Are your children your retirement?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I recently got a good job out of college and my parents have already started dropping not so subtle hints that they expect me to pay for their retirement. </p>

<p>They have less than $10,000 saved between them, multiple credit cards with large balances, and a huge mortgage on the house. They didn’t pay any of my college expenses (and I never expected them to). I went to cc & state school, & will be paying off student loans for a long while. </p>

<p>They are currently lower income (which was not always the case), but have always lived way beyond their means, even in good times and never saved adequatly. They were able to have such a good lifestyle because they’d constantly borrow against the house, that they were only able to get due to the generosity of their parents, as house prices soared (obviously - that stopped happening). They currently live an upper middle-class lifestyle on a poor man’s income. </p>

<p>They’re terrible with money, spend too much, and don’t save, and are in their late fifties and early sixties, respectively. </p>

<p>I think I’ve scared them enough into start thinking about the future & cutting expenses (finally!). But honestly, would be impressed if they just manage to keep on paying the mortgage payments & pay down their credit cards by the time they hit retirement. </p>

<p>Given that I’ll be starting my own life as a young professional, have my own bills to worry about, may want to start a family, and be in a economy that will not (likely) grow at the rate it did during my parents lifetime AND I will not get much of the benefits (SS,…etc) that they’ll get cause my generation in inheriting a HUGE budget defecit, which arguably supported the older generation’s frivelous spending habbits, that we’ll be paying for. </p>

<p>Doesn’t seem fair. But then life isn’t fair. </p>

<p>To those of you living beyond your means. Unless you want to be a heavy burden to your children when they are starting their own lives, STOP IT! You can no longer afford to be so financially irresponsible! It’s common sense: Living the high life now, will take away from your future & your loved one’s (children) future. </p>

<p>Rant done.</p>

2

<p>Sounds like they are looking at you as their next line of credit when they max out on everything else. I don’t want to endorse disrespect towards your parents, but honestly, it seems you will have to set boundaries soon, and be willing to stick to them. Otherwise you’ll be looking at a life of resentment if you truly are not interested in financing their irresponsible behavior. And I don’t blame you if you don’t.</p>

3

<p>I have friends who could be your parents. You are not responsible for their poor financial decisions and you are not responsible to support them - now or in the future. You if want to help them out when you can afford it, that’s your decision BUT, again, NOT your responsibility. </p>

<p>It may be very hard on you to set and keep boundaries. Good luck!!!</p>

4

<p>No, although I might have joked about it a couple of times it was only a joke - I don’t expect my kids to have to pay even a penny for me and I’ve planned and saved and not lived beyond my means so that I’m in a good position to not impinge on them.</p>

<p>They have their own lives to lead, probable families/kids of their own along with all of the obligations that come with that. It’d be terribly irresponsible of me to expect them to support me in my old age, especially if my expectation and necessity is due to my own failings in spending beyond my means.</p>

5

<p>I haven’t seen a case where one generation lives off the previous and next generations but I guess that it does happen.</p>

6

<p>There’s a great scene in the movie “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” where Sidney Poitier’s character’s dad says: “You Owe Me after everthing I did for you”. Sidney Poitier’s characher respond that “I owe you nothing! If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you’re supposed to do! Because you brought me into this world. And from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me like I will owe my son if I ever have another. But you don’t own me!”</p>

<p>That’s how I feel. I don’t want to burden my daughters and I do want to pay for their education because of how I feel for them. They don’t owe me anything. I feel sorry for the OP in this thread who will likely have to deal with years of sorrow when dealing with his folks just because they made poor choices.</p>

7

<p>My parents and siblings have said multiple times that when I’m making a lot of money, I better buy them a house/car/other expensive items. </p>

<p>While they’re most likely joking, I’m not really 100% sure. With the way my siblings go to my mom for money because of their own bad decisions, I can imagine that sometime in the future they’ll be hitting me up. I haven’t decided yet what my answer will be though. The idea of turning away your family is hard to deal with.</p>

8

<p>We have joked for years that DS is our retirement, but it is all in jest. You do not owe your parents anything, but hopefully if they are ever in real trouble you will know your limits as to what you can do to help them. I hope that my DS would not allow anyone in our family to be homeless, but everything else is off the table. </p>

<p>I agree that next time this talk happens that you state your boundaries.</p>

9

<p>“We have joked for years that DS is our retirement, but it is all in jest. You do not owe your parents anything, but hopefully if they are ever in real trouble you will know your limits as to what you can do to help them. I hope that my DS would not allow anyone in our family to be homeless, but everything else is off the table.”</p>

<p>Yes, this.</p>

10

<p>“To those of you living beyond your means. Unless you want to be a heavy burden to your children when they are starting their own lives, STOP IT! You can no longer afford to be so financially irresponsible! It’s common sense: Living the high life now, will take away from your future & your loved one’s (children) future.”</p>

