Personal Finance

I have an estranged relationship with my children and am considering leaving them $1 million each - do they deserve it?

Christy Bieber

Published: January 21, 2025 4:39 pm

Should you leave your kids money even if you have an estranged relationship? This is the issue that a Reddit user is coping with right now. As the Redditor explained in his thread, he’s divorced from the mother of his children and she received most of their shared assets when they separated. He has four kids who have chosen not to be an active part of his life, and he’s remarried to his soulmate but neither of them has much time left. 

Since the Redditor has a net worth of $4.2 million, he is considering leaving his children $1 million each. He already provided his kids with a lot of financial help, though, including a paid-for education and home down payments. Now, he’s questioning whether he should give them each such a large additional sum of money given their rejection of him. 

So, should he provide them with their inheritance or consider an alternative plan?

Is it worth leaving money to your estranged kids?

Whether you should leave an inheritance to your estranged children or not depends on what you believe the purpose of leaving an inheritance is.

If your goals for your money are to reward your loved ones for being active participants in your life or if you hope to provide for those who have helped care for you in your old age, then leaving money to estranged children isn’t the way to go. 

Your kids haven’t “earned” your inheritance by fulfilling your expectations in this scenario and you may want to leave your wealth to someone who has. The Redditor mentioned a loving sister and he may prefer to leave his money to her because she’s played the expected role he believes a sibling should in his life. 

On the other hand, if the Redditor believes that the purpose of his hard work was to provide for his children and set the next generation up for success, then the right move may be leaving his money to his kids anyway. In this scenario, the inheritance isn’t a reward for loving devotion and it’s not a method of forcing family closeness — it’s just something a parent should do.

Since his children became estranged after the divorce, he may decide the second approach makes sense, especially since his children have made clear that the end of their parent’s marriage upended their ideals about family.  Since his choice to divorce essentially destabilized the family unit in the first place, he may not want to punish the kids with the loss of their inheritance for reacting to it the way they did. 

It’s also worth considering the alternatives

As the Redditor decides which approach to take, it may also be worth looking at what other options he has for heirs. 

If he has other people who he cares about that could be beneficiaries of his money or if he has a charity he believes in and wants to donate to, then there’s a better alternative. If not, he may just want to give the money to his kids anyway for lack of a better option. 

Alternatively, he could also set up a trust for his current and future grandchildren, making the money available for specific things like paying for their college. If he took his approach, he could use his money to change the trajectory of his family without specifically giving the funds to the kids he has issues with. 

It may be worth talking with a financial advisor or estate planning attorney to explore these options, as there’s a lot of money at stake and professional advice can’t hurt in this scenario.