Reply to Who here is regularly supporting their adult children financially?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Who here is regularly supporting their adult children financially?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are now paying daycare expenses for our first grandchild.  My daughter carries their health insurance and her husband has 2 kids from a previous marriage that he has to pay child support for.

I'm not happy about it but I'm not sure what to do about it.[/quote]

Do you mean like, you feel you can’t say no or you disagree with your spouse about it?[/quote]

Well, the kids can't afford it.  And they can't afford for one of them to stay home.  I guess I'm angry that they didn't think this through and just figured it will all work out.  And of course, it has.  Mom and dad have solved the problem.  She's 27 and he's 37.  It's easy to say that we shouldn't pay daycare but then what?  They make too much money to qualify for daycare vouchers but not enough to pay the monthly fee.[/quote]

Um, I couldn't afford it either when I had my first kid at 28....guess what I did?  I figured it out.  The kid gets what he/she needs first and we get what what's left over....at 27/37 you should not be enabling this.  Seriously.[/quote]

PP here...btw....my parents didn't pay one dime towards my college education.  I did all of it myself and although it took me 6 years I still did it. The more enabling you do, the more helplessness you encourage.  I get it's hard but it's always going to be hard...throughout your life.  I'm 50 and sometimes it's still hard but I don't ask my parents (they're not here anymore but even when they were I didn't) for a dime).  There were sometimes in my marriage when daycare was more than my mortgage.  Those were tough years but you pull it together and get through it.[/quote]

My child is nowhere near the age to be on his own but posts like this make no sense at all. You suffered so everyone should?

If I have the means, and I can help my child out, I will. Period. Now PP is clearly doing it begrudgingly and I understand why, but people like you just annoy me. I paid for my own college too, but I also got lucky in a lot of respects. I'm not pushing unnecessary hardship on my kid to prove some stupid point.[/quote]

DP here, but PP, you really aren't helping your child by constantly being there for them. They have to develop the skills in life to survive, and create a life of their own. I get if there are health issues, but you not wanting your child to struggle like you did is the very reason we are raising kids who don't know how to make it in life. And that creates entitlement and lack of self-worth.[/quote]
This is also an attitude that results in zero generational wealth. Your belief that a hard life is required for self-worth may mean your grandkids won't be able to afford college or grad school or buy a home. It means that if they get really sick, they'll be burdened by medical bills and may not be able to make rent. Having a safety net for your kids and grandkids isn't creating entitlement, it means that they can live healthy, productive lives free of crushing debt.[/quote]

This[/quote]

I can only repeat that I specifically mention health issues would be considered differently. I really don't understand how people can't read.[/quote]
It's not just health issues, though, it could be that the car breaks down and needs replacement, or daycare costs $2K/month/child and your DD will have to mommy-track or quit her job to care for her children, or the basement floods and the bill is $20K, etc., etc. These are hardly frivolous expenses, but they are expenses that can really burden a young family and set them back.
I've noticed that a lot colleagues who are really able to succeed in their careers and in their family life are people who have family supporting them. They have parents who are happy to take the kids when a parent has to fly out of town for a work conference, or to take the family on vacations for some much-needed down time, or help with that downpayment on a condo so their kids can start building equity. 
I'm not saying it's impossible; DH and I have done well for ourselves despite the lack of family help, both monetary and otherwise. But it has been unnecessarily stessful.[/quote]

Folks, do what you want with your money.  However, don't credit your kids' success to really anything they have done on their own when you are paying for everything.  I have yet to actually meet any of the "successful" people referenced above that get massive parental welfare.  It is weird when you reference the various life events above as somehow so hard for young families...did you receive a ton of $$$s from your parents for all these things?

The few I know live comfortable lives, but don't have high-powered careers, nor are any of them the type willing to start a company or really take any life/career risks.  Of course, their comfortable lives are directly related to still getting allowances as adults.

Again, it's fine.  I mean, nobody thinks it is weird when scions of the Disney or Johnson&Johnson families transfer hundreds millions or even billions to their kids.  I guess if you have so much money that you are struggling with what to do with it, then it seems more acceptable/rational to create elaborate trusts and other tax schemes to preserve it.[/quote]

You seem a bit sheltered and likely don't know many people who do have much parental financial help.   I know many successful adults who had parental "assistance" because the parents have money. I know some in high-powered careers and others in careers they love that typically don't pay as much (Social Work, teaching, etc) but are essential to our society surviving. Also know some who take career risks/start a company.  They are able to choose all of these more easily because they know there is a fall back.  Much easier to be a Social worker or therapist when you know your income doesn't matter, so you can do what you are great at and love.  You can start a small business in an area of interest because you have the seed money, and the ability to live well while/until the business takes off.  
[/quote]

So, you basically hang around with lots of parent welfare recipients?  That's weird.  Sounds like you are a parent welfare recipient yourself.

Give me an example of this "high-powered career"?  You do realize that 99% of social workers and teachers don't live on parent welfare, right?

I think you are also inventing the truly successful small business (vs. a lifestyle business) that somehow succeeds because of parent welfare.  I mean, that's every great business story, right?  Google was only founded because Sergei and Larry received generous parent stipends (oh wait, that didn't happen).  I remember those scenes from the Social Network (oops maybe that's the director's cut).
[/quote]

“Parent welfare“?? Someone is very jealous and resentful that there are people out there who have families with money.  yes, some people have to work hard to get where they are and other people have a little help. [quote]It doesn’t make them bad people.[/quote][/quote]

No, but it does often make them quite boring.  There is a continuum here, and those on the most entitled end often don't seem like full fledged adults.  [b]Case in point, the lack of self awareness of the $700K income poster getting the $18K annual gift.  [/b]

People can certainly do what they want, but it does have an effect whether you are dirt poor or filthy rich, lack of or abundance of money changes you.  Acting like the latter can be neutral is silly.  [/quote]

What's the lack of self awareness? I think they're fully aware of their finances and their gifts, in fact, recounted it quite well.

FWIW, I find it hilarious that you're suggesting that someone making 700K isn't a full fledged adult because you predict that they would be in debt but-for their 18K annual gift from their parents, which is like 2.5% of their annual income.

Does money change people? Not really, you see poor people spending their 100M winnings frivolously because they never learned how to have money. But even if it did, I highly doubt that this 18K gift changed anything about PP because they likely grew up rich and without want of money anyways.[/quote]

You are making a baseless assumption - no one ever said they'd be in debt.[b] They are just moronically tone deaf when they say that gift allows them to take a nice vacation[/b]. It sounds very infantilized for someone at that income level. I'm not the only one who picked up on that. I'm not against parental help in some form, but if my kid made $700K I'd put my $18K into someone else's pocket who could really use it. Different strokes.[/quote]

They would have taken 4 vacations a year with a 700K HHI but now they take 5 with the extra 18K. [/quote]

This^^^

Plus if the parents are wealthy, why shouldn't they give some of the wealth to their kids/grandkids?  Who is to say they are not already "giving a lot into someone else's pocket who could really use it"? 
[/quote]

Why does it matter if one kid makes a lot of money? They chose a lucrative career and they deserve it just as much and my other child who chose an honorable, less lucrative career. Both kids are very thankful and it brings us joy to be equitable and see the money benefits both of them. [/quote]

Weird way to get joy.  Why would it give you joy to give a kid that maybe is worth more than you, just more money?

Hopefully that sibling either donates it or gives it to the other sibling.  That is literally what I told my parents…giving me thousands of dollars is a rounding error…give more to a sibling that needs it.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics