"I'm ready to pull the ejection seat, but I'm worried I'm leaving my kids behind on the plane." That's how I put it when I posted some questions on Reddit asking how other parents are accounting for their kids' future with AI and robotics on the horizon. I feel like I have my own FIRE plan mostly worked out. What I don't have worked out is what I owe my three teenagers, and what would help them most, in an economy that might look very different by the time they're my age.
I got a lot of thoughtful responses. This post is my attempt to sort through what people said and how I'm starting to think about it. I'm trying to stay curious about where the economy goes over the next 30 years, and I'd rather plan for a range of outcomes than pick the scariest one.
The Deal College Offered Me
I grew up working class, and college was the deal for me. In the original post I wrote: "I originally thought paying for college was enough. It was enough for me, but with AI and robotics changing the job market, I'm not sure that deal is available anymore."
In one of my replies I described what the path looked like for my generation: go to college, get a STEM or business degree, work hard, invest 20%, make bank. It doesn't seem that straightforward anymore. I don't think the old path is gone, and plenty of people will probably still follow it and do well. I'm just less confident than I used to be that it's the default bet for a kid in high school today.
There's also the question of what my kids want. So far I've modeled "wage slave at a W2," and my teenagers don't seem to think that's a viable path for them. When one commenter suggested setting them up as nepo babies and waiting to see what happens, my answer was that it's one strategy, but I'd need something to nepo them into first. They don't want my W2 life.
In another reply I said I think their baseline for feeling successful is much higher than mine was, especially the floor. I also said I think they'll be ok. Holding both of those at once is part of why this question is hard for me.
The post also floated an idea I'm not sure about myself: "We may be going back to simpler times, where family, the family business, the 'homestead,' and local community were everything. In that world, what is our responsibility to set our kids up for success?" One commenter pushed back hard on that. Their view was that we never go back to simpler times, and that the next five to seven years could bring a bigger shock than anything in living memory. I don't know which of us is closer. My guess is neither of us has it exactly right.
Approaches Other Parents Shared
The replies covered a wide range. I've grouped them below and paraphrased them, and I've left out names and links on purpose.
Adaptability Over Specific Degrees
The most common theme was that the world is always changing, so the thing to leave kids is the ability to deal with change, rather than a specific lifestyle or career. One person argued that a STEM degree with no ability to adapt has never guaranteed success, even today, and that the more basic, durable skills are what carry people through. Another made the case for a liberal arts education, on the grounds that some STEM programs are specialized enough to go out of date quickly. A former engineer who had already retired early said he doubts his own engineering skills will be that useful in the future.
I agree with this in principle, and it's close to what I said in my own reply. The hard part is that adaptability is difficult to plan for, and almost impossible to put a number on.
Trades Plus Startup Capital
One reply suggested skipping the four-year degree and using roughly a quarter of what college would cost as startup capital for a trade business. The argument was that a young person who shows up on time and sober and stands behind their work can do very well running a one-person shop. The commenter gave an income range I can't verify, so I'm leaving it out. The logic still interests me: the money that would have gone to tuition becomes seed money instead.
It's fair to ask how long hands-on trades stay insulated as robotics improves. My sense is that it's probably longer than many office jobs, though I hold that loosely.
Paying for Education, Then Cutting Them Off
A couple of parents plan to pay for undergrad, and possibly grad school, and then step back. One piece of advice I got was to set expectations with my teens now: aim for degrees employers want, such as nursing, IT, accounting, or construction management, and know that financial support ends at a set point.
Another commenter tells their kids they won't fund the lifestyle the parents built, since the kids watched their parents work their way up to get it. My reply was, "That seems harsh. I guess I expect our kids to have a better life." I understand the instinct, though. A clear end point is a lot easier to plan around than an open-ended promise.
A House Plus Cash
At the other end, some people suggested direct transfers: a house for each kid and a cash cushion, or stacks of cash and a great education.
I'm somewhere in the middle. In one reply I said I agree that small injections of cash or help are way more impactful than dying rich. When a commenter described giving their kids assets while keeping oversight, I said I'm doing almost the exact same thing, and that "I have oversight" is the hard part. Someone else explained that they hold the assets in sub-accounts of a trust and pay the tax drag to keep control. That's one way to handle oversight. I suspect the harder part is deciding when to let go of it.
Owning AI and Robotics Equity
One person said they've invested in a number of AI and robotics startups. The idea, as I read it, is to own a piece of whatever does the disrupting, so the family benefits even if the kids' job prospects take a hit. I find that appealing as a hedge. Startup investing carries its own risk, though, and I wouldn't treat it as a plan by itself.
