“Do you want to be a firework?” my daughter Maya asked my husband. 

My husband and I had been talking to our two oldest children about our finances and estate planning when the conversation turned to our final wishes. Maya had heard that a person’s ashes could be incorporated into fireworks and wanted to know if her dad liked the idea of going out with a bang. 

She then asked if I wanted my ashes to be converted into a diamond that could be incorporated into jewelry. My daughter Zoe chimed in with ideas of her own.

Many families tend to avoid this sort of conversation, but mine was leaning into it.

No, we don’t have a weird obsession with death. And our kids aren’t counting the days until we’re gone to get an inheritance. I just know all too well the consequences of not talking openly about issues related to money and aging. I wrote an entire book on the topic: Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk. 

So, just a few days into the new year, my husband and I took advantage of both of our daughters being home from college to share the nitty gritty details of our finances, estate plan and final wishes with them. 

Why the rush?

My daughters are ages 18 and 20. As Zoe, my 18-year-old, said before we sat down to talk, the conversation I wanted to have seemed like something geared toward children whose parents were much older. 

Indeed, more than half of investors surveyed by UBS Wealth Management said they haven’t talked to their heirs about their wealth because they don’t think it’s a pressing issue. Only 29% older Americans have planned with their families how they want to be cared for as they age, according to AARP.  

What was my rush to address topics many families put off or avoid discussing altogether?

For starters, my family medical history is not in my favor. My dad died at 61 of a heart attack. I never had money talks with him and was shocked to learn when he died that he didn’t have a will. I assumed that, as an attorney in a second marriage, he would have put his wishes in writing. You know what they say about assumptions …

My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 65. I had a general idea where she stood financially but didn’t have any specifics. So, I had to piece together information to manage money matters for her as she was forgetting important details.

And just days before sitting my kids down to talk, I learned that a high school classmate’s wife had died in her sleep. She was only 52. I am 51.

As I see it, these conversations can’t wait until parents reach some arbitrary definition of “old.” They need to happen when parents are still relatively young so that their children are prepared for worst-case scenarios. 

Plus, my husband and I had recently updated our estate-planning documents and named our now-adult daughters as our alternate executors, health care surrogates and agents under power of attorney. We didn’t want our kids to be saddled with these responsibilities without explaining what these roles entailed. 

As I told my kids, I wouldn’t hand them the car keys and tell them to get on the interstate without teaching them to drive first. So why would my husband and I give them the authority to make financial decisions for us without first sharing details about our finances with them? That would be setting them up for failure. 

What did we tell our kids?

In addition to our daughters, we have a 13-year-old son. We did not include him in our family money talk because he’s too young to play any sort of role in our finances. (That said, we have shared general information about our finances with him.)

Our daughters, as I mentioned, have been named alternate executors for our estate. That means they will oversee the distribution of our assets if my husband and I die at the same time. 

So, we started the conversation by telling them what steps to take at the time of our deaths (including relying heavily on the support of our estate-planning attorney) and what financial resources would be available to them. 

We told them the value of our life insurance policies and the process for collecting death benefits. We shared how much money we have in our retirement accounts and brokerage accounts. We said our will states that everything will be divided evenly among them and their brother.  We also said that the person we appointed to be their brother’s guardian would manage any money he receives until he’s an adult.

Then, we shared what they would need to know about our finances if we were unable to manage them on our own because of a health issue or cognitive decline. We showed our daughters the list of all the monthly bills we pay and all of the accounts we have. We told them that we have enough savings to cover the cost of long-term care and that we don’t expect them to provide hands-on care for us. In fact, I would prefer professional care in an assisted living facility or memory care facility if my husband isn’t around to help care for me.

We explained that as our alternate health care surrogates and agents under power of attorney, they will be able to make medical and financial decisions for us if their dad and I can’t and one of us is no longer around to take care of the other. 

We also showed our daughters where our estate planning documents—will, living will and power of attorney—are located, along with our deed, car titles, Social Security cards, passports, marriage certificates and birth certificates.  

Everything we discussed we had already put in writing for our daughters. However, Zoe still took notes. And both had lots of questions. In all, the conversation lasted more than two hours. 

Wasn’t it depressing?

Talking to our kids about our finances and estate plan meant discussing death and the possibility that we might need long-term care as we age—not fun topics for two young adults on a Friday night. Not fun topics for anyone at any time. 

They both admitted that they’ve been anxious since they were young about the possibility that I could end up with Alzheimer’s like my mom did. But when I asked my daughters whether our conversation was depressing, they said our family money talk had the opposite effect.

“There’s not going to be a better time for a conversation like this,” Zoe said. “It makes me happy that you care enough about your lives and our lives to do this.”

These conversations don’t have to be difficult. In fact, I firmly believe that avoiding these sorts of discussions can leave your children confused, frustrated and even resentful when they’re forced to get involved with your finances without the information they need.

By having a family money talk with our daughters, my husband and I were saying, “We love you, and we trust you.” It certainly wasn’t all doom and gloom. And I’m still laughing about some of my daughters’ “creative” ideas for a final send-off for their dad and me.