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Just when you’ve reached a point in your own career where you’re at peace–blind ambition turns into bound ambition–you’ve got your grown children’s careers to worry about. Are they advancing, are they thriving at their work? Hey, even more basic than that, are they working? My friend G’s son–he’s married and the father of twin toddlers–just got laid off from his job-, along with 75 other people in the company. How comfortable a place is that to be in the economy we’re living through now? It’s hard on the son and on my friend. Not only do we, as parents of grown children, worry about our children’s psyche in a loss like this but also about how they’re going to pay the rent. But we also know–or fear–in the deepest recesses of our hearts that when the unemployment checks run out and the 3-year-olds need new shoes, we’re going to tap the resources we have set aside for our retirement or fork over the cash we might otherwise put into that account. Or we’ll squeeze our needs to meet theirs.
The question we face is this: Are we going to help them out, whether we can really afford it or not? And if we do, do we get to approve of the way they spend that money? From G’s point of view, her son "lives large." He’s got expensive tastes. If she has to help him out, does she put strings on the aide–or can she just quietly pay the rent and fill the fridge with basics. If she  sends a check, will she eat her heart out if her son uses it for a dinner out at an expensive restaurant?
Or should she just say no to helping out? Could you?

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Looking for some basic advice on weaning your grown kids from financial dependence on you? Two sources of friendly suggestions came across my screen recently. One is from Expert Business Source. The three main points:

1. Learn to talk to you kids about money unemotionally.

2. Create a schedule for them to become financially independent.

3. Focus on now. Whatever’s gone on (or not gone on) in the past, teach them now that they are responsible for their financial lives and
that you are there as backup, not as the everyday bank account.

A more elaborate set of help points comes from the Financial Planning Association. You can get the full version Here. The highlights, some of which repeat what the other Experts have to say, are:

Talk about your mistakes and your tough financial times, perhaps when
you were starting out, just as they are, and had only entry-level jobs
that barely covered rent and food, and couldn’t buy "luxuries" like a
television or new clothes. Sure, they’ll roll their eyes, but they’re
listening.

Make a plan for weaning them off your support; tell them the plan; and stick to it.

Bring in a professional advisor. Your child may be more open to listening to an outside professional than to you.

Some families establish trusts for their children in part to teach them
financial wisdom. For example, initially have the child meet
periodically with the trustee (which may be you) and the trust’s
advisor, if you have one, to learn how the trust is being managed and
why certain assets are invested in specific ways. Because it is the
child’s money that’s being managed, he or she should be more willing to
listen.

Some family trusts say a child can receive financial distributions only
if he or she earns a certain amount of money on his or her own.

Parents in Great Britain face the same fiscal pressures as we do here–their grown children could use a bit of a financial boost. Here are two recent stories on the issue. This one looks at KIPPERS, Kids in Parents’ Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings. It’s from an Irish newspaper and one point it makes is this:

"There was a time when parents were distraught when their son or daughter left home at a young age to emigrate, but now they are upset that they cannot get young Sean or Sarah to leave the nest.

Many adult children appreciate the home comforts and know that the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ will pick up the tab. Why wouldn’t they keep living at home well into their 30s when mother does their laundry and father pays for the food?"

And this one is more about the stats. The survey found one interesting point I haven’t seen in other studies of parents helping kids with housing. Here it is:
"Recent research from Abbey Mortgages also suggests that first-born
children are more likely to receive financial help from their parents
when purchasing their first home.

A study by Abbey showed that 17% of first-borns received financial
help when purchasing a home, while this figure fell to 12% for
second-born children and 9% for third-born siblings."

We all know life has changed a lot since we were young adults. A recent Canadian news story puts some numbers on those changes. Here’s the contrast on 22-year-old Canadians: In 1971, 3/4 had left school; 1/2 had married; 1/4 had children. Fast forward 30 years: only 1/2 had left school; a mere 1/5 were either married or in a conjugal relationship; 1/11 had children.

The generation gap is narrowing, the article points out. It’s not just economic factors but the "egalitarian relationships" parents have with their adult children. Makes them less in a rush to go anywhere.

And that may not be a bad thing. Certainly, here in the U.S., young adults don’t seem to be in a hurry to marry. Among the more affluent, they do seem to be scurrying off to places far from home to experience life before they get serious jobs and choose partners for the long haul. That could even help them settle down in a better place in the long run.

