Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us

Observation: Philip Galanes on keeping indulgent gifts to grown-up kids on the down low.

When our children were just starting their careers and in the midst of struggling to meet their rent, cell phone bill and car payments, we may have helped out--a car payment here, a refilled refrigerator there; dinner out or a new sweater in just the right color. If we could afford it, we enjoyed doing all that and maybe a little more.

But there comes a time when it's counterproductive, when it makes our grown children feel like they aren't independent adults.  In asking Philip Galanes in Social Qs what to do about parental overindulgence, a reader (a young woman in her 30s) described how it made her feel when her parents "keep buying things for me and my kids (groceries, toys, clothing) and refuse to let me pay for anything. I've told them we don't need gifts, but they ignore me. I feel awful."

Here's the advice Galanes handed out in how to deal with us--the parents who aren't giving our adult children the gift of acknowledging they are grown up and self sufficient adults.

Sit them down one quiet evening and say: “It’s largely thanks to you and your unwavering support that I’m in such good financial condition for my age. I hope you know that. And I think it’s time we put our relationship on more equal footing.”

Then, depending on your means (and inclination), buy them something you know they will appreciate: new winter coats, a gorgeous filet mignon from the butcher or a sunny weekend in Coral Gables. No need to become a spendthrift. Just try a loving gesture. It may wake them up to your well-founded gratitude and the true financial picture here.

This doesn't mean we can't pick up the check for dinner or surprise them with a beautiful sweater. It's just that it should be an occasional treat, not a habit.  And we should let them treat us occasionally too.

When should our adult children be able to stand on their own financial feet?

By the time they're 22, our children should be financially independent. It's a milestone most of us think they should reach as young adults. At least, that's what a survey by the Pew Research Center finds.

The reality (now it's U.S. Census analysis doing the finding) is that only a quarter of today's 22-year-olds have met that milestone. That's a much smaller percentage than 40 years ago when many of us were young and in our 20s. Then, one-third of 22-year-olds had crossed over the point that is supposed to distinguish childhood and the comforts of the parental home from stand-on-your-own adulthood.

This slippage in independence raises the question: Are we over-coddling our kids, offering too much helping hand and not enough tough love? Pew finds that the public perception is that, yes, we're we're doing too much for them. Here's what those in the Pew survey had to say about today's parents of young adults:

When those who say parents are doing too much for their young adult children were asked in an open-ended format in what ways they are doing too much, 43% pointed to financial assistance. Some 37% said parents are trying to solve their children’s problems for them or are afraid of letting their children fail. About one-in-five (23%) said parents are doing too much for their adult children by letting them live with them. And 4% pointed to providing babysitting and child care for grandchildren as examples of how parents are doing too much for their adult children.

A lot of us are guilty as charged. Pew found that roughly six-in-ten parents with children 18 to 29 gave their children a lot or some help in the past year. While some of that assistance was a one-time shot, a good deal of it was for recurring expenses, like household, medical or housing assists or educational expenses.

In fact, educational expenses loom large in the breakdown of the reaons we give, though it reflects parental income. According to Pew:

High-income parents are more likely than those in lower income groups to say the financial help they gave was related to education. Two-thirds of parents in households earning $100,000 or more a year say the support they gave their adult children was tied to educational expenses, compared with 53% of parents with incomes between $75,000 and $99,999, and fewer than half of those earning less than $75,000.

To give those educational dollars some perspective, in the past forty years college tuition has grown four times as fast as inflation and eights times more rapidly than household income. The amount owed on student debt--whether it's the students or taken on by their parents--is estimated to be $1.5 trillion. That's more than what we Americans owe on our credit cards and auto loans combined. If our kids are one of those 45 million owing that debt, they're starting out their adult lives with a lot of I.O.U. on their shoulders. No wonder today's parents feel pressured to help out if they can.

(You can see more details on the Pew survey here , including the definitions the foundation used for financial independence and gender differences in the findings.)

Money Matters: The Wisdom of the Crowd on loan versus a gift to adult children

Okay. So crowdsourcing wisdom is just another way of saying Reader Comments on an issue that cuts close to many of our hearts and pocketbooks. Often, though, those comments are more than passing remarks. They carry kernals of wisdom based on years of experience. So here is commentary from my readers responding to Michele Singletary's advice on when to cut the financial aid to adult children and from those who responded to a New York Times article calling for tips on managing household finances--with loans/gifts to family members eliciting commentary from two readers. 

First up: General advice from a New York Times reader on financial assists, whether it's your kin or someone else in need:

“If you do give money to someone, you have no right to dictate what they do with it....This principle works for all kinds of donations. If I decide to give money to a family member, a person experiencing homelessness, or an institution, I have decided to trust their judgment, and I never think about it again.”

