Parents being flippant about inheritance - is it a trend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re in our early 60s and early retired and have a net worth of just over $7 million. We’ve taken very good care of our now adult children - college educations, weddings, down payments all covered, plus literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free and excellent child care (none of our kids have ever had to pay a dime to a nanny, sitter or day care - and that’s enough for them. They’re not chomping at the but waiting for us to croak, and they don’t begrudge us spending however much we want on whatever we want.

If things go well, they should end up with some amount of inheritance, but if they don’t I’m quite sure they’re not gonna trash us on an anonymous website.

Your generation amazes me. It’s never enough. You always want more.

Did you receive a big inheritance from your parents, and are you now proudly telling your kids that you plan to leave them nothing? Because that is OP's situation, not what you have described.

Since you asked, my spouse’s parents did in fact leave my spouse a decent chunk of change, yes. They left just as much to their church and other charities, though, and my spouse and I didn’t b_tch about it. Since it was, after all, THEIR money.

Weird, irrelevant post. What would you have to b*itch about, since they left you a "decent chunk of change?"

Because on threads like these the anti-boomers don’t want the boomer to leave money to just anyone - they want all of it left to them.

No, that's not what this thread is about. But go enjoy your inheritance, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being concerned about inheritance from your parents is gross. If you do this you are a ghoul, waiting for your parents to die so you can get their money. Several of my dad's siblings sat around and thought about the money that their parents were going to leave them. They did nothing with their lives. My dad and his sister went out and made their own way and were quite successful.

Constantly talking about flaunting money and telling your kids it is all yours is gross. It's classless and disgusting. Keep your money and treat your children with dignity and respect.

Definitely. It's a way to try to control your kids. Gross, gross, gross

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being concerned about inheritance from your parents is gross. If you do this you are a ghoul, waiting for your parents to die so you can get their money. Several of my dad's siblings sat around and thought about the money that their parents were going to leave them. They did nothing with their lives. My dad and his sister went out and made their own way and were quite successful.

Constantly talking about flaunting money and telling your kids it is all yours is gross. It's classless and disgusting. Keep your money and treat your children with dignity and respect.

Definitely. It's a way to try to control your kids. Gross, gross, gross

Yes. If they'd just shut up about it, no one would be thinking about it at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re in our early 60s and early retired and have a net worth of just over $7 million. We’ve taken very good care of our now adult children - college educations, weddings, down payments all covered, plus literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free and excellent child care (none of our kids have ever had to pay a dime to a nanny, sitter or day care - and that’s enough for them. They’re not chomping at the but waiting for us to croak, and they don’t begrudge us spending however much we want on whatever we want.

If things go well, they should end up with some amount of inheritance, but if they don’t I’m quite sure they’re not gonna trash us on an anonymous website.

Your generation amazes me. It’s never enough. You always want more.

Did you receive a big inheritance from your parents, and are you now proudly telling your kids that you plan to leave them nothing? Because that is OP's situation, not what you have described.

Since you asked, my spouse’s parents did in fact leave my spouse a decent chunk of change, yes. They left just as much to their church and other charities, though, and my spouse and I didn’t b_tch about it. Since it was, after all, THEIR money.

Weird, irrelevant post. What would you have to b*itch about, since they left you a "decent chunk of change?"

Because on threads like these the anti-boomers don’t want the boomer to leave money to just anyone - they want all of it left to them.

No, that's not what this thread is about. But go enjoy your inheritance, please.

That may not be what the OP started, but it sure has devolved into that. These threads always do. It’s all about those terrible horrible, selfish boomers.

The inheritance that my in-laws left my spouse is only a fraction of what I expect to be able to leave our kids. Again, the point is that our kids don’t care. They truly don’t. They’re not contemplating our demise. DCUM families are so screwed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason we do not want to pass it on to our children is over time we realize that our children are self centered, annoying, fake and entitled. There are a lot of things we keep our mouth shut about, so may be the children do not have any idea, but we are watching them and drawing conclusions about how worthy they are.

Also, most times we do not like the spouse of our children. We find them rude and classless. We do not like how they raise their children either. In short, we see their true colors and how grasping and greedy they are. They have used us for material stuff as well as babysitting but they treat us as annoying and do not show us any respect. We do not expect that they will take care of us when we are very old and we do not think that they deserve anything. We are also aware when you pilfer our funds or cheat us. We have to keep quite but we remember everything.

