Millenials are ruining their parents retirement plans?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If parents are making poor decisions on what to do with their funds, that's not the fault of their kids.

Exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible that your brother also has some mental health issues? Parents who have adult children with mental health issues have different considerations from parents with mentally healthy adult kids. You can’t just abandon adult children who are struggling through no fault of their own- and health insurance is not hugely helpful with mental health issues.

This is exactly the case with my parents and my younger (33) sister, who lives with them along with her 6 y/o daughter. In the case of my sister, it's 50% mental illness (not exactly sure what it is) because alcoholics often medicate via consumption, and she definitely checks those boxes. But she also has never really had much of a work ethic, didn't even bother trying to get an education and doesn't understand the concept of holding down a job and moving up the ladder.

Her life hit rock bottom a few months ago when she got her second DUI (in two years) in a single car crash on the expressway in my hometown. She was in the hospital for three weeks. She also is going through the legal system as she had a number of additional charges and convictions for stupid things like violating a restraining order and keying an ex boyfriend's car. Substance abuse is also a theme here as well.

As a result my semi-retired parents are still in my childhood home and I'm sure they'd like to downsize, but they won't because they want to keep their granddaughter in the school district I attended. And if they downsized to a condo they'd have to overpay for an extra bedroom for my sister and my niece and I think they'd rather stay where they are. My parents both work part time at their parish so they have money coming in. They don't talk about finances with me but I definitely know my mom is embarrassed and wonders where she went wrong.

If my parents kicked my sister out of their home she and her daughter would be homeless. It's very sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
But millennials are also leaches. As a group their parents pay for lots of lifestyle choices. They regularly eat out, buy organic everything, spend a fortune on housing (better locations, nicer housing stock and larger places than appropriate for their age). And they don’t comprehend that a professional job means working more than 40 house a week. I own a business with dozens of employees and the number of them (especially without college degrees)that get compensation packages in the $70k-$100k range and have no problem leaving deadline work Undone to get out literally at 5:00 and not 5:15 on an occasional basis is staggering. Those with college degrees in the $100k+ range have the exact same mentality.

Good for them! You suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You guys still at it with the generational wars? Stop getting baited by the media.

The WORLD ECONOMY HAS CHANGED. Parenting philosophies may have changed too, but not more than hard financial facts.

Thank you! Voice of sanity. These generational wars help no one.

Wrong. It’s history and we’re trying to learn from it and do better for our own children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents are making poor decisions on what to do with their funds, that's not the fault of their kids.

Exactly

Agreed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible that your brother also has some mental health issues? Parents who have adult children with mental health issues have different considerations from parents with mentally healthy adult kids. You can’t just abandon adult children who are struggling through no fault of their own- and health insurance is not hugely helpful with mental health issues.

This is exactly the case with my parents and my younger (33) sister, who lives with them along with her 6 y/o daughter. In the case of my sister, it's 50% mental illness (not exactly sure what it is) because alcoholics often medicate via consumption, and she definitely checks those boxes. But she also has never really had much of a work ethic, didn't even bother trying to get an education and doesn't understand the concept of holding down a job and moving up the ladder.

Her life hit rock bottom a few months ago when she got her second DUI (in two years) in a single car crash on the expressway in my hometown. She was in the hospital for three weeks. She also is going through the legal system as she had a number of additional charges and convictions for stupid things like violating a restraining order and keying an ex boyfriend's car. Substance abuse is also a theme here as well.

As a result my semi-retired parents are still in my childhood home and I'm sure they'd like to downsize, but they won't because they want to keep their granddaughter in the school district I attended. And if they downsized to a condo they'd have to overpay for an extra bedroom for my sister and my niece and I think they'd rather stay where they are. My parents both work part time at their parish so they have money coming in. They don't talk about finances with me but I definitely know my mom is embarrassed and wonders where she went wrong.

If my parents kicked my sister out of their home she and her daughter would be homeless. It's very sad.

This is such a sad situation on all fronts. I hope that your parents are making therapy and (at least an effort towards) zero alcohol consumption part of the conditions that your sister must meet to live with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll jump in. I don’t get it. I’m Generation Y. Neither a boomer bor a millennial. DH and I are 41/43.

GenY is Millennial; GenX is the tiny former latchkey-kid generation stuck listening to the Boomers and Millennial yell at each other over our heads. It's fine, we'll just put on some grunge and an after-school special and wait it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You guys still at it with the generational wars? Stop getting baited by the media.

The WORLD ECONOMY HAS CHANGED. Parenting philosophies may have changed too, but not more than hard financial facts.

Thank you! Voice of sanity. These generational wars help no one.

Wrong. It’s history and we’re trying to learn from it and do better for our own children.

