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The Institute for Fiscal studies reports that people born in the 60s and 70s will be the first generation since ww2 to be worse off in their retirement than their parents. They’ll have smaller pensions, probably not own their homes and have very little savings. Their only salvation it would seem lies in getting a decent inheritance from their parents. Indeed many people will receive an inheritance and feel reassured for themselves and their children. From a purely monetary angle, this might be true but we shouldn’t underestimate the resilience of the human spirit and its ability to focus on what is important in life notwithstanding financial worries. Before my father died, he’d lived with a stroke for several years. He had been the sole breadwinner in the family when we were growing up but now this man who had worked so hard his whole life could no longer provide care, he needed care himself. When I think back to those early weeks I still remember my mother’s resilience and focus in dealing with the financial impact of his illness as well as the emotional. She kept things afloat in a way that eluded us all but her advice was always, `Be prepared for whatever life throws at you and be grateful for the blessings you have rather than anguish about what you don’t have. God is merciful and God provides. My parents like many of their generation had come to the UK with very little money and it was my father’s medical career which made our lives in every way. Yet I can’t remember them having any anxiety about leaving us an inheritance of any sort. They had instilled in us the importance of education, generosity and they had taught us to cope and manage our lives – in some ways that wisdom was really our inheritance. Working hard for your family, bettering yourself and with it the lives of your children wasn’t just a matter of economics or personal gain– it was an attitude to life that demanded staying optimistic and hopeful in the bleakest of times. Maybe it is difficult to stay optimistic in the current economic climate and many of us may feel quite vulnerable in all kinds of ways. But no report and no prediction should paralyse us into thinking that our fate has been sealed and that our individual mindset and attitude doesn’t matter. Money will always be important and what the state does matters, but we can shape our children’s destinies in so many ways. It's natural for parents to want to leave their children something. But rather than raising them to be hopeful for an inheritance from us, we should raise them with a sense of self worth and purpose which will keep their lives meaningful whatever they face.