The people who get the money are the people who do not annoy us. In short, we would rather give it to the govt than give to people we know.

Did your parents do the same?

My parents were proud of me. We took them in and took care of them in their old age. We supported our siblings until they could stand on their own two feet. We paid for our own backyard wedding. We paid for the college and wedding of our kids.

Our kids make a lot of money but they have expensive tastes. They want to take foreign vacations, maintain a lifestyle, have cleaners, have rescue pit bulls, have a horse, have a swimming pool, have thousands of dollars worth hobby stuff, don’t know how to cook or cut coupons, have a minuscule overpriced house in a nice neighborhood, have gas guzzlers, and resent that they don’t have our wealth. Well, we have worked for 35 years and only after our responsibilities were over have we started to splurge. But they want us to pay for their vacations, for the expensive classes for their kids… and they want us to be around to be 24/7 babysitters. No thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason we do not want to pass it on to our children is over time we realize that our children are self centered, annoying, fake and entitled. There are a lot of things we keep our mouth shut about, so may be the children do not have any idea, but we are watching them and drawing conclusions about how worthy they are.

Also, most times we do not like the spouse of our children. We find them rude and classless. We do not like how they raise their children either. In short, we see their true colors and how grasping and greedy they are. They have used us for material stuff as well as babysitting but they treat us as annoying and do not show us any respect. We do not expect that they will take care of us when we are very old and we do not think that they deserve anything. We are also aware when you pilfer our funds or cheat us. We have to keep quite but we remember everything.

The people who get the money are the people who do not annoy us. In short, we would rather give it to the govt than give to people we know.

Did your parents do the same?

My parents were proud of me. We took them in and took care of them in their old age. We supported our siblings until they could stand on their own two feet. We paid for our own backyard wedding. We paid for the college and wedding of our kids.

Our kids make a lot of money but they have expensive tastes. They want to take foreign vacations, maintain a lifestyle, have cleaners, have rescue pit bulls, have a horse, have a swimming pool, have thousands of dollars worth hobby stuff, don’t know how to cook or cut coupons, have a minuscule overpriced house in a nice neighborhood, have gas guzzlers, and resent that they don’t have our wealth. Well, we have worked for 35 years and only after our responsibilities were over have we started to splurge. But they want us to pay for their vacations, for the expensive classes for their kids… and they want us to be around to be 24/7 babysitters. No thank you.

While we are doting grandparents and love to spend time with our grandkids, our children think that bringing their kids over so we can babysit them absolves them of and consideration towards us. There is zero help given to us or a conversation with us that is not self serving.

[Anonymous]

I bet it’d hurt more to have parents who have no money and can’t afford their senior years, how about some perspective?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bet it’d hurt more to have parents who have no money and can’t afford their senior years, how about some perspective?

I heard a young person gripe about how their parents will not pay for their wedding because the parents have not been “smart” with their money. These are parents who made sure that their children did not have any student loans. I commented that the parents are very smart because they need to save for their retirement so that they will not be a financial drain on their children.

As it is majority of us know that we will end up aging at home and will not prolong our lives if we become sick. That is the American reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bet it’d hurt more to have parents who have no money and can’t afford their senior years, how about some perspective?

Depends on your definition of "hurt" I guess.

Parents who tried as hard as they could but just couldn't make it?
vs
Parents that had everything but just didn't give a damn.

[Anonymous]

I am an immigrant. I think many Americans don’t realize that times have changed and they are removing the much needed leg up from underneath their kids by refusing to pass on wealth.
There are so many immigrants who don’t have weird hang ups about bootstraps and provide their kids with debt free education, childcare, and debt free or minimum debt housing. Their kids are going to get ahead in the long run.
What many American parents are doing isn’t just stupid on the individual level but almost like treason or almost some state level crime.

[Anonymous]

America has become an expensive place to live, but there is plenty of scope for people to still make and grow wealth and have a very comfortable life.

But, no one wants to do the work. Kids don’t want generational wealth to use on long term goals like education at a state college that gets them better job. They want money to go on foreign vacations and spending on things that they can post on instagram.

Read the family forum. Every single posting is about how the poster hates their parents, ILs, kids, spouse etc.

