Do you still support your college graduate?

[Anonymous]

Not once they finished law/med school. We covered their health insurance, and cell phones while they were in school/residency. They could bring laundry if they wanted to do it, and we'd send them home with leftovers when they came for dinner. But we did not pay rent after grad schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By 28 I already had 6 years in a steady job and a 401k! Lived with two roommates to share the costs.

I was married, living in a TH with a mortgage and had my first child

cool story, mee-maw - tell us more about the olden days!

Mee-maw? - this is the child I am sending off to college next year

[Anonymous]

I hear that you want to support your kids, but this kind of disables them. There is value in having to scramble to provide for yourself. I think your money might be better spent on investments you might gift to them when they are ready to but a house or to put in a 529 for grandkids if some come along later. Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By 28 I already had 6 years in a steady job and a 401k! Lived with two roommates to share the costs.

I was married, living in a TH with a mortgage and had my first child

cool story, mee-maw - tell us more about the olden days!

Mee-maw? - this is the child I am sending off to college next year

DP. Yeah, that poster sounded like a dumb kid. Probably living in mom and dad's basement!

[Anonymous]

You have created your own monsters, sorry.

As soon as a kid gets their own job, they should want to support themselves. There may come a time in the life when the need extra help ;(a house deposit, or divorce, layoff), but if you have two kids in this position you have not set up expectations correctly.

(My kid is in grad school, and living on a tiny stipend, but she supports herself)

[Anonymous]

No we don't
Op, the lesson they need to learn is -- where they can afford to live, based on their salary.
Money coming IN = certain lifestyles. Authentic lifestyles. Lifestyles of -their- making.
Many of us learned this is college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents told me after college, that I needed to live on whatever I made. Why aren't you doing that?

NP. Because it is a different time and because arbitrary deadlines and ultimatums are stupid?

[Anonymous]

Tell them to join the military - I did at 18yo and was instantly independent. Plus one grows up quickly...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have created your own monsters, sorry.

As soon as a kid gets their own job, they should want to support themselves. There may come a time in the life when the need extra help ;(a house deposit, or divorce, layoff), but if you have two kids in this position you have not set up expectations correctly.

(My kid is in grad school, and living on a tiny stipend, but she supports herself)

Good for you. Some of us would like to see our kids live a bit more comfortably. I lived on my own earnings during and after grad school and, yes, I guess I have the pride to say I did it myself. The reality was it was a sketchy building for a time, I had a car that didn't work really at all and was constantly taking on debt to fix (I did have multiple jobs and one required a car), and not to put to fine a point on it, I was basically starving. Not to mention racking up huge c/c debt just to feed myself and have necessities for school.

It wasn't fun.

So, yeah, I'm fine wanting a bit more for my kid so long as they are working towards goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure where we went wrong as parents. We have two kids: 26 and 28. Both are college grads and one even has a masters degree. Neither has a full time job that has anything to do with their degrees. Both live outside the home but we support them paying for rent and health insurance. Yes we feel badly about it but we can afford it. At what point does it stop though?

We aim to spare them some suffering that we or our siblings had at their age. We also wanted to not create unnecessary obstacles to health, safety, and academic or career success.

For us, paying for their health insurance until 26 was a no brainer. I have health issues now that had their roots in losing my parents health insurance at 22 and not getting it again until I married at 29 although I worked multiple jobs. We could spare our kids that at little extra cost so we did/will (last two are 17 currently).

With the older two, we didn’t pay rent, but covered their portion of the cell phone plan and some other fixed monthly expenses like internet until they had FT jobs. SS needed reliable home internet for law school and studying for the bar. Technically, older DD is still on our plan, but she Venmos her share each month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell them to join the military - I did at 18yo and was instantly independent. Plus one grows up quickly...

Technically no longer dependent on parent financially, but the military at 18 doesn’t help young people practice certain types of decision-making. I know many vets who didn’t learn some basic household economics until they married and moved off base housing.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I met my husband at 21 when he was stationed at Andrews-some of those young’uns had zero clue how to handle a budget!

Thankfully, I met one of the more level headed ones.

[Anonymous]

There is a big difference between sharing internet and phone plans vs paying rent for a fully employed child in another city.

I might keep our children on our health plans until 26, but only if it makes sense for all involved.

Many families can’t even do the above as they don’t have the means.

But seriously - this post is insane. Op created this monster then whines about it here.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, op’s children are not employed ft. Why have you not addressed that issue?

I would have worked multiple jobs before I let mommy and daddy pay my bills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents told me after college, that I needed to live on whatever I made. Why aren't you doing that?

Probably because people are all different and all have different circumstances. NYC has so many in their 20s who don’t pay their own rent. In the arts especially.

Mine will never live on only what they make. They are early 20s. They each receive $8,000 a month from family trust. It’s not something we decided it was the grandfather specifically. They both work, my son has low pay, daughter has middle pay.

If his family decides it was in their children’s best interest to pay their rent then that’s his choice and sounds like a good choice.