<p>Here, here! So where do you stand on paying for your kids college before you fund your retirement to support the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed?</p>

11

<p>When they hint that they are expecting help in their retirement, kindly reply that that’s why they paid all of those years into Social Security. They will probably have to scale back their life-style, but that’s very normal.<br>
If I were you, I wouldn’t share income information with your folks, or talk about promotions or bonuses or anything that puts you in the “made of money” box. </p>

<p>I understand where you’re coming from. My 83 year old mom, living on SS and a small pension from one of her three husbands, spends money as if she were still a 35 year old working person. I had to talk her down from buying a second car yesterday. She thought she needed Mini Cooper. :rolleyes: She drives a Lincoln now, and is complaining about the gas mileage. Her solution isn’t driving less- it’s buying another car that gets a little better mileage. Ok, I thought, until I realized she had no intention of trading in her Lincoln- this would be a SECOND car. This, for a person who drives maybe 40 miles a week, on a very busy week.</p>

<p>My Dh and I are in our sixties, and we hope to leave our kid’s something- not the other way around. My biggest fear about our finances is that I will die first, and my poor husband will be supporting my free-spending mother for the next 15 years. She lives in a large 5 bedroom home she bought from the divorce settlement of her last husband, and had to do a reverse mortgage because her limited income can’t cover the payments, and she wouldn’t consider downsizing. “Oh, I could never live in a condo!” :rolleyes:
So yeah, I hear ya.</p>

12

<p>OP-
Just a heads up.
I would closely watch your FICO scores.
Your parents may in the future try to get lines of credit using your social security number and other confidential info.
Alert your sibs.
You need to lock and secure all your financial info, banking.
Desperate measures may lead them to desperate tactics.</p>

<p>Do not become their credit consultant.
Hire someone to work with them to get their financial house in order.
Perhaps if you pay for their consultation it will show them you want them to wake up to their situation.
But you remain firm about them paying down their own debts.</p>

13

<p>^^great advice from Batllo.</p>

<p>Closely guard and hide your money. Don’t let on that you are making as much or saving as much as you are. Do not let them think you will give them a cent. Be nice, but sorry…you are unable to help. If they start asking, they need to know immediately that you are not their next line of credit.</p>

<p>But, of course, as time goes on you will make sure they don’t go hungry nor are out on the streets. Just if they think you will take care of them, they will not take care of themselves. This is not your responsibility to fund their lifestyle, don’t let them guilt you into it.</p>

<p>I joke about when my kids are billionaires they might send us on a vacation or two…actually if they were billionaires, yeah, they could do that. But I would never plan for my kids to take care of us, why would anyone plan on burdening their children with that?</p>

14

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<p>To many families of HS classmates, Asian-Americans, and some in my own family, the above information alone is sufficient as an argument to shoot down any parental emotional appeals/blackmail demanding your support. </p>

<p>From their perspective, it is criminal for a parent of a bright promising student to fail to pay at least a part of a child’s undergrad expenses unless it is due to severe hardship not brought about by prior fiscal irresponsibility/frivolous spending.* </p>

<p>They’d be wondering at the chutzpah of your parents to even thinking about asking such a question considering the above information…</p>

<p>*I.e. Buying the latest/greatest toys/gadgets for kids/family or other luxuries like frequent home remodeling, etc.</p>

15

<p>I don’t joke that DD is my retirement. But I do joke that I’d better be nice to her because she’ll pick my nursing home!</p>

16

<p>There are some states where under certain circumstances children are obligated for their parent’s maintenance and debts, under what are called Filial Responsibility Laws. Scary stuff!</p>

17

<p>When we sent our daughter to a private high school, I told her that I would expect a really nice addition on the back of her house. It was a joke.</p>

18

<p>OP-
Something else to keep you awake at night.</p>

<p>Your future spouse may be swamped with student loan debt with parents as irresponsible as yours.
Date and vet your future partner carefully.
Financial soundness may make or break your relationship.</p>

19

<p>OP: I’d also consider your visiting a counselor for some psychotherapy for yourself. You need to set boundaries, as others have said, and you need to be completely clear in your own mind that those are in fact your absolute real boundaries. You don’t want to start feeling guilty and change your boundaries due to guilt. Any equivocation that you feel will show through and that will encourage your parents to make you feel guilty and change your boundaries.</p>

20

<p>Good “rant”. Follow the good advice here about keeping your income private and checking so your parents don’t have a way of using your good name to get credit.</p>

<p>Don’t feel obligated to feed/clothe/house them- there are social programs for that. Never offer to let them live with you or stay for more than a night- my grandfather moved in with my aunt “temporarily” and died there decades later.</p>

<p>You owe your parents nothing. Ever. I wish I/we could do more for my father- any money or stuff we give him is unused, sigh. But I like his attitude of paying forward- to the next generation (my mother died before I could do anything for her or them).</p>