A friend worked two or three years past her preferred retirement date. The reason: To help out her grown daughter. The help? $100,000+ to pay for a surrogate-mother pregnancy. The twins that ensued: priceless.
Many of us toil on for similar--if less dramatic--reasons. Before we settle into the tensions of a fixed income, we want the extra bit of wherewithal to help our grown children with ordinary and extraordinary needs. Sometimes it's to help with the down payment on their first house or to pay for top-tier day care for a Grand.
If several of us are guilty of working well past retirement age to aid and abet our grown children, we are not alone. In Canada, half of parents surveyed reported that they will retire later or work longer and one-third said they would save less for their own retirement to support their adult children financially, according to a BMO Wealth Management Report
The report, titled aptly enough "The Family Bank" looked at the financial support Canadian parents are providing their young adult children (aged 18-34) and compared it with the kind of support the parents say they received from their parents when they were young adults.
What kind of support are we talking about?
--19% are providing regular ongoing expenses; only 7% received such support from their parents.
--23% give frequently when help is needed, such as payment of a monthly bill; 6% had received that kind of help when they were young.
--38% help out occasionally, such as in an emergency; 39% got that kind of assistance from their parents.
--20% give little or no help; 48% were totally on their own financially as young adults.
Here's a link to more data in the form of infographics from BMO (which is part of the Bank of Montreal)
The bank's takeaway from its report:
These days, many parents feel they are on track to being financially comfortable but worry that their children are not going to attain the same level of comfort just on their own resources.