I hate to tell you, but the Boomers thought they were doing better for their children, too. The stoic, emotionally-distant Greatest Generation gave rise to the over-involved, dream-your-dreams helicopter parent. The frugal Greatest Generation members who made it through the Depression and imposed that austerity on their kids raised a generation determined to do materially more for their kids, even if it meant working at a greed-is-good, high-powered job. The Boomer hippies started the environmental movement, and, even though I know first-wave feminism isn't good enough for the younger crowd, the women's rights movement. And, just like they blamed their parents before them for the world's ills, karma bites them back in the form of their children.

And, honestly, a lot of these generational problems are mostly a first-world problem kind of things. Actual middle-class and blue-collar families (not the DCUM conception of them) have long been struggling to get by, living in multi-generational housing, and struggling with the cost of higher education. It's just getting the UMC white people now, and they complain more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the boomers should have thought about that before they destroyed the economy and the environment.

Thought of what? Birth control? If we had known our kids would have grown into Millennials we would have saved more money up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know plenty of genxers who mooch off their parents. I also know boomers who mooched off their parents (and are now in a comfortable place in retirement because of inheritances, not their own financial acumen or frugality).

Everybody on this board complains about how rich boomers are etc. I think it is because most people who frequent this board have well-off parents. A very high percentage of Boomers do not have retirement savings and the idea that all boomers have a pension to tap is also false. I think the range is like 25% of boomers have some sort of pension.

Yes to both. I'm an Xer, and my mother's best friend is one of those parents who is in debt up to her eyeballs because she can't say no to her loser of a son. Son has a six-figure job in a low cost-of-living area and defaulted on his student loans, so parent co-signers are paying off that $200K debt for an education across three universities that he never even finished. He hasn't spoken to them for months because they wouldn't pay his bail and lawyers fees for his latest (stupid) run-in with the law. They did this to themselves by not setting boundaries much, much sooner.

And, yeah, I have a boomer parent who is still working full-time (in a call center) in their 70s. And it's not because they're sending all their cash to their ungrateful children - my sibling is still paying student loans off, and none of us get a monthly stipend or any other financial support from the parent. This is really an upper-middle class problem - both my spouse's blue-collar parents are still working, too. My grandparents (retired in the 1970s) had a pension that funded retirement, but none of the rest of us, Boomers/Xers/Millennials do.

[Anonymous]

Our parents grew up in the Depression and so they didn't spend that much on us boomers. They didn't expect to pay for our college, clothes or cars, in fact rent kicked in at HS graduation! Adulting started at 18.

[Anonymous]

And there are lots of boomers and gen-xers that are supporting parents that did not or were not able to plan for retirement. Just venture over to the “midlife concerns and eldercare” forum for a look at what that is like.

Many people are irresponsible and do not plan or have mental illness and some of them are in our families.

Let’s all learn how not to blame others for our lot in life and we would all be a lot happier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll jump in. I don’t get it. I’m Generation Y. Neither a boomer bor a millennial. DH and I are 41/43.

GenY is Millennial; GenX is the tiny former latchkey-kid generation stuck listening to the Boomers and Millennial yell at each other over our heads. It's fine, we'll just put on some grunge and an after-school special and wait it out.

This is awesome!

Signed,
Fellow Gen Xer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll jump in. I don’t get it. I’m Generation Y. Neither a boomer bor a millennial. DH and I are 41/43.

Without a doubt boomers stole from future generations. Social security, health care and pensions that clearly I am paying for but will never benefit from.

But millennials are also leaches. As a group their parents pay for lots of lifestyle choices. They regularly eat out, buy organic everything, spend a fortune on housing (better locations, nicer housing stock and larger places than appropriate for their age). And they don’t comprehend that a professional job means working more than 40 house a week. I own a business with dozens of employees and the number of them (especially without college degrees)that get compensation packages in the $70k-$100k range and have no problem leaving deadline work Undone to get out literally at 5:00 and not 5:15 on an occasional basis is staggering. Those with college degrees in the $100k+ range have the exact same mentality.

In my small generation band we paid a lot for college (okay not as much as you but if you look at it as percentages most of the sharp increases in tuition had set in by the time we started. College cost us easily 10-20 what it costs our parents). Same is true with housing. We didn’t get the rapid appreciation of our parents generation and overwhelmingly bought houses and watched them lose value often waiting a decade or longer for them to rebound. We pay our own bills and almost always did. We make choices so that we have some nice thing and sacrifice others. We are paying back higher education debt over 20-30 years and we have good health insurance that we pay a lot for. Oh and we listen to our parents complain about they won’t have enough for their retirements because they are supporting our much younger siblings

At 41/43 you are solidly Gen X, not Gen Y. Gen Y (same as millennial, millennial is just the nickname for Gen Y) starts in 1982.

[Anonymous]

As a millennial Ive come to realize all my friends that somehow can buy a 800k plus home had a lot of help from mom and dad. No wonder home prices are so high and what you can afford on a normal yet high salary 150k at 30 will never be enough to buy a nice home.