As long as teens are studious, is there any harm in giving them a nice car?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t want my kids thinking they deserve things they didn’t earn. A new expensive car is not “earned” by good grades. My kids will all have used but safe Japanese sedans. Which is more than I got.

I didn’t know anyone with a fancy car who wasn’t super entitled. Maybe a good student, maybe friendly, but entitled nonetheless.

Yes. This idea that "she was super friendly and involved and smart so she totally deserved to be rewarded with that BMW!" line of thinking is utterly bizarre to me.

[Anonymous]

How is a kid learning to work towards productive future if they get everything handed to them? The issue with this, is that they learn that mom and dad will always be there for me. Then they "need" nice cars, and whatever knives and dinners, and have no clue how much it all costs. You clearly plan to support your adult kids lifestyle forever, which is fine, but let's don't pretend they "deserve" it. No teen deserves a BMW, or similar.

[Anonymous]

LOL. This thread makes me laugh. My husband and I have been discussing what to do when our son - who, for the record, is a great kid, good grades, involved, etc. - gets his license this summer. I suggested that maybe we hand down DH's 2013 Acura TL (with 100k miles on it) and then he get something new for himself, and DH said that there's no reason a 16-year-old needs a nice vehicle like that. And when he said that, I realized he was right.

People have such different values; it's so interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is a kid learning to work towards productive future if they get everything handed to them? The issue with this, is that they learn that mom and dad will always be there for me. Then they "need" nice cars, and whatever knives and dinners, and have no clue how much it all costs. You clearly plan to support your adult kids lifestyle forever, which is fine, but let's don't pretend they "deserve" it. No teen deserves a BMW, or similar.

But my kid is super friendly! She's involved, but she doesn't party! She is also super pretty and she gets good grades. She deserves that BMW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised at how judgmental people are about parenting choices. My parents paid for everything pretty much through law school. I don’t really remember what happened to any money I earned. I probably gave it to them if it was a lot — summer law jobs-and otherwise spent it in on whatever they would have bought me anyway. Also true for my brother. This worked because we made sensible choices all along, so our parents didn’t need to come up with different rules. We then both managed our money well once we were earning on our own. You parent the kid you have. My current 16-year seems to be in the same mold. She doesn’t ask for much. Asks if something is too expensive. So she is in fact budgeting for herself, just in a different way than most posters are used to. If she were a different kid, I’d parent her differently. Now, you might say she has a greater chance of going off the rails budget wise than if I adopted a different approach, and that may be true, but that doesn’t mean our way of doing things is bad or outside the range of reasonableness. There may be other aspects of her life where we are stricter than the norm. It all balances out.

Okay but it's not clear that anyone likes you.

This is an interesting response — because now you’ve changed the issue away from whether a kid raised the way I’m saying can still make sensible financial decisions to whether certain people will be jealous of a kid with expensive items. Other posters did that as well when they talked about how a kid with an expensive new car should be “ashamed” to admit it. So maybe people are trying to give advice about how it’s valuable not to be ostentatious for the good of the social order, and that may be true. We’re not wealthy, but do have a lot more money than some of my kids’ friends, and I definitely try to make them sensitive to the issues that can arise around that. But again, that’s a different issue than the one I was writing about.

Well I mean I guess the point I'm making is that it's not just that your kid might make poor financial decisions later on, because OP's kids will probably be fine financially and graduate from college and have good, professional jobs like the PP. But that doesn't equate to character. One of the ways teens form their character is by seeking the respect of the people they admire. If you're 16 and you want to drive around in a new Volvo your parents bought for you, that suggests she doesn't know anyone who would find that at all distasteful, which suggests she doesn't have any friends who aren't also rich kids or adult mentors who think she should be more independent. That leads to adults who believe that because they worked hard in school, got a good job, and succeeded in it that they deserve their success and are good people based on that alone (like the PP, who I'm sure does just fine socially within a pretty narrow strip of humanity). It's a parochial way of life. So I guess I'm saying the more important red flag here isn't that mom wants to buy daughter a Volvo, it's that daughter WANTS a Volvo from mom.

