<p>Under what circumstances ? Do you have any limits as which to help them ?</p>
<p>For eg. buy a house, pay for the grandchildren’s private school, college ? </p>
<p>Would you still help them if they are not doing well financially because of choices they made in life ?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. (10 chars)</p>
<p>I saw your thread title, munchkin, and I thought, “Well, that’s easy, yes.” Then I saw the “eg. buy a house” and I thought, “Whoa, we’re talking about a totally different socio-economic class, for this to be possible.” And while I’d love to be around when the grandchildren reach college, frankly it seems likely that any funds from me for the grandchildren’s college education will wind up coming from money that I leave as an inheritance, for my purely-hypothetical-at-this-point grandchildren. But before “I’m totally outta here,” I’ll mention that I would not condition the assistance on my approval/disapproval of choices a child made.</p>
<p>I have a friend whose parents take all the adult children and the extended family on a vacation together every summer…I would love to be that kind of grandparent!</p>
<p>If one of our kids calls and asks for money it is usually for a good reason. It is so hard to judge on whether the choices they might have made have caused whatever issue that is causing the cash flow problem. If we decide to aid one of them financially it is never in form of a loan. I believe loans cause too much stress in familial relationships. We have always told our kids if they choose to give anyone money it should be in the form of a gift and never a loan. Money should never trump people, and loans just screw that up.</p>
<p>Now with that said, we have one kid that taps into us more than the others and that will be clear when we leave the earth. My husband does keep track of he dishes out and adjusts our will accordingly.</p>
<p><strong>Edited to add…we would never tap into our emergency fund or retirement saving to do this.</strong></p>
<p>If they need it, and I have it, yes. I would not want to miser it away for myself and watch my children go without. Makes more sense to give it away. No one knows what the death taxes may be in the future.</p>
<p>I know of a situation where the children are in their mid-forties. Never managed to save enough to buy a house, so the parents paid for a house… These children never seem to manage their money well (big spenders), now the roof needs replacing and the parents are thinking of helping them. </p>
<p>The children’s family car was getting run down, for the sake of safety, the parents paid for a new car. </p>
<p>If, one of yours turn out this way, would you had made the same choices the parents did ? Would you let your little grands go around in a totally run down and unsafe car ? Would you let the family without a owning a home forever (since they are not likely ever to make it on their own ) ? This is assuming the ability to help out is there, without big sacrifices on the parents’ part.</p>
<p>Financially, it’s just not realistic for us to think in terms of helping our son buy a house. We think more along the lines of gifting a washer and dryer or some other high ticket (to us, at least) item for said house. </p>
<p>One expense I can see us helping out with is childcare before our grandchildren are school age. It’s so darn expensive and it’s so crucial that it be high quality. That help may be in the form of tuition or it may be in the form of helping our son or his husband stay home with their very young child. Of course, this is all years and years away.</p>
<p>If necessary…yes.</p>
<p>One of the worst mothers in history has to be the “witch of Wall Street” whose son needed an operation. She had millions in stocks sewn into her skirts but would not pay. The son died.</p>
<p>TatinG - how old was the son ? And how old was the mother in question ?</p>
<p>Hetty Green</p>
<p>Don’t college financial aid systems expect parents to help their adult children with college expenses, unless they are married, 24 years old, or military veterans? And it seems that many parents on these forums are willing to do so, though they may not always be able to help to the amount expected by the college financial aid systems.</p>
<p>According to Wiki, I had the story a bit mixed up. The son lost his leg as a child because Hetty was too miserly to seek proper treatment.</p>
<p>
This is the down side of parents just continuing to baby and take care of their adult ‘children’ (hard to say that when the ‘children’ are in their 30s/40s/50s). In the example you cite the ‘kids’ probably figured out long ago that they don’t need to be responsible because mommy will take care of them financially and they’re fully willing to take advantage of that. I think it’s a poor choice on the parts of both the parents and the ‘kids’ to behave this way.</p>
deleted for privacy reasons
<p>In a crisis, yes. Even if it is one of their own making.<br>
Example: paying for health insurance when adult child was unemployed, even if his or her inability to cover the COBRA costs was because of bad spending habits. Because if something happened I couldn’t let my child (of any age ) go without medical care.</p>
<p>My parents and my MIL have paid for extended family vacations/reunions more than once. It’s wonderful and I hope to one day be able to do the same for my children and (God willing) grandchildren.</p>
<p>If it didn’t put our finances in jeapordy,i would do as much as possible…</p>
<p>We haven’t really got there yet but I certainly hope so for a couple reasons … </p>
<ul>
<li><p>There may be situations where we can help out … for example, maybe help some with the down payment for a house</p></li>
<li><p>Our kids are going to inherent a reasonable amount of money from Mom3ToGo and I … having, this money which is targeted for our kids, sit in a pile until we die at 85 just seems stupid to us … if, along the way, we can help with things like mortgage and grandkids college expenses it seems like a much more effective time to transfer the money.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>FYI - The parents of a friend of mine loaned her the money for her mortgage … the parents had the money invested in very conservative investments (bonds and/or CDs) … they had my friend pay 1/2 point higher than they were getting on their investments but not pay back the principle (since this was just going to be her inherentance anyways). This was both a better investment for the parents and a much cheaper way to buy a condo for my friend … a win-win arrangement … and, IMO, a much smarter use of the money than having it sit in a pile until they died.</p>
<p>Yes. One is in the arts and may need subsidizing, though so for not so much, and the other is good with money and numbers and will probably want seed money to start a business and we’d be happy to help out.</p>
<p>We own lots of property, what’s one more house or condo?</p>
<p>And, we can either horde it til we die, which isn’t coming any time soon, or give it away now. Since neither kid works less than the same kind of hours H and I work, which is many, many more than forty a week, I see no roadblock to giving them some financial freedom. Otherwise why did we work so hard? </p>
<p>Now, if I had a kid who was sitting around on the couch watching TV and eating popcorn all day? This answer would be much briefer: NO.</p>