go over time. It can easily, you know, go the wrong way, so investing in relationships with our children as parents, really being aware of what we're doing and taking the long view is incredibly important.

HOLLY SWAN: Yeah, Karl, I couldn't agree more with that, I love the point about taking the long view. I think it's not just the middle-aged blur, but some of our clients I see this

particularly with business owner clients, are so involved in the day to day of running their business that they haven't even taken the long view for themselves. What do I want this to look like the day after I sell my company? What do I want my life to look like? When we work with families, we always like to say, what do you want this to look like one hundred years from now? How do you want your family to use the wealth that you have created? And almost uniformly, the responses that they would like to see their children, grandchildren and future generations use the wealth they have created to strengthen family bonds. And so, then you have to ask yourself, what do you need to do in order for that to happen? What does that look like to you? And it could mean that your kids and grandkids stay close for a long time after you're gone. I had one parent say it's really knowing that if a cousin picks up the phone and calls another cousin, that that cousin will recognize their voice, that that will be the level of comfort they have with each other. And also that parents want to know that their children are using the family wealth and the family legacy to feel fulfilled and to operate together as a harmonious family unit once the parents are gone. And so we do a lot of work with families to figure out how can they make that happen. And maybe it's as simple as creating a family mission statement. We have families that create family constitutions that really lay out the intent of wealth creators and put parameters around how they want the family to stay together. We have families that go as far as to say in their estate plans we want to pay for one annual trip to ensure that our children are coming back together and having those social bonds that ultimately are what keeps them together. But you also need to make sure that your children are getting the education they need to be involved in any family enterprise that you create together so that they have the skills necessary to serve as effective stewards of that wealth and to work together as stewards. Jesse, do you have any thoughts you want to share on those concepts?

JESSE MANDELL: Absolutely, Holly. And thank you. I think that idea of connecting through generations and carrying those values forward is so important. Karl, I'm curious about, I think, facets of parents behavior that I've seen and maybe how they change over time and can affect what Holly referenced. I look at my relationship with my wife, and we're pretty relaxed parents. She's actually a very relaxed parent and brought me along with her. And I remember when we were having children, and we have two great kids now, you know, we wash bottles. We made sure they had reasonable nap times, but we had people that we knew that went absolutely antiseptic when it came to their child care and the way that they thought about raising their children. And I can imagine that that perfectionist streak will show itself in other ways as the children grow up. I'm curious if you've seen anything about this, and particularly about perfectionism in your research and its impact.

DR KARL PILLEMER: I love that, Jesse, I like a lot of parents, I think I was a perfectionist with the first child and then with the second if they were, you know, living throughout the day, it was OK, whatever they did. So a lot of us change our views over time, too. But I agree with you very much in asking, again, America's elders for their advice about child-rearing and how to have these strong and positive relationships with kids. They really want you to lighten up. They really, really want parents to lighten up and abandon this kind of search for perfection, you know, not because, they argue that you really don't have to be perfect. You just need to be good enough, you know, because most kids do turn out pretty well. I'll share with you all a

finding from human development research that is really robust. You need to be in this range of parenting, not in, you know, this range, but if you're good enough, most kids really turn out OK. And so even in psychology now, we talk about good-enough parenting that really, you know, older people told me again and again that you don't need to strive for perfection in yourself as a parent. And you certainly don't need to strive for perfection in your kids. And it's that kind of loosening up and lightening up. I admit, older people are more aware of this from the vantage point at the end of the journey. And that's why it's great to talk to them. But, you know, I talk to an older woman who said exactly this. Her kids are going through difficulties or kids are going through troubles. But they did turn out OK, and a lot of the time she spent worrying about perfection turned out to be time wasted. So, Jesse, does that link into what you were saying? Because I couldn't agree more.