Before my parents got me a car in college they always had me drive their new car. Their logic was that if something happened they wanted the best technology/airbags and safety as the car can be replaced than not. I don't think this is a real post but I have no issue with parents buying any cars for kids and if you haven't taught your kid good values, money, etc. by 16, you did something wrong as a parent. Many of us were handed everything as kids and are now good with money and do the same for our kids.

Okay but if your 16 year old wants a Volvo as a present, how are her values?

[Anonymous]

We wouldn't buy a 40k car for ourselves, let alone a teenager. I love it that "nice car" = 40k. That is hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised at how judgmental people are about parenting choices. My parents paid for everything pretty much through law school. I don’t really remember what happened to any money I earned. I probably gave it to them if it was a lot — summer law jobs-and otherwise spent it in on whatever they would have bought me anyway. Also true for my brother. This worked because we made sensible choices all along, so our parents didn’t need to come up with different rules. We then both managed our money well once we were earning on our own. You parent the kid you have. My current 16-year seems to be in the same mold. She doesn’t ask for much. Asks if something is too expensive. So she is in fact budgeting for herself, just in a different way than most posters are used to. If she were a different kid, I’d parent her differently. Now, you might say she has a greater chance of going off the rails budget wise than if I adopted a different approach, and that may be true, but that doesn’t mean our way of doing things is bad or outside the range of reasonableness. There may be other aspects of her life where we are stricter than the norm. It all balances out.

Okay but it's not clear that anyone likes you.

This is an interesting response — because now you’ve changed the issue away from whether a kid raised the way I’m saying can still make sensible financial decisions to whether certain people will be jealous of a kid with expensive items. Other posters did that as well when they talked about how a kid with an expensive new car should be “ashamed” to admit it. So maybe people are trying to give advice about how it’s valuable not to be ostentatious for the good of the social order, and that may be true. We’re not wealthy, but do have a lot more money than some of my kids’ friends, and I definitely try to make them sensitive to the issues that can arise around that. But again, that’s a different issue than the one I was writing about.

Well I mean I guess the point I'm making is that it's not just that your kid might make poor financial decisions later on, because OP's kids will probably be fine financially and graduate from college and have good, professional jobs like the PP. But that doesn't equate to character. One of the ways teens form their character is by seeking the respect of the people they admire. If you're 16 and you want to drive around in a new Volvo your parents bought for you, that suggests she doesn't know anyone who would find that at all distasteful, which suggests she doesn't have any friends who aren't also rich kids or adult mentors who think she should be more independent. That leads to adults who believe that because they worked hard in school, got a good job, and succeeded in it that they deserve their success and are good people based on that alone (like the PP, who I'm sure does just fine socially within a pretty narrow strip of humanity). It's a parochial way of life. So I guess I'm saying the more important red flag here isn't that mom wants to buy daughter a Volvo, it's that daughter WANTS a Volvo from mom.

Before my parents got me a car in college they always had me drive their new car. Their logic was that if something happened they wanted the best technology/airbags and safety as the car can be replaced than not. I don't think this is a real post but I have no issue with parents buying any cars for kids and if you haven't taught your kid good values, money, etc. by 16, you did something wrong as a parent. Many of us were handed everything as kids and are now good with money and do the same for our kids.

Good point. If our 16 year old asked us to buy her a new Jeep/Volvo/BMW/whatever, thinking she "deserves" it because of good grades and involvement at school, we'd know we did something very, very wrong in instilling good values and morals.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend whose parents gave her a bmw as her college graduation present. I’m sure that posters here would like to think that she is a spoiled princess with no job but today she is a successful doctor and a great person. I mean I probably wouldn’t give my kid a BMW but different people have different values and that doesn’t make you better than them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who can afford to buy whatever car for my kids, I think it is a disservice to give your kids everything. I don’t want their life to peak while living with me. A car is an easy thing to kind of cut back on.

