Those parents didn’t generally discuss money with their children, just as they shielded their progeny from the horrors of war and the scourge of poverty, said Mauro Guillén, a professor of multinational management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“The contrast between the Greatest Generation and the baby boom generation is a real one,” Guillén said. “One of those generations went through the Great Depression and World War II, and the other one was born into affluence.”
Boomers command nearly $80 trillion in assets, by some estimates. Much of that bounty will pass to millennial children, potentially the largest transfer of wealth in American history. Those riches provided the motivation, experts say, for boomers to teach their children about money.
“They really want to make sure that this younger generation is just much more educated about these money topics,” said Lewis of Northwestern Mutual.
Trent Long, a 34-year-old millennial, remembers that some high school friends had credit cards tied to their parents’ accounts. But Long did not.
That deprivation, he said, was a way “to make sure I was understanding how to live inside of my means.”
