Most parents with an estate plan haven’t told their adult children what’s in it. A 2025 Fidelity survey found that 70 percent of U.S. parents 55 and older with at least $500,000 in investable assets had a will or estate plan, but 68 percent hadn’t shared the details with their children. Children don’t ask because they don’t want to look greedy. Parents don’t bring it up because they’re afraid of disappointing anyone. So nobody says anything.
Wingspan Founder Christina Wing wrote about what happens when a family finally breaks that silence in a commentary piece for Fortune, “I helped a billionaire couple tell their kids they’d already received their inheritance. They didn’t take it well.” She opens with a Wells Fargo study of 800 Baby Boomers and 800 of their adult children. Sixty-one percent of the children said inheritance had already caused problems in their families. Only 29 percent of parents said the same.
One family’s conversation
Christina tells the story of a couple she calls Jose and Natalia (names and details changed). They’re in their eighties, built a very successful private equity firm, and years ago gave each of their four children a gift of about $25 million. The children always assumed they’d inherit most of the estate when their parents died. They won’t. Instead, they’ll get lifetime use of the family homes, held in trust. Nearly everything else goes to a charitable foundation focused on mental health and education, guided by the couple’s eleven grandchildren. Jose also chose his longtime executive assistant to vote his company shares and left her a sizable bequest.
Jose didn’t want to tell them. He told Christina he knew at least one of his children would have a real problem with the plan, and he didn’t feel like dealing with the conflict. Over several months she made her case. Jose would likely die first and leave Natalia to explain everything alone. Heirs who are surprised by a will are more likely to sue. And sharing a plan with your children isn’t the same as asking for their vote.
When the family finally sat down in 2025, it took two days and sixteen hours. There were tears. The sons kept walking out to cool off and skipped the family dinner. The children called their parents “sneaky” and kept asking whether the plan was really final. Jose and Natalia were hurt that their children didn’t seem to appreciate the gifts they’d already received, but they also felt huge relief. Natalia won’t have to defend these choices by herself, and the grandchildren can start preparing for their roles. Christina admits there’s no “happily ever after” here. It is “better than it was before,” and everyone is still alive to talk it through.
“I believe that in most cases, relationships become better when financial secrets are brought out into the open.”
What Christina tells families
Christina isn’t a lawyer, and she doesn’t draft estate documents. Her work is getting families to talk about them. She tells them that silence leaves the hardest decisions to the people left behind, usually with no clear sense of what you wanted, and suggests opening with something as simple as “I don’t want you to have to guess what I wanted.” The documents matter, but so do the conversations about values and priorities that let everyone act with confidence later. She recommends talking early and coming back to it often, since marriages, divorces, illness, and business changes all shift what people want. And she encourages families to treat these talks as an act of care.
You also don’t need to be wealthy to need a will. According to Gallup, only 46 percent of Americans had one in 2020. If you own anything of value, have debt, or have children or pets, you should have a plan.
For family businesses, the stakes go beyond the family. In the Wells Fargo study, about two-thirds of business owners’ adult children expected the company to pass to them or their siblings. Fewer than one in five owners planned to do that. When a surprise like that surfaces after a death, it can lead to lawsuits and rushed sales, and employees end up paying the price.
Estate planning is one of several topics Christina covers in her book, Unspeakable: The Taboo Topics We Avoid and How to Talk About Them, and she says it’s the one that comes up most at her talks.
Link to the full article below.
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