You can (and should) make sure that you have enough to give your kids a good start in life. But that will be just a start.. What happens for the rest of their lives, when they have to manage money on their own? When they have to teach their own children?

That's the more important legacy you can give them. This problem regarding children and money, which appears less urgent but is actually very important in the long run. Most of us teach children nothing about money. I find that grown children, even teenagers, have no real idea about how money works. Not only do they not know about earnings, savings and investments but they literally have no idea about the flow of money in society.

What happens when you buy something? What exactly does a bank do with your money? How do taxes work? What are investments? How do investments grow? How is money created? Why does the value of investments increase with time while that of a car or a phone decreases? Why were prices of things low in the past? Why will they be higher in the future? Etc etc.

We expect that such things will be tackled in formal education and your child will learn about them in school. However, that's not happening. Even if it does, there will be some rote learning just like every other subject and nothing will connect with real life. The best thing you can do for your child's financial future is to equip him or her to understand how money works.

That knowledge could be more useful than money itself - and it could also be something that is passed from generation to generation long after you and I are gone.