From a Parenting Grown Children reader responding to Michele Singletary's comment that, if you give to an adult child, the giving should help push that child toward financial independence:

"I like the quote from Singletary. Every child and every situation is different. We can cut those cords but sometimes we need to tape them back together for a short while in order to keep our children making forward progress."

While this reader doesn't address lending money to adult children per se, her comments could apply across the board. She wrote to the  New York Times to say that when she was 10 years old, she lent a nickel to a classmate in Sunday school, and never got it back.

“I decided that I would never loan money to anyone again. I’m nearly 65 and I’ve kept my vow. I only give money away. I let people know it’s a gift and nothing is owed, in any manner. And I do it with a smile and graciously.”

Observations: Michelle Singletary on when to cut an adult child's financial cord

I am not the only one writing about the helping hand versus tough love. Or how to find, as Michelle Singletary puts it in her Washington Post column, The Color of Money,  "the balance between protecting our children and letting them learn the hard way."

She does not--as I do not--have an all-purpose, one-answer-fits-all solution. It depends.  She writes about hearing from readers who are helping pay down their children's student loan debt and opening savings accounts for grandchildren ("We do not see this as an umbilical cord, we see it as an investment in their future.")  and another reader who is supporting a child while he gets his PhD ("He'll get the money sooner or later, and he might as well get it when it will help the most.")

To be sure, it is not all "thanks and I'll pay you back on your investment in me." There are times when we might not hand over assets. Some kids exude an unpleasant air of entitlement, which could be a signal to tighten the fist. And, of course, not all of us can afford to be as generous to our kids as we would like to be. 

Affordability aside, here's where Singletary comes down on the financial aid question:

Wherever you draw the line, take a step back and make sure you’re pushing your children toward being as self-supporting as possible.

Money Matters: We're still supporting our kids into their 30s and 40s

If we can afford to do it, a number of us are the financial backers of our grown kids. We're not just helping our recent college graduates with rent or a cell phone bill. We're doing the same and more for our kids in their 30s and 40s--kids who are established on their career tracks but moving into the "expensive" part of their lives, the time when they marry, have children, buy homes. (The percent of kids getting help, according to a 2018 report, is more than half adult kids between the ages of 21 and 37.)

The reason, per this NYTimes story: Millennial incomes today are lower than they were for Gen Xers and boomers at the same point in their lives. Many of today's millennials graduated from college into the recession, and that put them behind in terms of salaries and savings. Add to that today's real estate market: In many of the big cities where our grown kids live, the cost of simple housing is out of  their affordability range--if not for our help with a down payment assist here or a co-sign there.

Beyond cash outlays, some of us provide services that add up. A recently retired friend of mine babysits her eight month old grandson three days a week. The other grannie sits the other two days so that the mom could go back to work full time. The value--apart from the irreplaceable loving care--is  upwards of $25,000 a year.

While our kids may need the help, researchers found they don't feel great about taking it. Accepting help from the bank of mom and dad when you're in your 30s or 40s is evidently "the last taboo of finance that people don’t want to admit." 

Shame or not, our largesse gives our kids an edge. While families with means have always helped their children, what’s different today, the Times reports, is that the economy has more extreme gyrations, which tends to flatten wages. That's when family wealth plays an outsize role in helping people get ahead. Those who don't get that parental financial boost are grappling with paying off student-loan debt, which effects their ability to save to buy a house--a key way to financial stability and the building of wealth.  (Nationally, homeownership rates are falling for millennials; only two in 10 have a mortgage or home loan.)

A Boston real estate agent who works primarily with first-home buyers told a Times reporter that in the 20 years she's been an agent she has rarely seen anyone in their 30s who did not have family help or an inheritance for their down payment. (In the Boston market, a 20 percent down payment is between $80,000 and $100,000.)  In even pricier New York City, a real estate agent estimates that  a quarter of his 30-something clients who are buying larger, family-size apartments receive money from their parents, whether it’s in the form of a gift, a low-interest loan or co-purchasing.

It's a good thing we're around for them, as, evidently, more and more of us are.

 

 

 

Supporting Grown Children: Golden Handcuffs Edition

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to be financially generous to our adult children--to support them if an unexpected need arises or to indulge them so that they can do or buy something they've always wanted. If we've got that bit of extra to spare, there's a deep pleasure in seeing our children enjoy it now rather than later--when we're no longer around.

