<p>I was confused so I did a search of this whole thread, and the first time anyone used the word “rid” or “ridding” was qdogpa’s post #240. </p>
<p>Raising up young people with the ability to take on responsibility when they reach adulthood is not a matter of getting “rid” of kids. MOST – not some, not a few, but MOST Americans probably do not have the financial ability to fully finance their kids to go away to college for 4 years on the parent’s dime, much less grad school. </p>
<p>Only people who are extremely privileged financially can talk about “skin in the game” as if it is a choice. The vast majority of working parents (not to mention nonworking, unemployed or disabled parents) simply are not in a financial position to provide such a prolonged childhood for their offspring. At the lower and the economic scale, there are kids who have to start working and contributing to the household in their teens – that is, teenagers whose earnings don’t go into their personal college savings but help put food on their parents’ table. </p>
<p>I think for the vast majority in the middle, it is a shifting that starts with shared responsibility in the late teens, with the kids becoming fully independent in their 20’s. The most common situation is probably kids who continue to live at home, without being charged rent by their parents, but who commute to local colleges and who have part time jobs to pay for the expenses associated with attending school (books, transportation) – and may rely mostly on loans or grants to cover the tuition. </p>
<p>That is not getting “rid” of offspring - to the contrary, a kid who is still living at home with their parents into their 20’s, even if contributing rent by that age, is physically much closer to the parents and probably has parents more involved in their day-to-day lives than the parents who are paying full freight for their kid’s college half a continent away, including a period of study abroad. </p>
<p>To me, one big part of the equation is that I respect and have faith in my offspring. I believed that they were capable of holding down part time jobs at 16 or 17, I believed that they were capable of shouldering some of the burden of their own college, and I believed that both would be fully capable of supporting themselves and making reasonable payments on loans after college.</p>