Children Are Kites You Don't Tie Down: After Freedom, Relationships Decide Happiness

In 30 seconds: CLEC often says — investing can make you rich, but relationships decide whether you’re happy. James’s central metaphor for raising children: children are kites you don’t tie down; as long as the string of family love holds, a child naturally won’t break away and knows the way home. And that string isn’t tied by discipline — it’s grown through presence and example.¹

Education is “behavior education” — your example is the textbook

A child’s earliest learning environment is the family, and the parents’ interactions shape the child most. More crucially: the child watches how you treat your own parents. Whether you regularly visit, care for, take your parents to dinner, travel together — all of it quietly shapes your child’s future relationship with you.¹

James’s own practice: from the time his daughter was born, they returned to Taiwan every summer and winter to gather with family; he organized trips for the whole extended family of 15–16 (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins). The result — now his daughter proactively invites them to travel, and they eat, drink coffee, and chat together every week. Quietly, that is teaching children how to spend spiritual energy.¹

Letting go of anxiety is the most precious gift

The title of one of James’s posts is the conclusion: letting go of your anxiety about your children is the most precious gift parents give them. Schooling rarely nurtures a child to find themselves, discover an interest, and contribute to society. Rather than pass your anxiety to your child, give them freedom and example — the other side of the “kite” philosophy.²

Steve Jobs, or a happy person?

A reader asked how to raise children. James turned it around: do you want your child to have the chance to become a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Elon — or to have a happy life? He admits the American middle class is under great pressure; Taiwan’s “small certain happiness,” if you don’t compare, can be quite joyful too. The point isn’t which track you push them onto, but the cohesion of the family.¹

Money buys the freedom to live and to be present

“As long as you have money, anywhere is a good place to live” — you can live anywhere, see anything. Using money to buy happiness matters more than where you start out (a home can change anytime; money is the freedom to live anywhere). A capitalist isn’t bound by environment or others’ values, and can be fully themselves anywhere. That ease lets you point your time and money at the people who truly matter.¹

After retirement, give your life to the people who matter

In retirement you needn’t keep up workplace relationships out of obligation — give your limited life to those who truly matter: family, friends, yourself. This is the same as “refusing mismatch”: you have the right to spend your time on the relationships that nourish you.³

The cautionary flip side: don’t let money replace parenting

Opening 00574, James read a few letters asking for help and told the inverse of the kite philosophy — replace presence with money, and you raise a devil:⁴

Several families sent children abroad young as “little overseas students,” and because they couldn’t be present, gave lots of money. By their teens and twenties the kids became reckless spenders who treat their parents as strangers, even enemies. James’s remedy is blunt: an adult who won’t respect themselves should leave and live independently — “this is the parents’ home, not yours.”
Some parents planned to “just give each child $250k and be done with it.” James’s rebuke: “Money is like a drug — give $250k to a child who can’t control themselves and you’re killing them.” A drug user only wants more; when the money runs out, they only demand more.
His blood-and-tears example: his own cousin, sent abroad young with no supervision, fell into gangs, then drugs, returned to Taiwan, and finally took his own life. “Don’t fob a child off with money and think that settles your responsibility.”
The bottom line: “Better that money is merely enough — but a child’s values must be right.” If the child is ruined, no amount of money you earn means anything.

🔗 This is the exact contrast to “small annual gifts + teaching the child to invest”: giving a child money the same way, a big lump sum to blow is a drug; small yearly amounts compounded in an index, with a child who already understands investing, is an asset. The difference isn’t the money — it’s whether you taught the values first.

How much to give? “Enough to see it growing, not enough to coast”

A member asked the hardest question inside the kite philosophy: if you invest for a child from age one and let them watch compounding, won’t they conclude “mom’s rich, I don’t need to try”? James’s answer is an operational line:⁵

The money should never be enough that they don’t have to work. What he gave his daughter was New Year money and birthday money — on her birthday, “let’s go out to dinner, here’s $500 to invest.” That was it.
His daughter’s actual numbers: it compounded to $60,000 by the time she started university (she said it wasn’t even one year’s tuition; he said never mind, dad will pay, keep holding it); ten years later that account is in the $600,000s. “For her, that money is just enough to make investing feel good, but not enough to let her lie around doing nothing” — and her own salary is high.
The counter-example: “Not like the Taiwanese parents giving a child NT$2M a year, or $50,000 a year in the US — you don’t need to do that.” (The same line as the “$250k = a drug” passage above.)
Two things must run together: “one is the education of life’s values, the other is the education of wealth — both at once.” What he told his daughter: “What school you attend and what job you do don’t matter; you must work and support yourself — go work at Starbucks, pouring someone a good cup of coffee is also serving people.” Because someone without spiritual energy can lose wealth even when they have it (see material vs. spiritual energy).