And our kids are grateful. Why shouldn't they be? We've offered them support out of love for them and respect for their ability to handle the resource well. But sometimes, there's a little less of a heartfelt thank you. There can even be resentment, especially if there are strings attached. This letter that appeared in an advice column in a local Colorado newspaper spells out the dangers of attaching those strings--even if we do so indirectly:

When I met my wife five years ago, I had no idea of her financial status. I knew that her parents had a nice home and spent a lot of time traveling but she lived frugally and worked hard. When we got married, I learned about the extent of her family's substantial resources. Admittedly, they have been very generous — helping us with the down payment on our house, taking us on family vacations and starting college funds for our kids. The issue is that they've increasingly put pressure on us to raise the kids in specific ways, build our schedules and vacations around their needs and spend money according to their values. We, and my wife in particular, have been struggling to say no because of everything they continue to give us.

The letter was signed: Locked In Golden Handcuffs

The couples coach who answered the plea from "Locked" talked about the "aging" parents and their need to feel relevant. They also focused on what was triggering the son-in-law's negative response, such as feeling a loss of empowerment, freedom or authenticity or a sense of emasculation.

Whatever it is, it's not something I would want to visit on my son or daughter or their spouses. To give is to give freely. It's their lives to live. We are not in the driver's seat--even if we bought them the car.

 

 

Little Emperors: Complaints Chinese parents have about their grown children. It may sound familiar.

**

We've read a lot about our helicoptered kids. They're the one who, as young adults, have gotten used to their parents overseeing life's key decisions. Their parents have been spotted going on job interviews with them and even calling their bosses to complain when they believe their child has been treated unfairly in the work place.

We've also got our entitled young--and older--adults who think the world, to say nothing of their parents, should bend to their needs. These are the kids who expect--and are not particularly gracious about receiving--a parental allowance, even though some of them are grown up with children of their own. There are those who call this a "brat allowance."

Well, small world: Chinese parents have, according to a professor at China's Renmin University, "birthed a generation of freeloaders who feel entitled to leech off their own parents."

China's one-child policy is partly to blame, professor Zhang Ming writes. As he details his observations about these "Little Emperors,**" his commentary begins to sound familiar.

"Even after helping them find jobs and planning their whole lives out for them, a generation of so-called helicopter parents still feels compelled to help their kids buy a house. Lucky are those whose kids only ask for help with the deposit and don’t expect their parents to help them make their monthly mortgage payments, too."

In our country, recent surveys find that roughly one-third of Millennials hoping to buy a house will be relying on a loan/gift from a parent, grandparent or other relative to help with some or all of the downpayment.  There's been less follow-up on how many of us continue to help with the monthly mortgage payment.

Zhang Ming has more to report. When parents don't come up with the cash fast enough, the grumblings of Chinese adults

"are a fixture of social media feeds, where they whine about their parents having the temerity to suddenly go on a trip or moan about their in-laws playing mahjong instead of giving that money to their grandkids instead."

Evidently, it's woe unto the grandparents as well.

"Many grown children remain reliant on their parents for financial assistance even after they’ve had kids of their own, thereby perpetuating the cycle of freeloading into a third generation — except the grandkids don’t turn to their own parents for help. Instead, both generations sponge off their grandparents together."

 It wasn't always so. Zhang Ming says he asked many parents of these Little Emperors whether they had turned to their parents for help and support. Just like many of us tell our children or friends, those parents tell Zhang they never asked their parents for anything, not even "for a single yuan" and then, like many of us, they reel off the the challenges they overcame to get where they are today, including supporting their parents— not the other way around.

 Zhang Ming's conclusion about what he calls China's "kidult" problem:

China’s young people are paying the price of the country’s rapid urbanization drive. The high costs of migrating and living in cities have drawn multiple generations into the financial orbit of their youngest relatives, exacerbating a psychological disconnect between what is appropriate to demand from one’s elders and what is appropriate to give. The resulting emotional tug-of-war often does more harm than good.  But these reasons do not begin to explain the degree to which parents are expected to support their kids, however, or how kids came to feel so entitled to their parents’ money in the first place.

 **‘Little Emperors‘ is a name that refers to only children in China after the one-child policy was implemented. Attributed most frequently to increased spending power within the family unit and the parents’ desire for their child to experience the benefits they were denied, the syndrome results from the children’s sole command of the attention of their parents and grandparents.

 

Bank of Mom and Dad: What to do and how to do it when it's time to close the helping hand

 

Some of us tap into our retirement accounts or we delay retirement: We need the money to keep up with the relentless press of supporting our grown kids. Or grandkids. It may not be full support--just help with the rent, the cell phone bill or car payments. Sometimes it's a monthly stipend to defray their cost of living. For one of my friends, it was to pay for a major expense--the cost of a surrogate mother so a daughter could start a family. (The ensuing twins, priceless.) Another couple played venture capitalist and put money into their son's daring new business--which has since attracted real-life, Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

Whatever it is we're doing--and with whatever rationale we have for doing it--there comes a time when we want to or have to close the bank of mom and dad. The tipping point is different for every family; let us not judge our neighbor.