We are in the same boat. Couldn’t agree more with this.

[Anonymous]

Speaking from experience, there is a GIGANTIC overlap between parents who say "what's the harm of new car if my kid is studious/nice/involved/whatever?" and parents who say "well, as long as grades are good, I don't care if my teen drinks or smokes or parties..."

It's such a dumb style of parenting.

[Anonymous]

If it’s not on the IIHS list of vehicles for teens, I’m not getting it. Safe and slow is the way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is a kid learning to work towards productive future if they get everything handed to them? The issue with this, is that they learn that mom and dad will always be there for me. Then they "need" nice cars, and whatever knives and dinners, and have no clue how much it all costs. You clearly plan to support your adult kids lifestyle forever, which is fine, but let's don't pretend they "deserve" it. No teen deserves a BMW, or similar.

But my kid is super friendly! She's involved, but she doesn't party! She is also super pretty and she gets good grades. She deserves that BMW.

I didn't read through all of these but I think you can give your kids things and simultaneously teach them about privilege, entitlement, hard work. My parents gave my siblings and I everything they could growing up - Catholic school education, a used car when we turned 16 (so no, not a brand new Jeep wrangler), filled our tanks with gas, never expected us to have a job during the school year (in mine and my brother's case we played year-round varsity and travel sports and guess what, I still babysat whenever I could, and he still worked whenever he could), gave us a monthly allowance ($20/week), etc. We were solidly upper-ish middle class and entitled teenagers who expected our parents to pay for what we deemed "necessities."

But guess what! They still managed to instill a sense of the value of the dollar in all of us and everyone is a well-adjusted, practical adult. We all got full-time jobs after graduating college and never moved home (not through any means of family connection, we didn't have those). Our parents never helped us pay rent or bills after we graduated. We all managed to save enough money to buy our first homes in our twenties. We all have good sense to save for emergencies, retirement, and kids college funds. We don't expect our parents to foot the bill on dinners out when we're home, or not to contribute to family vacation rentals, and we haven't since crossing into the adult-hood threshold.

So all that to say, I think you can give your kids A LOT, as long as you make the value of the dollar clear, and as long as they come away with a sense of just how much you gave them, without turning them into spoiled failure-to-launch adult children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having gone to an expensive private school, I would have to say that there was a strong correlation between kids who had expensive cars and kids who made bad decisions in other ways.

Likely confirmation bias, you see or recall what you want to see. I also went to a pretty privileged high school and literally the entire top 10% of my senior class had nice cars; from new Jeeps to new Audis and Porsche SUVs. I'm not saying they were all saints but they were all good students and very involved in clubs and sports, everyone went onto good college and nice careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t want my kids thinking they deserve things they didn’t earn. A new expensive car is not “earned” by good grades. My kids will all have used but safe Japanese sedans. Which is more than I got.

I didn’t know anyone with a fancy car who wasn’t super entitled. Maybe a good student, maybe friendly, but entitled nonetheless.

Yes. This idea that "she was super friendly and involved and smart so she totally deserved to be rewarded with that BMW!" line of thinking is utterly bizarre to me.

OP didn't say they gave the kiddos nice cars because of grades or as a reward. Just more of a why not, they're good kids. Now parents that give their unmotivated slackers new cars...that's a big WTF from me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone to an expensive private school, I would have to say that there was a strong correlation between kids who had expensive cars and kids who made bad decisions in other ways.

Likely confirmation bias, you see or recall what you want to see. I also went to a pretty privileged high school and literally the entire top 10% of my senior class had nice cars; from new Jeeps to new Audis and Porsche SUVs. I'm not saying they were all saints but they were all good students and very involved in clubs and sports, everyone went onto good college and nice careers.

And only did blow on weekends and all had great internships. Blah blah.