The closing line: “Don’t let money poison your child.”⁵

When to start and how: let the account grow up with the child

The other half of that session is the mechanics — timing matters more than the amount:⁵

You can start at four or five: open a custodial account (Taiwan allows it too) and put New Year and birthday money into fractional shares. “At first they feel nothing, but then they notice a few thousand suddenly became tens of thousands, then a hundred thousand” — tell them “this can pay your tuition later” and they get it. By university it’s NT$200k, by graduation over NT$1M — “they realize: wow, how is that money growing so fast?”
Why it only works young: “They’re a blank sheet — what you give them is all they have.” Start at eighteen or nineteen and “their head is no longer simple” — they want a job and to earn money, and your NT$2,000 gaining under NT$100 a year gets “dad, what is this? Don’t talk to me about toys.”
Design the incentive as a share of their income (he uses a manager’s language): “Someone on a $100k salary — give them a $300 raise and they’ll ask if you’re joking. Someone earning $10k a month — give them $300 and they’re delighted.” So for children already working, the match must be meaningful: “if he earns NT$30k a month and you say invest NT$5,000 and I’ll match NT$5,000, that motivates him; say you’ll match NT$100 and he’ll say dad, you’re joking, that doesn’t even buy me a lunchbox.” — different ages need different incentive schemes.
Adult children get their own account: once they earn a salary, “let them open their own account and invest themselves” — don’t share one account.

🔗 This is the same system as “small annual gifts + teaching them to invest”: early, small, and visibly growing; one big lump sum is a drug.

When the child won’t take over the business or learn to invest — let go

A member close to retirement, a small-business owner, asked a painful question: the company still earns several million NT a year, but his son doesn’t want to take it over. He even offered “put in NT$10k a month, I’ll add NT$20k, invest the NT$30k for 20–25 years,” and his son replied “dad, I can’t even afford to get married and you’re telling me to climb a mountain?” — preferring to spend NT$700k on a used car. He called it “a father’s heartbreak.”⁶

James’s answer is to let it go:⁶

“Enough is enough.” “I was an engineer and later got into investing; my daughter doesn’t like investing, she likes painting — nothing to be done.”
Whether to keep the company is about responsibility, not succession: even a small business has social obligations — for the people who depend on it, the question is “when it winds down will they find work, or should they be learning to invest now?”
The member’s own answer, which James endorsed: “I only learned from your videos that what I did was right — I can provide you a platform and social resources, but not money.” (Echoing “don’t let money replace parenting” above.)
His own realization was decluttering (斷捨離): “I used to just know the phrase; when these things arrive in front of you, you learn what it’s good for. Children have their own lives; as parents we can only wish them well.”

This is the harsh side of the kite: the string is affection, not control. You can put the best method in front of them; you can’t fly it for them.

Encourage kids to spend — you’re teaching them to create life experience

Paradoxically, while teaching a child not to blow big money, you should also encourage them to dare to spend. One student (in) shared how he balances restraint and permission: when his child clutched some money and asked “Dad, can I buy this $8 thing?”, he said “Anything under $10, stop asking me — if you want it, go buy it. Buy it, don’t like it, then go find one you do like, and just keep doing that.”⁷

James endorses the direction: spending is creating life experience (echoing the “spending is a virtue” lesson that day). What you really want to pass on isn’t a sense of scarcity — that’s often a shackle the prior generation accumulated in lean years and hands down unconsciously; once your inner life turns abundant, you realize that scarcity shouldn’t be passed to the next generation.⁷

⚠️ Faithfully summarized from CLEC’s teaching for education and life reflection only. This is not professional parenting, psychological, or medical advice; CLEC cares about wellbeing, but we are not such professionals — for any parenting, emotional, or mental-health need, consult a qualified professional.

CLEC channel, post “Children are kites you don’t tie down: the capitalist’s philosophy of education,” 2026-07-05. Source: raw/docs/X及YouTube的貼文/0023…. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
CLEC channel, post “Letting go of anxiety about your children is the most precious gift parents give,” 2026-06-11. Source: raw/docs/X及YouTube的貼文/0002…. ↩
CLEC channel, post “After retirement, don’t force workplace ties — give your life to the people who truly matter,” 2026-07-09. Source: raw/docs/X及YouTube的貼文/0029…. ↩
CLEC James, long-form 00574, “Consumption Is the Mother of the Economy…,” 2026-07-18, opening “little overseas students / don’t just hand over $250k = a drug / the cousin’s tragedy / the money is the parents’, values must be right” @00:00–05:30. Transcript: raw/transcripts/長篇/00574…. ↩
CLEC James and two members, chat room 0001 “Investing in VTI, VT, SPY will also make you poor…,” 2025-07-31: custodial account from childhood / New Year money / the account growing with the child @52:30–55:30; adult children open their own accounts, starting at eighteen is too late, match as a share of income @55:30–1:00:30; how much is too much (his daughter $60k → $600k+, NT$2M/yr or $50k/yr as counter-examples, values and wealth education together, “don’t let money poison your child”) @1:06:30–1:10:30. Transcript: raw/transcripts/閒聊/0001…. Amounts are spoken approximations. ↩ ↩² ↩³
CLEC James and a near-retirement small-business-owner member, chat room 0002 “More important than investing…,” 2025-08-08: son won’t take over / the NT$10k→NT$30k match refused / NT$700k used car / “I can only provide a platform and social resources” / decluttering and letting go @57:30–1:02:30; James’s “enough is enough” and the company’s social responsibility @58:30–1:00:00. Transcript: raw/transcripts/閒聊/0002…. ↩ ↩²
Same session, a member’s sharing “encourage kids to spend, under $10 don’t ask / don’t pass scarcity to the next generation” @2:58:30–2:59:30. ↩ ↩²