How can you get ahead when even the thought of sharing a home with your parents makes you unhappy? 😆 😂 😝

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigrant. I think many Americans don’t realize that times have changed and they are removing the much needed leg up from underneath their kids by refusing to pass on wealth.
There are so many immigrants who don’t have weird hang ups about bootstraps and provide their kids with debt free education, childcare, and debt free or minimum debt housing. Their kids are going to get ahead in the long run.
What many American parents are doing isn’t just stupid on the individual level but almost like treason or almost some state level crime.

I too am an immigrant. My community sees a lot of people leapfrogging into wealthy SES because their ACs combine resources with them and they buy mansions in expensive neighborhoods and live in multigenerational households. They don’t have to worry about elder care or childcare. They have security of more than 1 or 2 paychecks coming into the house.

No one passes the wealth when they die. The wealth is shared when people are alive and the wealth can be utilized for present and future goals. Americans are being ghouls that are wanting their parents to die by living frugally and give them the money. But, they have zero desire to live with parents, take care of parents or include their parents in their life. The culture is such that there is no joy iN the parents to give anything to their children and vice versa. You cannot sow Acacia tree and expect mangoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet it’d hurt more to have parents who have no money and can’t afford their senior years, how about some perspective?

Depends on your definition of "hurt" I guess.

Parents who tried as hard as they could but just couldn't make it?
vs
Parents that had everything but just didn't give a damn.

My point is that it’s your parents money, why not be happy you don’t have to take care of them monetarily? My parents have money saved and my dad retired at age 60. They paid for my college and my weeding. They do not believe they are obligated to give my kids money for college nor have they ever helped me when we had financial struggles. I don’t hold it against them, it’s THEIR money. I’m glad they have it and can live the life they want (which is not grandiose).

If they had something left over after their passing, it would be a gift but it’s not expected. It’s such an odd attitude these folks with family money have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigrant. I think many Americans don’t realize that times have changed and they are removing the much needed leg up from underneath their kids by refusing to pass on wealth.
There are so many immigrants who don’t have weird hang ups about bootstraps and provide their kids with debt free education, childcare, and debt free or minimum debt housing. Their kids are going to get ahead in the long run.
What many American parents are doing isn’t just stupid on the individual level but almost like treason or almost some state level crime.

I totally agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigrant. I think many Americans don’t realize that times have changed and they are removing the much needed leg up from underneath their kids by refusing to pass on wealth.
There are so many immigrants who don’t have weird hang ups about bootstraps and provide their kids with debt free education, childcare, and debt free or minimum debt housing. Their kids are going to get ahead in the long run.
What many American parents are doing isn’t just stupid on the individual level but almost like treason or almost some state level crime.

I too am an immigrant. My community sees a lot of people leapfrogging into wealthy SES because their ACs combine resources with them and they buy mansions in expensive neighborhoods and live in multigenerational households. They don’t have to worry about elder care or childcare. They have security of more than 1 or 2 paychecks coming into the house.

No one passes the wealth when they die. The wealth is shared when people are alive and the wealth can be utilized for present and future goals. Americans are being ghouls that are wanting their parents to die by living frugally and give them the money. But, they have zero desire to live with parents, take care of parents or include their parents in their life. The culture is such that there is no joy iN the parents to give anything to their children and vice versa. You cannot sow Acacia tree and expect mangoes.

I see this too. I think the difference is seeing the family as the primary unit, instead of the individual. Which, when it comes to family wealth, is the only thing that makes sense. Look at everyone in this thread bickering over who should get that money and who deserves it and it's all a zero sum game. Imagine thinking of your immediate family that way, it makes no sense. If you view your family's success as, to some degree, your own, and vice versa, then you want to share your wealth because it benefits all of you.

What is the point in keeping all your money to yourself anyway? Wouldn't you rather share it with the people you love most in the world? My DH can't think of anyone we would rather spend money on than our DD, and by extension her spouse and children. If we spend it on a vacation, I want them to come. If we spend it on a house, it's to facilitate them visiting or with the knowledge we will leave the house to them. And so on. It's not selfless because I derive great joy in sharing with them. It makes me happy to see them happy. It is a joy to me to be able to use our money to help make their lives better.

People in this thread are talking about their immediate family like they are annoying coworkers. I do not understand.