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<p>The emotional blackmail thing can be surprisingly effective.</p>
<p>Bay, so you’ve already determined who the lamed vavniks are?</p>
<p>I have no idea what you are talking about, Deborah T.</p>
<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>
<p>This is exactly what happens in most of the world. In parts of Africa where I work, parents will have 8-10 children, hoping that more than a few will live past retirement, and one will find a good job. One decent job can often support up to 15 people.</p>
<p>It is the U.S. which isn’t the norm.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t see money concerns as “stupid.” Money feeds my family, educates my children, puts a roof over my head, can come between me and my “health” if I don’t have enough. Lack of money can trickle down to my own children-if my parents had been so totally selfish and irresponsible as the OP’s, that affects my ability to educate my kids, possibly increases THEIR burden as someday I can’t cover my own retirement because I was saddled with the expenses of grown up children who didn’t live within their means, who lived for today, and had a huge sense of entitlement in assuming that their parents and offspring both would finance their nonsense.</p>
<p>Money isn’t the evil many make it out to be. It can provide sustenance and many other good things for society. It is actually the “love of money” i.e. “greed” which actually destroys our families and society in general, and that particular vice doesn’t seem to apply to the OP and others like him, but those who would waste and take. Just because someone belongs to our “family” doesn’t mean that we should enable their greed, their irresponsibility, their selfishness, their lack of concern for others.</p>
<p>As far as providing for our elders, between the two of us, my DH and I have 8 parents, when you include parents and step parents. Having to cover all of their expenses, not to mention their debts if they were living beyond their means, would bankrupt us and leave nothing for our kids’ educations and our retirement. At some point, you have to be able to say “no.”</p>
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<p>The US has a system where the working generation collectively supports the retiree generation (Social Security and Medicare). The effectiveness and fairness of such can be debated, as can its future financial stability…</p>
<p>But whether at the family level or at the country level, working adult children providing for their retired parents tends to work better when there are either a lot of working adult children, or if the working adult children are wealthier than the retired parents were. Things might not work out so well if the working adult children are poorer or few in number. On a societal level, lower or negative population growth and economic stagnation or decline can adversely impact programs like Social Security and Medicare and similar schemes in other countries.</p>
<p>My parents are financially independent. They also were very much against helping me with things like college or getting any sort of a toe hold in adult life. They never really doted on grandkids, either. I think the family I grew up in is very emotionally detached from one another. I think maybe more generosity on the part of my parents, more investing of themselves in their kids’ and grandkids’ lives would have put them in a better place emotionally and socially than they find themselves today – late 80s, living in retirement home and going weeks at a time without hearing from kids or grandkids. I try to call on a regular basis and get out to visit but it isn’t a big priority for me. They were never there for me in any crisis moments of my life. I just don’t feel the deep attachment that I probably should.</p>
<p>So with this in mind, I’m thinking maybe immigrant families or old school families where it is expected that the kids will support the aging parents is not such a bad model. People need to be needed, across generations and within.</p>
<p>I think there are plenty of old people who are happy Not to be immersed in the day to day lives of their offspring. As much as it may hurt our egos, I’ve come to the conclusion that many people enjoy their golden years on their own and there is nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>My parents sure did enjoy their golden years but when they got very old they were sure happy to have my sister and I to take care of business. It does happen if you get old enough. The golden years turn into something different at the end of life. I see it as tit for tat. They take care of us when we come into the world no matter what is done for college and such, the diapers are changed, and then years that can be spent together or apart and at the end, the diapers need to be changed but the babies and parents have reversed roles.</p>
<p>“Bay, so you’ve already determined who the lamed vavniks are?”</p>
<p>Okay, now you’ve got my curiosity up!</p>
<p>My wife and I are Asian American. I grew up in a culture where sons are expected to provide some support to financially strapped parents who sacrificed for them. Please note: financially strapped and parents who sacrificed to give top education for the kids.I took care of my parents through their old age and illness although they had means and did not need financial support. We put our son through an expensive private school K-12, then expensive Ivy although we can barely afford either. We deliberately compromised our retirement, could not contribute to 401k etc. We rarely took a single vacation without our son; we took him around the world, Europe etc, to museums etc as part of education.
My wife and I will have to work forever, we cannot afford retirement, but we are too proud to accept a penny from our son who is likely to do well financially. We believe biology flows downward, you do your best for your kids, and if it leaves you with nothing, we will go to the shelter or to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich and end it.
