I can’t believe this website exists! I’ve been looking for this for years. I didn’t know other people had problems with inheritance. I thought I was crazy for feeling the way I do. Thank you!
These are remarkable personal stories—morally awake and compellingly introspective. In their sum they remind us that privilege can be both a burden and a tremendous opportunity. – Robert Coles, Author of The Privileged Ones
People who inherit money are no different from anyone else. They want self-respect and purpose in their lives. Yet, despite their abundance, inheritors often struggle to talk openly about the impact of money, even with family and friends. The sense of isolation and lack of purpose facilitated by not having to earn a living can be damaging. As a result, an inheritance can be paradoxically experienced as much a burden as a blessing. At its most dire, “Inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness… It has left me with nothing to hope for, with nothing definite to seek or strive for.” (Attributed to William Kissam Vanderbilt)
Heirs often don’t recognize the extent of emotional neglect and trauma they’ve suffered because dysfunctional family dynamics hide so well behind the gleaming surfaces of wealth. The failure to find meaningful involvements in love, work and society can be painful, sometimes destructive, even in the midst of plenty.
Issues common to inherited wealth can include:
- Problems managing money and dealing with professional advisors
- Delay in the development of core principles to live by and a satisfying work life.
- A retreat into alcoholism, gambling and other addictions
- Debilitating shame and guilt over having unearned money
- Difficulty in forming authentic friendships with those of unequal means
- Problems negotiating a relationship with a life partner where there is a wealth disparity
- Conflict over money, both open and submerged, with family members, individually or within a family business
As Directors of The Inheritance Project’s new website, Sally Donaldson, PhD and Joe Reilly, are sharing the site’s books and monographs free of charge. In working with wealthy individuals, we have found that in addition to offering clients access to a hidden community of people with shared concerns, stories about how heirs work through difficulties can be inspiring. Once one can get past the idealization, demonization and projections that wealth accrues, it’s possible to think clearly about how to integrate wealth into a meaningful, fulfilling life.
“It’s possible to think clearly about how to integrate wealth into a meaningful, fulfilling life.”
We hope that you find these books and monographs enlightening. In addition to offering information, we want the site to collects new stories. While many of the stories presented here will be recognizable to our readers, the world of money is ever changing and as are the complications attached to it. We invite you to add to the site’s mission with your own concerns and experience. Read the stories for inspiration and add your own to posterity.
CLICK HERE to add your story
The Founding of the Inheritance Project
The Inheritance Project began when three women friends, Barbara Blouin, Katherine Gibson and Margaret Kiersted, all of whom had inherited wealth at an early age, challenged the taboo against speaking openly about money. Their shared experience as heirs afforded them the safety to speak about how being rich had shaped their lives away from the dismissive quip, “I wish I had your problems.” They all had felt a sense of being different from others: on one hand they felt special, but on the other they worried they were less substantial than people who had to make it their own way without family support. The dizzying array of choices available to them because they could have “anything they wanted,” had deprived them of the obvious sense of purpose that comes from necessity.
“The opportunity to reflect on how money had framed their lives was a profoundly relieving and in some cases, life-transforming experience.”
Curious about whether other heirs shared their experience, they began collecting the stories of other inheritors. Over the next several years, they interviewed close to two hundred men and women from across the U.S. These Americans came from varied families: old and new money, diverse religious faiths, and array of social and political values. Many were young; others somewhat older – in their thirties, forties, and fifties. The older people spoke openly about what it was like to inherit young – most had inherited by age twenty-five. Despite their divergent backgrounds, these inheritors found the opportunity to reflect on how money had framed their lives was a profoundly relieving and in some cases, life-transforming experience.
In 1992 these three women founded the Inheritance Project dedicated to exploring the emotional and social impact of wealth to help heirs and others understand the complex, murky side of unearned money. The best of their interviews became the basis two books. The Legacy of Inherited Wealth and its sequel Labors of Love are mini-autobiographies of heirs told in their own words, lightly edited to protect the identity of individuals. In addition to using storytelling to facilitate heirs understanding of themselves, the Inheritance Project wrote a series of monographs for spouses and partners, parents, therapists, lawyers, and wealth counselors. These monographs can help parents think about how to introduce the topic of wealth in a way that empowers rather than infantilizes their children. Others close to wealth like therapists and investment counselors can reflect on how stereotypical thinking about ‘rich people’ can make it difficult to empathize with the heirs they work with.
Dedicated to Barbara Blouin
Co-founder of the Inheritance Project
Growing up in a wealthy New England family that never discussed money, Barbara Blouin knows the pitfalls of inheritance from the inside out. Previously having chosen to avoid rich people, she began to face her complex feelings around money in her fifties. By breaking the code of silence and talking openly with other heirs, she found that she was not the only one who felt that having enough unearned money not to work could be an isolating burden as well as a blessing.
Barbara’s determination to understand her situation grew into the founding of The Inheritance Project in 1992 along with Margaret Kiersted and Katherine Gibson. She is the author, and coauthor with her colleagues, of numerous books and monographs. She has spoken extensively on the challenges and opportunities of wealth in the hopes that the next generation will be better prepared to inherit than she was.
Barbara has a PhD in French from Yale and a social work degree from Dalhousie University in Canada. She has written extensively on how welfare polices affect the poor. Born in the US she moved Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1981 where she now lives.