We are not alone. On the other side of "the pond," British parents of adult children are helping their kids out financially in roughly the same way we are and for similar reasons.
The latest Scottish Widows savings and investment report tells us that 42 percent of adult children are using the
parental largesse to pay off debt–only 22 percent did so last year; 29
percent are using the money to buy property, and that’s down from 32 percent last year. You can read more about the Scottish Widows study here [http://uk.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=UKHIL75771320080227]

Another British study on first time homebuyers indicates that one-in-16 of them have to take a loan from their parents to afford a property. More about that here [http://www.moneyhighstreet.com/news/18486938+Children+increasingly+need+financial+help+from+parents+to+get+mortgage/]

OK. It’s official. Every recent survey I’ve seen says our generation is generous to our grown children: nine out of 10 of us give them a needed financial boost from time to time. (The latest version of that stat is in a survey by Ameriprise Financial; you can find it at ameriprise.com/presscenter ). The Bank of Ma and Pa opens up when the kids are in their 20s (helping mostly with college loans, buying a car and free rent at the old homestead) and keeps on giving even when the kids are well into their 40s.

Here’s something else the surveys find: It’s not the kids who are demanding the help. Financial planners and real estate agents who see multigenerational accounting in action say it’s more about generous parents than spoiled children. We are responding to financial challenges our kids face that we may not have had to deal with: staggering student loans and high-priced real estate are the two big ones. But I see a lot of other little things, like the creep of monthly bills just to maintain technological currency–the cell phone and texting; high-speed and WiFi Internet connections; a cable connection; iPods and iTunes. And that’s before they need BlackBerries.

Now that we know they need our help and we give it, the survey I’d like to see is whether we give with or without strings attached. And even when we don’t, do we inadvertently put a tit for tat on the money?

String-attaching is a form of custodial financing. It implies an on-going say in your grown child’s life. And, according to Carolyn Hax, an advice columnist who appears in the Washington Post, when a parent remains in the parent role too firmly and too long, kids still see themselves as kids; they develop a sense of entitlement to money and life shortcuts. Worse, resentments develop. and that’s what the problem is with custodial finance.

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She no longer has a land line. Alpha daughter, who is not particularly a techie, is all cell phone, all the time. I feel unmoored.
She doesn’t have a TV. Not that she doesn’t watch television programs. Her little family gets all its feeds from the computer. Movies too. Books on tape , music, photos–you name it: In her household, it’s on the computer or the iPod. I feel lost. What if I want to see the 7:00 news on NBC when I visit? I couldn’t figure how to manage it.
It’s not easy keeping up with the new technologies, even when your children aren’t latest-tech-tool crazy. [At least they’re not text messaging–make that, OMG, no txting!]
That said, I try to keep up. It helps that paterfamilies and I are still working, so we’re exposed to the jabber and chatter about Facebook and Wiki and even–have you heard of this one?–Twitter. I used to think my mother, who was born in 1912, lived through enormous changes–electricity, radio, telephones, television, computers.  But those changes took place over the course of her lifetime. The changes today are by the minute, and if we don’t keep up, we get left behind–not just by society but our own children.
I suggested to Uber son that we all get Skype. You know, of course, what that is. Telephone through the computer with a little digital eye that lets you see the persons you’re calling. I could see the Grands while I talk to them. [But what if I could also see them say Noooooo when they’re asked if they want to talk to me or Paterfamilias? ]
Am i crazy to be pioneering within my family for this form of communication? So far, I’ve only suggested it. Makes me feel with-it. Uber son even gave me a figurative pat on the back for knowing about Skype, no less suggesting it.

They’re close friends so they feel free to ask: Are you still paying your daughter’s airfare? Like me, one of their grown children was living on the other coast. Their son moved there for graduate school, married a fellow student. Money was tight; kids were being born. My friends could afford the air fare, and they wanted to see their son and his children. They picked up the tab for trips across the country–for holidays and for summer vacations at their home on Cape Cod. Now, ten years later, both son and daughter-in-law have good jobs, their kids are in school so day care costs are down. My friends figure grown children should be able to pay their own way.

They mentioned it to their son, and he said "No." Well, not in those words. He’s a very nice and thoughtful young man. But he said that money was short–he and his wife are renovating their house and had some other big bills to pay. Trips across the country for two adults and two children were too much for his budget.

OK. But my friends are on the verge of retirement and not feeling quite as financially easy as they had been about forking over $1,200+ each time their son and his family comes home–which is two to three times a year.

It’s a predicament. We all want our kids to come home for visits and to enjoy vacations with them, but when a long and expensive flight is involved, what’s fair?