Health and Happiness First
A few replies were simpler. One said to optimize for their health and happiness, and the rest will most likely work out, since nobody can control everything. Another just said that life finds a way.
That lines up with something I said in another reply: I want to model behaviors that will help them succeed long term. Health and a reasonably happy home seem like things worth getting right no matter which version of the economy shows up.
Letting Them Face Their Own Challenges
One commenter put it this way: every generation faces its own challenges, so don't rob your kids of the chance to face and overcome theirs. A parent of adult children said they spent years worrying and got overly involved in picking their kids' majors and jobs, and they see that differently now.
This connects to something I wrote in another reply: "Everything that made me...me...is not available to my kids." I'm not sure how to give my kids the useful parts of that on purpose, or whether I should try.
The Feudalism and Ownership Debate
One thread took a more pessimistic turn. A commenter there predicted an AI-driven, neo-feudal economy. I asked, "Wouldn't moving up the feudal ladder be something one could do?"
The answers were mostly no. One person pointed out that peasants didn't rise to nobility under feudalism, and that at least back then peasants were needed for their labor, which might not be true this time. Another explained that moving up depends on turning the assets you already have into more valuable ones, and that in a feudal system the key asset was a kind of specially recognized permission.
I'm not convinced by the full neo-feudal picture, and I doubt anyone can say with much confidence how this plays out. Where I think the debate is useful is the underlying point. If labor gets cheaper relative to capital, owning things probably matters more than it does now. That same idea shows up in the equity suggestion and in the house-plus-cash suggestion, from very different starting points.
The optimistic version of the same trend is that some things also get much cheaper, and that new kinds of work show up that nobody can name yet. Something like that seems to have happened with past technology shifts, though I wouldn't assume it plays out the same way or on the same timeline.
How I'm Thinking About Modeling It
My background is systems engineering, so my instinct is to model it. One commenter made the point that nobody can predict what the world looks like 30 years from now. It could be anywhere from roughly the same kind of economy we have today to a post-work society. I agree, and to me that's the argument for planning across several scenarios instead of betting on one forecast.
When I lay the options from the thread side by side, these are the questions I keep running into:
- When help arrives. Tuition at 18, a down payment in their twenties, startup capital whenever one of them has a real plan, or an inheritance much later.
- How much control comes with it. An outright gift is simple. Assets held with oversight keep a say in how money gets used, at the cost of some complexity and, as I said in the thread, the hard part of exercising that oversight.
- What it does to my own plan. Every dollar set aside for the kids changes my own retirement numbers, and that's the ejection seat question again.
- How each choice holds up across scenarios. A world close to today's, one where entry-level office jobs get scarcer, one where trades hold up better than degrees, and one where owning capital matters more than earning wages.
Most of the approaches people shared can be combined. Paying for some education, keeping cash available for a down payment or a business, owning some equity, and leaving room for my kids to struggle a bit could all be part of the same plan in different proportions. The proportions are what I'm trying to work out, and I expect they'll change as my kids get older and show me more of what they want.
Scenario Planning in Ultronic
As I mentioned up top, I'm the developer behind Ultronic Terminal: Finance, the retirement and financial planner I've been building at Decisive Labs. It's available on the web, and this kind of question is where scenario planning helps.
Ultronic runs a plan through simulated markets and changes one thing at a time to show what moves the outcome. It also has a mode for someone just starting out, which builds a first plan from their age, when they expect to start earning, their starting pay, the share they'll save, and the spending they want later. For my purposes, that means I can sketch a version of one kid's plan with a later start or a lower starting salary, and then see in the full plan how much a head start in savings changes the picture.
It won't tell me what the economy looks like in 2050, and it doesn't try to. It's a way to see how sensitive a plan is to the assumptions I'm unsure about. There's more on how it works on the Ultronic page. Ultronic is a simulation of the inputs you give it. It is not financial advice.
Where I've Landed So Far
I haven't figured this out. I think my kids will be ok, and I want to model behaviors that help them succeed long term, whatever the job market looks like when they get there. I still think small injections of cash or help, at the right moments, are way more impactful than dying rich. I'd like to give them enough of a floor to take real swings, while leaving them their own challenges to face.
I'm also trying to keep the bigger picture in view. AI and robotics will probably change a lot of jobs over the next few decades, and I can't say which ones or how fast. Some of that change could be good for my kids in ways I can't picture yet. For now I'm keeping the options open and paying attention to what my kids want, which is probably the most useful input I have.