I think it is bad parenting to deprive your children of wealth.
If you are intelligent you can ensure your children become sensible, wise, intelligent, balanced adults despite being free from all financial worry.
I think the biggest mistake parents make is to try to control their child's life, which appears to be a mistake happening with the Gates children. Via withholding money the parents are trying to manipulate their children into behaving how they deem appropriate. Ideally children should be free to make their own choices, and the freedom of money, to be without any financial fears or obligations, is a very good freedom for this.
The "freedom to do anything" might be the freedom to do nothing. If their children had truly received a good education they'd be able to highlight the illogical nature of what their parents are stating. "Freedom" means being free. "Anything" means anything, but what we see here is an idea of "freedom" meaning: DO WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO.
Bill Gates: "We want to strike a balance so they have the freedom to do anything, but not sort of a lot of money showered on them so that they can go out and do nothing."
I think Bill and Melinda feel guilty regarding their massive wealth in contrast to poor people suffering immensely, but it is wrong to make irrational decisions based upon guilt. Perhaps Bill never recovered from that pie in the face?
It is pure nonsense to state "work is meaningful and important." Work is merely a symptom of primitive technology. In the future total automation via ultra sophisticated technology will ensure nobody will need to work, ever, but perhaps some misguided people will want to make their children suffer via partaking in primitive civilization. Maybe in the year 2014 you should make your children wear hair-shirts, work in a coal-mine, have no access to running water or electricity, chop wood, milk cows, farm the land. In the year 2045 people will look back at "work" in the year 2014 then shudder at the horror of it similar to how we might shudder at the horror of living in a world with no running water, no electricity, no hospitals or antibiotics.
If Bill Gates really wanted to do something intelligent, something sensible with his money, he'd give me $50 million at least. Alas we live in a primitive world where people lack intelligent insight.
Someone called docwatson responded to my comment, which inspired me to comment again. Here is docwatson's comment with my reply afterwards. I've included a bonus Tweet too.
docwatson
I definitely come from a perspective that we are made to work; it gives us purpose, direction, and a sense ownership and belonging. If you are truly doing nothing, you die from eustress.
If your point is freedom to pursue the arts, the truth is that any activity we have involves work - painting, composing, sculpture, etc. all require real work to be of value, otherwise it's the outcome of a dilettante.
The need for external purpose, work for example, is only required for purposeless people (people who are utterly empty, people who don't possess vibrant minds). A truly vibrant mind has "direction" merely because it is a mind, it doesn't need a business to go to, it doesn't need a boss or monthly salary, it needs no paltry pats on the back to assuage self doubt, it needs no educational certificates, or distractions from self-reflection. Such a mind does not equate happiness with hard effort. Happiness is NOT something attained through great suffering, effort, struggle, or work. Good-stress or "eustress" is an oxymoron.
Children show how they can be perfectly happy merely to exist, they need no stress to gain a sense of fulfillment or positivity, in fact their positivity and fulfillment typically decreases regarding any stress, good or bad.
Our primitive civilization entails lots of stress therefore the minds of children typically become extremely twisted, thus after a period or time you have a typical adult who is an empty husk, a being with no self, no self-direction. This means extremely alienated support mechanisms are needed for the travesty of his or her adult mind. It means typical adults only feel fulfilled when they distract their minds from the horror of their non-existence.
Work is primitive nonsense. It principally provides a method for alienated people to avoid their abysmal alienation. Adults are basically gibbering lunatics who would become very evidently insane if their self-distraction methods were removed from their lives. Adults are somewhat similar to the Doozers in Fraggle Rock, they have a mindless need to build things. It is a simple problem.
The idea of deriving a sense of "belonging" from external phenomena highlights the emptiness of typical minds. I belong to myself because I exist, I don't need to be a member of a club to validate my existence. I own myself, I am myself. Work gives no sense of "ownership." I need no proofs of self-worth. My self is self-evident but most people are not in possession of their minds, they are mindlessly adrift like sheep or Doozers, the sleep of the Walking Dead.
The idea that you would die from doing nothing is merely the recognition that you are already dead inside, which means when all the distractions are removed you are confronted with the nothingness inside you.
Are the arts a worthwhile venture? Most certainly not. People should have the freedom to pursue the arts if they desire but I have an anti-art Dadaist viewpoint. "Art" is very alienated, it is pathetic need to prove to people sensibility when our sensibilities should merely be self evident. In a senselessly insensate world, the alienated proof or art is needed. Art is an obscenity. If you feel joy you don't or shouldn't need to write a poem about your joy, or tell people via any other medium about your joy. You shouldn't need to await payment, respect, thanks or applause for your your joy, or whatever other emotion or philosophical state you want to convey.
Area Man’s Emotional State Completely Dependent On Outcome Of Professional Sporting Event⁰ http://t.co/NXTGcjRxvU
— The Onion (@TheOnion) March 20, 2014