The hardest thing about bringing up a kid is the values that you want him to inculcate. It's never a straightforward equation, where you put in the right input and you get the right output. Different kids respond differently to the same input and produce vastly different outputs. Take for example a parent who always tries to teach his kid to save up and be frugal. He did it in a way that forces his kid to scrimp and save and the kid grew up having the mindset that money is very important. Here's two diverging paths that might happen; extreme but entirely in the realm of possibilities. The kid either grows up spending crazily to 'make up' for his lost childhood and his whole adult life will be about reclaiming some parts of his life that he didn't experience but other kids did. Or, he will continue to save ......