JESSE MANDELL: I think you're absolutely right. You know, there's this interesting thing where people can choose to be perfectionists and it is really about being in the middle. And I think even more so, it's this idea that we see a lot of our clients have an ability to insulate their children from failure. Right. To almost create this environment where they can be perfect and letting go and allowing children to make mistakes can be incredibly powerful. You know, failure builds resiliency, resilience and confidence and gives people wisdom. I think about my own life and my own career. I haven't always made the right choices or they felt like they were the right choices at the time. And as I reflect on them and what it's taught me and that I can then pass that on to other people, it's an incredibly valuable thing. And I think that as parents, you know, finding those teachable moments, you know, whether or not it's you know, when you're setting up a bank account, and you get an overdraft notification, OK, that's fine. You don't think about that. Use that as an opportunity to teach your younger generation about budgeting. Even giving children a small amount of money to invest, you know, either if they're of age in a brokerage account themselves or one of the various investing apps online thinking about, you know, how you can use these opportunities to have those teachable moments and mistakes will be made. But it's an incredible opportunity to have to bring people together and for children to learn. And I think we have to particularly look for small ways for people to fail and then also to be open about our own decisions that maybe went a little bit differently than we planned.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: All great thoughts, Jesse and Dr. Pillemer, I have to say, I'm a mother of four, so this section of the book really resonated with me. I went back and had a good discussion with my husband. We're trying to give our self a bit more grace now. And all good thoughts, Jesse, as well. And again, that's where we can come into the dialog too, just around making sure those opportunities present themselves for the children, to your point, whether it's learning the basics of financials, but also the decisions we're making along the way within a trust, you know, how much is too much, how much is enough to give them? So, some of these things are just personal parenting styles, of course, but there's also some steps we can take to work with families to help there as well. So thank you all. Teachable moments and impactful experiences for sure. So, Karl, we've talked about so much already, but I'd love to hear some final lessons if you don't mind sharing this with the group.

DR KARL PILLEMER: Here, I would give you two or three thoughts. One is just for all of you, if you are an older person, don't be afraid to share your lessons with younger people. And if you're a younger person, ask your older relatives and associates, because there are things that you really know, again, towards the end of the journey of life that you didn't know earlier. And our society is very segregated by age now. So people often don't have those contacts, and they have to work to make them. One of the things that if you talk to older people, you do learn, and I also learned this from my folks who had reconciled from rifts, is we tend to focus on big ticket items when it comes to family life. And I think this relates to what both of you were just saying. Big gifts, you know, major things that we do for one another. Over and over, the oldest Americans told me that you need to think about the importance of small things, small gifts, small events and simple pleasures and savoring those. You know, I think I've heard in my study of long marriages, people told me things like, I don't want roses and candy on Valentine's Day. I want him to unload the dishwasher, you know, and that fits in very well with what we know about family relationships. A series of practice, of small positive things, often outweighs these very big ticket items. And again, we've talked about it already, but that's the kind of investment that we can make in our children when they're small and when they're adults that really lasts over the lifetime. I wanted to touch on one last thing, which came up in a very unusual context. One of the things that we've done over the last year, and this was in my interview with Sanjay Gupta recently, we asked older people to give their advice for how younger people can get through the pandemic based on living through the Great Depression, living through World War Two and other huge historical upheavals. I actually interviewed somebody 15 years ago who had lived through the Spanish influenza. Over and over, they had a message I hadn't expected. What they remembered from those periods of history was generosity. It was how their family, even though they had almost nothing, they shared it with a family who had nothing. They did things for other people. They lived beyond themselves in these crises. And I think that that is really critical that families who give together, throughout all of our studies, if they don't have a lot of resources, they volunteer together, they do Habitat for Humanity together, all those sorts of things. It's this giving and generosity together. And I think the work all of you do with family, foundations and philanthropy, that sort of thing, is also really key. That you know, that we want our families, as you've pointed out, to be giving units as well as consuming units. And I think that can really, really help as families go forward and as we emerge from the pandemic.

HOLLY SWAN: Karl, there was a story in your book that I loved about your daughter wanting this very specific doll and repeatedly saying that she would be happy if only she had this doll and this was all that she needed and that when she got the doll, she was very entertained by that doll for about five minutes and then, you know, was sort of over it. It was just this one consumable item and kind of went back to her default level of happiness. And I think that that is such an important lesson for me as a parent personally, but all of our clients as well, to teach our children to find their own happiness as opposed to relying on consumer items for their happiness, and that we as parents need to teach that by really being models of good financial values for our children. I think there is this mindset in America. We are a consumer society that happiness comes from having things. And one of the big takeaways from your book is that happiness really comes from all of us spending time together. So when we think about parenting our children who always want every single item that's in every window that

