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Grandma’s View on When the Expense of Parenting Ends

When our youngest left for college, Grandpa and this Grandma  immediately sold the family home, to the dismay of the children, and moved to an apartment in the city we had coveted living in since we moved to Florida.  When our youngest asked which room was hers, we said none.  We told her we had a guest room that she may use when she visits.  We meant it.  We considered that we had devoted more than half of our lives at the time to raising children.  It was now our time.  Little did we know how lucky we were that our children believed us!


According to Kelli Grant, of CNBC, reporting August 1, 2013, a record 21.6 million millennials or 36% of millennials  live with their parents. She says this is a higher percentage than at any time in the last 40 years.  “Millennials” is the term related to those young adults ages 18 to 31.  She cites a Pew Research study says this generation is more likely to go to graduate school and delay marriage, and credits a change in the related social stigma.

Here is what Kelli Grant reports:


When the recession began in 2007, 32 percent or 18.5 million of millennials-defined as 18- to 31-year olds-had not left the nest. Today, it is 36 percent, or 21.6 million.

 According to Pew’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, the number of millennials still living at home is the highest percentage in four decades.

A driving factor: Declining employment. Last year just 63 percent of young adults in that age group were employed, down from 70 percent in 2007.

“You’re much less likely to be living with your mom and/or dad if you have a job, and job holding still hasn’t picked up,” said Richard Fry, a senior research associate with Pew Research Center.


Another interesting finding in the study is the gender difference. Men are more likely to hang at home than women: 40 percent to 32 percent.


We know the figures to raise a child, but thought the time would come when we would be done with the expense of parenting children.

It costs a little less than $300,000 to raise a child to age 17, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures. And maybe another $160,000 to put him through college. But as the Pew study reveals, more families are finding the big bills don’t stop once kids reach adulthood.


Psychologist Dr. Dale Atkins and Dan Schawbel from Millennial Branding discuss how the 80 million “millennials” have a different set of core values and attributes, including marrying later in life, and preferring unemployment to taking jobs they hate. . . .”It’s not just the poor economy,” Fry said. “There indeed may be less stigma among young adults about living at home. Even when the economy fully recovers, the tendency may be to live at home longer.”

And, they forgot to add, living the good life at home with mom and dad for as long as one can means not having to do your own laundry and having a meal on the table for you.

This Grandma loves that the good news is hidden in news stories:

If there’s good news, it’s that boomerang babies aren’t entirely those who can’t afford to live on their own. By Pew’s estimates, at least a third and as much as a half of those young adults living with Mom and Dad are college students who spend most of the year on campus and come home for breaks. (Whew.)


College graduates are also less likely than less-educated counterparts to live at home, particularly after they turn 25, Fry said.


So, the good news is that twenty five is the new eighteen.  But, if their experience is anything like ours, children over eighteen think that the family home is their place to act as they wish, come and go as they wish and not answer to parents.  That is the true challenge

no one is really addressing adequately.


But parents shouldn’t feel obligated to continue providing the same support as they might for a teenager. “They could be there forever if you don’t charge them some rent and make them do some chores,” said certified financial planner Sheryl Garrett, founder of The Garrett Planning Network. Adult children who can’t find a job outside the home should be asked to contribute with jobs around the house, she said.


Now, how do the “experts” expect parents to charge rent to someone who is not working?  How do the “experts” expect parents to deal with adult children who fail to do chores and the resulting conflict over which parents have little options?

Today’s kids who fail to launch have become a major financial planning issue, said certified financial planner Lynn Ballou, a managing partner at Ballou Plum Wealth Advisors in Lafayette, Calif.


“From where we’re sitting, it could be a good decade to work this out,” said Ballou. “Hope for the best and plan for the worst. Assume your child is going to not launch until they’re in their late 20s.”


So, now we hear that twenty five may turn into thirty.  Do we really have a date when the expense of parenting ends?  This Grandma says no.


Just when the expense of parenting ends, the expense of grandparenting begins.  Let us

Boomer grandparents face reality.  We are the generation with the financial wealth in this country (see previous posts).  Yes, we worked hard for it but somehow our hard work has not translated into a glowing future for our children and grandchildren without our continued assistance in some form.  We can either look at it as the privilege or the burden of sharing this financial wealth during our lifetime rather than at our death.


This Grandma still recommends, if you have not already done so, getting a smaller place, sooner rather than later, which is not as comfortable as the previous family nest!  An adult child is more apt to look forward to leaving the couch than his childhood room.


Grandchildren can always sleep on a blow-up bed.  We have many.


Joy,



Mema

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