My Child, My ROTH IRA

I recently had my yearly meeting with my financial advisor, and he extolled the virtues of getting myself a ROTH IRA and maximizing my contributions to it each year. I don't really know what exactly a ROTH is, but I know it's good. We started one for my wife a few years ago, even though we basically could be building this retirement account on the future market prospects of VCR's and pay phones for all we know. And apparently, that was the responsible thing to do. We jumped into marriage and a mortgage and flat-screen TV ownership without having a clue either, but those also seem to be good things for adults to do that have worked out.

Anyway, it was made clear to me by my financial advisor that I simply cannot afford not to maximize my retirement contributions to a ROTH for myself. It's like losing money. If I am capable of simple math involving compound interest and conservative market speculation (which I'm not), I was assured that I could be a millionaire in my seventies. Then I could buy as many flat-screen TV's as I want. It sounded like wise advice. Then he made a statement that really stuck with me: every year I don't contribute to the ROTH is a missed opportunity. There is no way to go back and make up for not contributing to my future potential earnings.

I don't know why, but I remembered that statement a few days later when I was hanging out with my kids. I realized something. I can afford to miss some contributions to a ROTH. It's an opportunity I can live with missing. I might not become a millionaire, but I doubt that it will really matter. What I can't afford to miss contributing to is my children's future. If I thought the power of compound interest with money was impressive, it's nothing compared to the compound interest of reading and teaching and hugging my kids. Any day I don't contribute to them is an opportunity I can't get back.

The market will surely tank again, and people's retirement accounts will take a hit, my own included. There is little control I can have over that, just like at some point I'll have little control over my daughters' decisions. There may be days in the future when I feel like the account I've built up regarding their futures has taken a big dive. There are no guarantees in parenting. But I do know this - I'll never regret not getting to the end of my life and sitting on a pile of money. I'll daily regret it, though, if I come to the end and know I could have read one more book or talked about Jesus one more time, if I had only been less focused on money.