The Hindu Business Line : Love your child, but protect your pension

A MARRIED and successfully-divorced daughter returns home to be with her parents who look after her and perhaps the grandchildren too. The sonny is getting too old to get a good match and continues to live with and off his mummy and daddy.

Well, this is not some stuff from mega serials, but a plain reality that is often accepted as `so-what'. While parents consider such responsibilities as of the must-do variety, what could be causing concern is their shouldering of financial burden for their grown-up children.

Popular thinking is that the problem is so Indian because we are a caring lot who care a lot. But no, they are coming to grips with this syndrome in the US and the UK too.

The current generation of 40-plus is more cash-dependent than earlier. And, to complement, their parent are either voluntarily and generously giving money "to spare their children a struggle" or are simply "being used as ATMs".

A recent article by Marilyn Gardner in The Christian Science Monitor is titled, "40 years old and still tied to Mom and Dad's purse strings." And it is about `a new fact of life' that many parents are facing: "ongoing financial help to their adult offspring, even into middle age."

What may be the reasons? There must be something more than simple filial affection? "Financial planners see layoffs, exorbitant housing costs, divorce, and single parenthood as some of the difficulties driving the trend," notes the author. Also, parents of today are perhaps more caring and more giving.

The British scenario has figures from Lloyds TSB and a research study: One in four parents "expects to help the offspring financially through their 30s and into their 40s". A similar number of parents "contributed money toward an adult child's car"; one in five "helped pay for a home".

Cases of middle-aged children getting "a regular allowance or pocket money for daily needs" are also not rare. "The British have even coined a word for these offspring with outstretched hands: Kippers, or Kids in Parents' Purses Eroding Retirement Savings." If you add up all that money, it is huge: "£ 20 billion a year". For the UK, that is.

The aid takes different forms - "down payment" for house, capital for business, or grandchild's tuition fee. It is feared that "this financial aid can drain retirement savings, jeopardising parents' economic future."

To underwrite what their grown-up kids want or do, oldies suffer sacrifices, big and small, forego vacations, and put their own wishes in the backburner, even as their `buckets' become empty.

Psychologists guess that not saying `no' to children could be a problem that plagues baby-boomers, because they want their offspring "to maintain the lifestyles the parents have created." And, they want "everything to be good and perfect" for their children.

Many are afraid that family relationship could snap if they closed the `valves'. Worse still, they are simply too strong-willed to accept that their reservoirs would run dry sooner than normal.

"Some parents give money beyond their means as a way to keep control over children or to encourage dependence," observes Gardner.

So, if you are sixty-plus, the next time when you open your wallet, just check for two things: One, whether there is still money left for you. And, two, whether your grown-up kid is sitting there inside, gnawing at the notes.

SayCheek@hotmail.com

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Love your child, but protect your pension

British connection

Sony to launch week-end family drama series