I just might have difficulty saying no to an Aston Martin DB5!!</p>
<p>
*Lamed<a href=“pronounced” title=“lah-med”>/i</a> and vav are two letters in the Hebrew alphabet that have a numeric value of 36. The *Kabbalah<a href=“book%20of%20Jewish%20mysticism”>/i</a> teaches that in every generation there are 36 righteous individuals on whose behalf G-d continues the world. These 36 are called the “lamed vavniks” (also called the “concealed ones”).</p>
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<p>Demographic and economic changes may be straining this model, on both the family level and society level (e.g. Social Security and Medicare in the US).</p>
<p>Consider the effect of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fewer children: each child has to assume a bigger share of the support. Note that in China, the one-child policy often means that one person may be helping two parents and four grandparents, in contrast to earlier times when two parents may have had many children who could help. In the US, the number of workers per retiree for Social Security and Medicare has been declining over the decades; taxes for such programs have been rising to compensate.</li>
<li>Longer life expectancy: increases the amount of support needed by needy parents.</li>
<li>Less economic growth: the children are less likely to be wealthier than the parents.</li>
<li>Economic downturn: both parents and children may have lost savings or increased debt.</li>
<li>Higher cost of post-secondary education: children are more burdened by student loans.</li>
</ul>
<p>For our family, H helped support his family before he was married. He devoted his entire paycheck to paying their bills and his. They also contributed their entire paychecks and any other money that came their way. It was barely enough to pay everything. Fast forward over the years, as his pay went up & expenses went down. </p>
<p>His parents have passed away, dividing their assets among all 3 surviving kids, though none of them expected to receive much, if anything.</p>
<p>We have paid all expenses for our kids, including private school tuition for HS & expensive private U. We are also hoping to be able to help them purchase dwellings so they can live in HI (our housing costs are among the highest in the US). We hope we will also be able to leave them some assets when we die, as we hope to have more than we need. We hope they will be able to pay it forward, for their kids & any grandkids.</p>
<p>The idea of being dependent upon progeny for retirement seems like a heavy burden for everyone involved–the kids who will be expected to shoulder the burden as well as the parents who have no idea whether the kids will be in any position to assume the burden, not to mention the grandkids who may resent having resources diverted and not available to help them for their needs. When this is unavoidable, it still involves A LOT of assumptions that may or may not work out. Especially if there are divorces or special needs, resources may be depleted much more rapidly than projected.</p>
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<p>That was likely the normal case at the family level in older times. But people tended to have lots of children to share the burden, life expectancy was low so that there were not that many elderly parents needing support, and economic growth meant that wealthier children may not have had to contribute much to support parents who are used to a lower income lifestyle. So the burden of supporting elderly parents back then probably was not so great. Some of these demographic and economic conditions are quite different today.</p>
<p>With Social Security and Medicare and similar programs in other countries, supporting the elderly has been socialized in many countries. But the demographic and economic factors described in post #153 mean that these systems are under strain, just like it is at the family level.</p>
<p>"Higher cost of post-secondary education: children are more burdened by student loans. "</p>
<p>and parents exhausted their savings.</p>
<p>Well, this odd thread that has sort of wandered aimlessly got me off my duff and I have booked a flight to go see the old parental unit. They will be annoyed if I so much as mention either of my kids or my DH. It’s all about them. They are ridiculously healthy but deeply annoyed that their kids don’t pay enough attention to them. They never paid attention to us! I think the selfish gene is real. :)</p>
<p>^^seriously? Cancel that ticket, it’s still possible for most airlines. If they don’t even care about the grandkids after all these years, don’t waste your money. Call and say hello instead. People rarely change. Use your money and vacation time to do something you actually want to. If they are annoyed, ask them to come and visit you (though of course, you know they won’t, but it will get the load off you and they’ll probably change the subject).</p>
<p>There is definitely something to people getting more selfish as they get older.</p>
<p>I am at the airport after visiting Elderly parental unit, as sewhappy lovingly calls him. There are some complicated feelings, and glad to see we are all conflicted. I am with you, sew happy.</p>
<p>Will we be like the kind of parents you are describing? Assuming you had been responsible and devoted parents and had provided what you could for your children, what else do and should your adult children expect from us without being accused of being selfish parents?</p>