When does it end?
 

NYT Article

This is about grandparents, who are financially set due to various factors that made retirement accounts much larger than expected, who basically take care of their grandkids' private school tuition, etc. Apparently, it's becoming much more common, and parents are paying their kids' expenses well into their 40s. These aren't wealthy families where the kids were given trust funds...these are middle-class families who just ended up retiring more comfortably than expected.

Discuss.

Who would still want to live off their parents in their 40s?!?! Holy shit!!! Haven't they ever heard of this thing called a life. They should go out and get one.

Please tell that to my OLDER sister! :p
(Yes I went there!)

Yes definitely get a life

The idea of going out on your own and leaving your family behind is a pretty western thought.

And my oldest brother too. :rolleyes:

Hey Jill, maybe we should hook them up. They seem to have a lot in common already. LOL

I think there's a happy medium...

Living off your parents into your 40's is just wrong, but I think it will be awful if you can't get a little support if you're having a really "rainy day".

I would actually like to be able to pay my parents back for all the money they have given me during my time in college. It's a staggering sum when I work in cost of living plus + tuition.

I don't think it's a big deal -- if you have money, why not share it with the people you love? That's not a bad thing.

Anyway, the kids might end up taking care of the parents later. I think there's a good chance it could all balance out in the end.

In that article, the grandparents were providing things like private school tuition for their grandchildren, special camps for their grandchildren, etc. It wasn't as though the parents were expecting them to cover their basic living expenses. It sounded like the grandparents wanted to do this. I have friends whose parents pay for a whole family vacation, so that all of their children and grandchildren can go somewhere together. My dad buys bonds to assist my kids with their college tuition someday (although the way things are going, they will probably only buy books for them for one year!). It's also not unheard of to give a gift of a real estate down payment. My dad gave me the fridge I really really wanted when my ex-husband and I bought our first house. Here is a quote from the article:

Some, like Ms. Wade's parents, cover the costs for tuition and real estate down payments. Others pay for summer camps, family vacations and braces. And some, with more young mothers working, care for the grandchildren a day a week or more.

A grandparent taking a part in helping a child go to a very expensive private school is a little different than a 40 year old living at home still!

Dee

As for people mooching off of their parents until their 40s, I say, "Cut the apron strings!"

As for grandparents helping out occasionally, that's no biggie. My grandma saved almost every paycheck she ever earned for her retirement/grandchildren. My sister and I are her only biological grandkids, so she helped our parents out with buying our PACT (Prepaid Affordable College Tuition) plans and bought our cars. Occasionally she'll give help with stuff like my book money or my sister's cheer uniforms and give us money for birthdays/Christmas, but my parents don't ask her for money to pay THEIR cell phone bills and what not (like some people I know).

My parents are like this (they're in their 60's, yep, I'm 22, heh). They still help out my older sisters in payments and w/the grandbabies. As my parents have said, "It's harder for kids these days, why not help your own children out when you are fully capable of doing so?"

I don't see it a "mooching" off your parents well into your 40's if they say they will "give it too you"... If folks are rich and retired and in relatively decent health and do all the things they've every wanted to do, and have money left over, then why give it back to government in the form of probate and estate taxes after they die when they can divvy out the funds now and live the life they envision their children's children having?

Besides, materials on last so long, it is the value of money that makes the difference in the form of T-bills, trusts and other financial tools.

I know of one family that basically traded a large house with their son and his family for their son's smaller property--condo, where they parents turned the profit for the sale of the condo to another one for seniors in a nicer neighborhood, with more amenities... The parents reasoning was the house was too much for them to care for after the kids were all grown and their son and his family needed it more...

My mom takes care of my nephew for one day and would do it more often if she could. However, I doubt that my brother would take care of her if she would become sick--simply because he's a butthole like that--which means I'd have to leave my husband and my home where I am to care for her and my dad, because he's sick too...

That just sucks...