A friend, C, called this morning. Distraught. Needing to vent. She was upset about expectations for a gift for a second grandchild who is due in a few months. On a visit to her son and family over the weekend, C and her co-grandparent (D) had made an offer to their son and his wife: They would buy the basic room furnishings--crib and dresser--for the new baby, as they had for the first grandchild.
The son was appreciative, and the next day sent C a link to bed and dresser for their 4-year-old son--on the theory that the new baby would inherit the crib and dresser from their brother.
So far, so good--until my friend C opened the link. The bed and dresser were roughly five times what she and the grandpop thought they would spend as a gift--certainly, it was much more than the crib set they had sent as a gift four years earlier. True, there's been inflation and a bed and dresser for a young boy are more expensive than a crib and dresser for a baby. But my friend was outraged, in part at her son's expectations but also at the high-priced furniture he and his wife had chosen.
C is from the Midwest, born into a working-class family where money was tight and the idea of a gift for an adult child was a non-starter. She admits her background colors the way she sees things. That said, she was stunned not only at the high price of the furniture but its cost in light of the upcoming expenses her son and his family faced for a new baby.
C told me that she and the grandpop had agreed that they couldn't afford the furniture the son and his wife had chosen and that they would instead offer a cash gift to be used for furniture or other expenses. This seemed like a reasonable and fair compromise. But then she went further: She wants to sit her son down and tell him his expenses are too high and that he has to trim down his choices for such items as a new bed and dresser for the older grandchild.
Does that cross a line? In today's world of parenting grown children, unless we the parents are asked to contribute in a major way, our adult child's family budget is none of our business. Not only that. Spending habits and pressures have changed since our generation and that may be why what seems a value issue ("They bought too expensive a house!") is more likely a financial fact of life. (Housing is more expensive today.)
The share of money going toward essentials like food, housing and medical care has dramatically changed in the past few decades. For instance, when some of us were our parents' young adult children, we didn't have to spend as much on health care, housing or education as young families do today. But we had to fork out more for food, clothing and transportation. This is according to a Washington Post analysis of Consumer Expenditure Survey data. And then, of course, there are costs we never faced: charges for Internet access, wi-fi, cell phones and all the accouterments of the modern digital age.
After C vented, she backed off the idea of intruding into her son's financial affairs. After all, it wasn't as though he and his wife were behind in mortgage payments, not paying utility bills or failing to provide food for the family. There were no red flags that would invite an intervention. It's just hard sometimes to sit back and watch our kids spend their money in ways we would not. But budgeting is an exercise in setting priorities. They have theirs and they may not be ours.
Painting: Vincent Van Gogh, The Blue Room