we walk by, it's much easier as parents to say yes to our children. But it's really important to teach them that spending is a choice and that we don't buy everything that we see and we don't need to buy everything that we see and that those material items are really attached to our happiness at all. I also think that when we talk about those sorts of things, we can let our children know, even if we're not going to talk to them about our incomes or our net worth, we can show them that talking about money isn't taboo inside our family and that they can come to us with questions. So for me as a parent, I think that we need to teach them that the ways that we choose to spend our money really are a choice. And, you know, do we buy this item or do we use that money to save for something else? Maybe it's a family vacation, to teach them and model delayed gratification. I know that allowances are really polarizing subject. We choose to use allowances in my family because my son does want, he's at that age where he wants every toy that he sees. And an easy thing for me to say is that is what your allowance is for in his allowance is not enough for him to buy everything that he wants. So, he has to practice delayed gratification and save up to buy certain things. And it's also interesting to me, he wants to buy everything that he sees when he's using his parent's money, but he is much more particular about how he chooses to spend that money that he perceives as his, that he got through his allowance. And I also loved your point about philanthropy, that having that shared family mission is a great way to keep families together. I find that philanthropy is also a great way to start financial conversations without specifically sharing your own family's financial situation to introduce financial concepts. And I find as the parent of a younger child, that hands on volunteerism is a great way to start having those conversations and getting my son involved in giving back in a way that , I hope, will instill those values in him longer term. Jesse, do you have any final thoughts you want to add here?

JESSE MANDELL: Thank you, Holly. And Karl, I just wanted to say I loved how you described the family as a giving unit. And Holly, what you were saying about modeling behaviors and, you know, showing it doesn't matter how much you're giving or you know, how much you're volunteering, but that you're doing it and that you're showing your children that this is an important value that you want to pass on. And philanthropy is a very important way that you can bring values forward. It provides a platform for personal growth and also the development of skills. Some of the things that we've seen are there's this interesting interplay when you're involved philanthropically between an awareness of social issues and also a desire to create positive change. It helps open you up to ways that you might not have known about, but you could help before. And also opportunities from a financial management and investment perspective. There's a family that I was thinking about recently where there were multigenerational, successful family. And the person who is my age, who I was talking to, talked about going to the family meeting when they were nine or 10 years old and kind of running around the table. And now this person gets to bring their children and their child, who is nine years old, to the family meeting. And what was so powerful to me about that is there are ways that people can be successful. There are behaviors and qualities, and Karl, this is what I love about your work, that people can use to bring things forward within their own families. You know, this idea and as you've seen in your research, that one quarter of American families are estranged from at least one family member. That's something that it's incredibly important to normalize so people can talk about it. I think at the same time, it's very important to normalize, the family that I reference, this idea that, you know, you can be successful, that

there are ways to bring your family together and that there's definitely hope, and you can normalize this. So, Jennifer, just back to you. And I'm very grateful to be here today. And thank you, Karl.

JENNIFER CHANDLER: Thank you, Jesse. Great thoughts from everyone today. It's been a great dialog. There have been several lessons and learnings. And one big lesson for sure is the importance of doing things now. Express gratitude and don't delay expressing important things with family members and ones that you love. Don't labor under the false belief that we have an unlimited time horizon because that's just not the case. We've also learned how important it is to spend time together. Families matter in so many profound ways. And I know there's media reports and things out there that shows families are breaking down, but that's just not the case. We see it time and time again with the families we serve. It's worth your time to think and be proactive and be intentional as you think about your families. You can create a positive relationship with each child and each family member. Karl, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts today and your insights on this important work with families. You've given us a true gift by sharing those interviews and your learnings with us so we can learn more. And Jesse and Holly, thank you so much for putting all those pieces together to give ideas and to show how we can work with families to share our expertise. I hope everyone who's attended today has enjoyed it. And I thank you for your time. And remember, at Bank of America Private Bank, we're here to share our expertise and what we've learned from generation across generation. We're truly here to know you and your family and each unique family member in and out. So please discuss what you've heard today with your adviser so we can put some of these ideas into action, whether it's family meetings, education, that mission statement we talked about or working through family dynamics. You're a valued client, and we appreciate your time today. And we hope that you'll take advantage of the work that we have to offer to help you and your family. Thank you again.

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