and realities leave many bewildered. Several families I have spoken to for this book have told me, often in confidence, that their 20-something and sometimes 30-something offspring are still very much economically dependent on them. The parents are exhausted and distressed. They worry how their kids will fare if something were to happen to them. They wonder if the kids will be able to step up in a family emergency. Parents are deeply concerned about their kids but also are becoming truly scared for their own financial futures.
The COVID-19 Boomerang
The COVID-19 pandemic has further amplified this issue for many families. Adult children moved back home during what was also an economic crisis. In some cases, they were being forced out of prolonged adolescence because their parents and/or grandparents need them to step up and care for them medically or financially – in some cases both. How prepared the younger generation was for this varied, and they often wished their parents had prepared them better for what was a shock to the system. They were forced to grow up and be financially responsible for someone other than themselves – when some had not even been fully financially responsible for themselves yet.
Some families experienced the opposite. Young adults moved home and into their childhood bedrooms and the family slid into old habits, including financial dependence. Meals were there for them, laundry was done, and life was good. Childhood perks are so much more appreciated as an adult! But after the initial adjustment period, an evolution of family roles began to happen for many families living in newly formed multigenerational living situations.
Many parents have told me adult offspring moving home was the silver lining to come out of COVID-19. Getting to know their kids as adults was wonderful, and they were happy to (temporarily) revisit their old family routines – only it was better in some ways. For the first time, they weren't competing with their kids' social plans to get them to sit down for dinner. They weren't rushing off to different events and activities. There was time. Lots of time.
What was most fascinating were the stories I heard about how the unexpected move home allowed parents insights into how well-prepared kids were to be financial grownups. It opened up opportunities to have conversations about economic realities that were not part of the parent–child relationship before, in part because everyone – parents and kids – had been totally overscheduled and overworked. Kids were in the room while their parents had open and honest discussions about financial challenges, which helped them better appreciate their parents' experiences. Likewise, parents got a better sense of how well their kids had been managing real-world money choices.
Remember, this was not the case where all the young adults were moving home for economic reasons, although that was often a big factor through no fault of their own. It wasn't about an adulting failure – financial or otherwise. They were moving home for both their and their parents' health and safety. Many families were able to leverage this season of their lives into an opportunity to build stronger financial foundations as a family. Total costs often came down because everyone was home so much. It opened up communication lines in ways that could not have come about through the normal course of events in “the before times,” as we have started to call the pre-COVID period. It was a unique, unplanned experience that often presented exceptional challenges but also unexpected relationship and financial benefits.
Stepping Up as Stakeholders
As the grownup, you are ultimate stakeholder in your kids' success behind only the child themselves. In the Introduction, I shared the story that inspired the book: trying to get my kids to open up a Roth IRA before the deadline, only to be met with indifference and apathy. We often assume that kids are motivated and interested in having more money. But in many cases, especially if they have not had to worry about money, there is little incentive to take action. All their bills are paid. In fact, the bills are often never even seen. They take money for granted because they don't have skin in the game and have not been asked to contribute. The money is just there for them.
I've done dozens of interviews for this book precisely because even though I am a CFP® professional, I've struggled so much with this issue. My own kids have shown little to no interest in money at times. They have always had what they needed, and until recently my husband and I have kept them largely in the dark about our specific financial concerns. We wanted to protect them. We wanted to protect our privacy. We wanted them to feel secure. We never wanted them to know when we felt financially insecure. And frankly, sometimes we paid because we wanted those things more than they did.
A successful money manager who was a guest on my podcast confessed that he bought his kids cars as soon as they were old enough to drive even though they had not earned them. Frankly, he wasn't confident they would even take great care of them. He and his wife simply didn't want to be driving the kids around anymore. He absolutely thought the kids should have earned the money to pay for at least part of the cars, and he wanted them to pay for things like gas and insurance. At the end of the day, though, he didn't have a way to really enforce that because the kids knew the dad wanted them to have the transportation.
He's not alone. Many of us have used our financial resources to push our kids to do things that we believe will benefit them or to serve our own sense of what they “should” be doing. I know we are not the first parents to take a giant gulp and enroll our kids in lessons they want no part of.
I'm still not all that thankful my parents made me take piano lessons. They insisted, I resisted, and I still think it was a waste of money. My mom clearly felt that piano lessons were worth whatever they cost at the time.
Still, I find myself repeating the same parental behavior. If I had asked my son to earn the money to pay for his drum lessons so he would appreciate them more because he had skin in the game, guess what would have happened? He would have said no thank you and dropped the drums. It simply isn't something he values at this age.
It's Not Your Imagination: Things Have Changed
Let's start with how things actually have changed for our children and for us. I mentioned earlier that Obamacare created a perceived benchmark of 26 years old for financial separation. Before that change, there was a lot more pressure for young adults to get a job that included health care as soon as they were thrown off either their parents' or university's health insurance. For many, the change was often timed to getting out of college.
Without the need to get – let alone pay for – health insurance, young adults were more free to pursue nontraditional career paths because they did not need to work for a company that would provide health insurance. It bought them time to explore their interests, perhaps even to become entrepreneurs or independent contractors. The timing was right, as so many jobs evolved in the gig economy. There's a lot that is wonderful about how things have evolved.
As parents, we have raised our children to pursue their passions, at times regardless of actual talent or aptitude. Who are we to say that they won't be successful? Maybe we don't know what it takes to succeed in their desired field, and they really are going to make it. We encourage them to keep at it, to participate even if they don't win, to do what they love regardless of whether there is a clear economic payoff. But what happens when their passion doesn't pay the bills for the lifestyle we have led them to believe they are entitled to have? Who can blame us for stepping in to subsidize the dream we told our children to go after?
When I decided I wanted to be a journalist, it was pretty clear to me that my Wall Street investment banker dad had his doubts. He knew money made life easier and wanted the best for me. TV news was not just brutally competitive; it didn't pay well unless you really made it to the top. He was also paying for my Ivy League education. He told me he would support me financially while I did an internship in journalism the summer before my senior year – but only if it was in business news. His idea was that covering Wall Street would make me want
