“Give a man a fish; you feed him for the day. Teach a man to fish; you feed him for life!”
We all love our children and want the best for their future so we invest in them to ensure their stability and comfort.
There comes a time when they are able to spread their wings and fly but the youth in these times take much longer to gain their independence than previous generations.
This poses a problem when it compromises their parent’s financial lifestyle, retirement plan etc. even if it is unintentional.
There are many ways in which an adult child can slowly or in some cases quickly drain their parent’s finances. Blinded by love parents tend to give in to their children’s wants (not needs) thereby inadvertently impairing their own financial security.
Be it helping your adult child with day to day living expenses, living “rent free” at your home or little loans here and there that don’t get repaid these add up to be expensive choices.
More colossal expenses could be spoiling them with a new home, car or extravagant wedding especially when it was not budgeted for.
No doubt these are loving gestures from a parent to their child but are not a very practical arrangement in all cases especially in this day and age.
Our children also have the ability to tug at the heartstrings and twist mom or dads arm while some adult children are plain down exploitive.
Either way, as parent in these difficult financial times it would be wise to make a well thought decision before splurging or at least ‘down-sizing’ the gesture.
Setting boundaries, encouraging self-sufficiency, instilling values of hard work, perseverance, ambition and non-materialistic humility from an early age ensure that our children will ‘hopefully’ become grown adults who are equipped to make it on their own sooner rather than later.
Food for thought; parents are doing no favours to grown-up children by spoon feeding them. It only enables to shy away from taking the step in the right direction of financial independence.
For young parents, best invest in your child’s education now so that they can be liberated and independent later rather than an unplanned for financial encumbrance in years to come to you.