That said, when Closing Time comes, here are some tips from financial experts on how to tighten the fiduciary fist.

Set boundaries: One end of that boundary is to Just Say No. Make it clear that you will not provide assistance anymore. But if that isn't going to work for you--if it's too harsh or doesn't fit your situation--set financial boundaries, such as how long this will continue and how much cash will be involved. In some situations, you're doing yourself and your kin a favor. When support continues into a grown child's 30s and 40s, you may be an enabler: preventing your kids or grandkids from becoming independent and living within their means.

Make it legal: If you decide to be the mortgage banker for your grown child's home purchase, act like a bank. Have a lawyer draw up a contract  complete with dates when payments are due. Of course, you don't have to be the banker--for a mortgage or other large loan. You can walk your grown child into a bank--and even co-sign the loan (if you're sure you don't need to be paid back). That way, the bank is the debt collector, not you. Financial experts note that people are less likely to repay family members than they are a bank. Many of us do help out with the first-home down payment--not because are kids have been spendthrifts but because of student debt. Student loan debt seems to be the biggest obstacle standing in the way of young people buying their own home.

Use it to educate: However much money you decide you can afford to shower on your kin--a grown child or a grandchild--it should be a gift with no strings attached. Yes, they may squander it, but even grown children need to fall down and scrape their knees. Gifting them money that they may use unwisely is better than using your credit card to bail them out.

Get a second opinion: If you're lending money for a new or on-going business, don't limit yourself to your and your child's take on the business plan. Get an opinion from someone not directly involved in the business. And agree to specific terms--how much and when it will be paid back (if you hope to be paid back).

 

 

 

 

Observation: Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond on supporting grown kids financially

 

Writing on The Sweet Spot, Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond tackle a question from a reader about financial support for their grown children and if it's fair to withdraw that support while they are still dependent on the parents. 

Cheryl Strayed:

You’ve been deeply generous because you wanted to provide your children with an education, security, comfort and ease. Well done. Now you must be deeply generous in another, seemingly paradoxical way: by giving your grown children the gift of independence and self-sufficiency.

They don’t pay for their own way in the world for one reason and only one reason: because you do. I encourage you to stop doing it. Allow your adult children to find a way to do it instead. And allow them to struggle with doing it.

By providing all that you provide your kids at this point in their lives, you’re preventing them from learning how to problem solve, sacrifice, persevere, and suffer and benefit from the consequences of their own decisions. In other words, from becoming adults.

Steve Almond:

The reason it’s been challenging for you to stop paying for your kids is because it’s a reversal of the way you’ve operated since your kids were born. They needed something, and you paid for it. That made sense for a time. But it doesn’t make sense now, and it hasn’t for a while. Your children aren’t children anymore and they don’t truly need you to pay for their lives, even if they find it convenient that you do.

 

Part of being a good parent is modeling healthy boundaries for our children, and this is ultimately that. In establishing yourself as a person who knows and states her limits, you’re showing them how to do that too.

 

The Bank of Mom and Dad: Who pays your grown child's rent?

Surveys on parent-child financial relationships are often run by or at the behest of banks or other financial institutions. They've got a particular reason to understand what's happening financially to the generation that should be forming households and buying homes.

That's what makes this most recent study so interesting. It's by analysts at the New York Times (informed by a data set known as the P.S.I.D. Transition to Adulthood Supplement.) It found that almost half of the people in the data base in their early 20s reported that their parents help them pay their rent. Among those who get help, the average amount is about $3,000 a year.

For some, the dependence stems from difficulties in finding a stable career job. For many others, it's a Big Expensive City issue. Skilled work is increasingly concentrated in high-rent metropolitan areas, and salaries aren't in sync with rents. Help from the Bank of Mom and Dad is a means to staying on the job in order to move ahead.

 Some data bits from the study:

The average amount of parental help for the 20-somethings — roughly $250 a month — covers 29 percent of the median monthly housing costs in America’s metro areas.

Twenty-somethings who work in farming, construction, retail and personal services tend to get the least parental assist; those in the art and design fields, the most--an average of $3,600 a year. In part that's because of the high barriers into fields like art, education, health and law.

Young people in metro areas with a million or more people are 30 percent more likely to receive rent money from their parents--almost twice as much money-- than those in smaller cities.

In the 1980s, fewer than half of 20-somethings received any parental support; by 2010, nearly 70 percent did.

Living expenses account for only 20 percent of the help that parents give their children. According to the survey, the bulk of the support comes in the form of lump-sum gifts for things like a down payment on a house or capital to start a business.

Little did we know--and a point the survey makes--is that being able to reassure our kids that the Bank of Mom and Dad would be there for them influences the  decisions they make--from what to major in in college to the career they choose. It's also a reminder that economic advantages begin at home and continue as kids grow into independence.