Dying to Give

Why parents should financially bless their children now, not after the funeral

This is a guest post by Ohio businessman Justin Powell.

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A 21-year-old newly married man sits across from me. Smart. Driven. Ready to build something. He graduated at the top of his class, landed a strong job, and now wants to start his own company—but can’t, because student loans are choking the future out of him. Knowing his parents are wealthy, I finally ask, “Why haven’t they paid for your college?” He shrugs. “They just don’t really pay for stuff for us.”

I ask gently, “Do they not trust you?” He shakes his head. “No, they’re proud. I just never expected them to help.”

I’ve thought about this moment for a long time.

Eventually those parents’ assets will go to him. But by the time they do, he will likely be successful in his own right. The money will arrive not when it could shape his life, but when he is already running out of seasons to use it. The blessing comes, but it will be diminished, diluted by time.

This is the tragedy most families never see: a blessing delayed is often a blessing lost.

Money doesn’t carry the same power in every decade. Most families give it at the stage of life when it accomplishes the least.

A dollar at 25 can change a destiny.

A dollar at 55 barely moves the needle.

And this isn’t just anecdotal; national data shows that the average inheritance in America is now received around age 50–60, which means most families give the blessing decades after it would have mattered most.

But this isn’t just one young man’s story. Versions of this conversation happen to me constantly.

“Why don’t you ask your parents?”

The question always lands with weight. The person sitting across from me shifts, looks down, hesitates. I’ve watched this scene play out over and over, usually with younger friends standing on the edge of a genuinely life-changing decision: buying their first house, starting a business, launching a nonprofit, taking a risk that could alter the next forty years of their life.

And almost every time, the reaction is the same: they’re scared to ask. It feels too personal, too presumptuous, too vulnerable, and far too likely to disappoint.

Most young adults have no idea what their parents actually have or what they will inherit. They live in financial fog. Never wanting to be the kid who “asks for money,” even when the opportunity in front of them is wise, responsible, and aligned with what their parents say they want.

But here’s the truth: this is not how healthy families operate.

The families who steward wealth well think longer, plan earlier, and talk more openly. They treat resources as something to be shepherded across generations, not hidden behind emotional walls or released only after the funeral. And because of that clarity, their children make wiser decisions, earlier, with better outcomes.

Why Christian Boomers Don’t Bless Early

Let’s speak plainly.

Parents often say, “No one helped me.” They imagine this is moral strength. Usually, it’s nostalgia dressed up as righteousness. Hardship has a place, but withholding good out of principle is not virtue. Generational blessing, not generational deprivation, is the healthier pattern.

Others say, “We paid for their college.” But college has become the respectable dumping ground for parental generosity. You can waste $60,000 on a degree a child never uses and no one questions it. Give them $20,000 to start a business or nonprofit, and if it fails, everyone whispers.

That’s not stewardship. That’s fear posing as prudence.

And then there’s the confusion between “spoiling” and “equipping.” Spoiling is Cancun trips and Teslas for teenagers. Equipping is a down payment, cleared debt, or tools that create stability and responsibility. One creates softness; the other creates potential.

“But What If They Waste It or It Ruins Them?”

This fear sits beneath almost every hesitation. But money doesn’t create character; it exposes it. It amplifies what is already there. A grateful child grows with it. A disciplined child multiplies it. A foolish child reveals his foolishness, but at an age when the mistakes are still recoverable.

The danger isn’t giving. The danger is giving without guidance or waiting until bad habits have hardened. A young adult will waste less and learn far more with $10,000 at twenty-three than with $200,000 at forty-five. Early mistakes are small; late mistakes are catastrophic. What ruins a child isn’t generosity; it is handing real power to an undiscipled heart and walking away.

Early Giving Needs Structure, Wisdom, and Timing

Money needs structure, expectations, and accountability. Like fire, it warms the house when it is controlled, and it burns the whole thing down when it is not.

Because money is powerful, it must match the child you are actually raising, not some idea of fairness. Equal giving is not wisdom. Wise giving is. Some children can handle more. Some need guardrails. Some need coaching before capital. Some need smaller steps. Your job is not to divide everything evenly; it is to be a good steward of all that you have been blessed with.

And here is what most parents miss: by the time your child is twenty-five, your authority is basically gone, but your influence is not. You cannot command an adult to avoid foolish debt, but you can position them to avoid it. You cannot force stability, but you can create the margin that makes stability possible.

Timing matters, because the decade from twenty to thirty is the high-leverage window when habits form, marriages start, careers take shape, and grandkids begin to appear. I am not suggesting you drown your children in money at twenty-five, but a gift of $15,000 at that age can have a far larger impact on a child’s trajectory than $150,000 thirty years later.

Live in the Blessing

I was talking this week with Adam Josefczyk, founder of the Forge Leadership Network, and he reminded me of something that captures this entire message. Forge did not begin with a grant or a foundation. It began because his parents blessed early.

When Adam was fresh out of college, he had a vision burning inside him to train young Christian leaders, to equip them for public life, to build a pipeline of men and women ready to shape culture for decades. He had the calling, the grit, the hunger. What he did not have was money. And his parents did something almost no parents do: they gave him just enough support to buy a little time, enough space for a few months of focused work until others caught the vision and joined in.

Their generosity did not create entitlement; it created opportunity. It cleared the runway enough for Adam to try something bold, to take responsible risks, and to build something that mattered. And without that early blessing, Forge simply would not exist. Not at all.

And if Forge did not exist, the downstream consequences would be enormous.

Jena Powell, the youngest state representative in Ohio history, would not have been trained. She would not have introduced the Save Women’s Sports bill to the Ohio legislature, legislation that ultimately kept men from competing in women’s sports. Luke Schroeder would not be serving today as Deputy Communications Director for J.D. Vance. In fact, there is not a major branch of government—legislative, executive, or administrative—that a Forge-trained student is not currently impacting in a meaningful way.

Thousands of students would not have been trained. Dozens of young leaders now shaping legislatures, governor’s offices, and Congress would never have been formed. Entire states would look different today.

All because one family blessed early.

And here is the part that struck me most: Adam’s parents get to see the blessing. They see the fruit. They see the lives changed. They see their son thriving in the work they empowered him to start. They did not die with full pockets. They planted seeds while they were alive, and now they get to watch the harvest.

Do the same. Go talk to your children.