SubscribeMon 11 Feb 2008
I think most people agree that parents have a financial responsibility to their children through at least the age of 18, and most people would probably agree that parents should bear at least some if not all responsibility through the end of college. Some parents take that responsibility a little too far as would seem the case here with the Blocks who gave their adult sons their Acura and mini cooper as they downgraded to a Honda Accord. I’ve always felt that parents who help their kids too much are in fact doing their children a disservice. Independence is more often than not a learned trait.
While the discussion of parental responsibility is common, the discussion of the responsibility children have to their parents much less so. Personally, I’ve always felt that children have as much responsibility for their parents as parents for their children. However, I will also acknowledge that it may be very much personal bias. Part of that bias is somewhat cultural being Chinese-American, but the greater part is just the type of relationship I have with my parents. My parents did not arrive in the U.S. until their early 40s, and made enormous sacrifices so that my brother and I are in the positions that we are. Few things make me happier than being able to give back to my parents. The financial ties I have to my parents are close and more flexible and fluid than what is typical in most families.
The question remains. What do we owe our parents? The simple answer is generally, “Alot.” However unlike children, parents are generally self sufficient through a good portion of a child’s adult life. They don’t need or don’t want anything from their children. More often than not they’re still trying give what they can to their children. The question for adult children is what can they give back? The most basic and one would think obvious is that adult children need to the be former rather than the latter, i.e. they need to be adults rather than children. Self sufficiency is the greatest gift that any child can give to his or her parents. That aside, theresponsibilities vary widely across families. What may be too much in one family is not enough in another.
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February 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I think that’s moderately irresponsible to give their kids their cars. Though they’re downsizing their own costs (gas, service, insurance etc.) they are upping their kids’ costs in all the same categories. In fact, if they are supporting their children, then they’ve only upped their own costs - still paying insurance, and service at least. Oops!
February 26th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I agree with you that providing for your kids to that extent is creating more of a problem than it’s solving. It’s interesting that our parents’ generation (and not just immigrant parents) endured quite a lot of personal deprivation at a level that we are not prepared to tolerate. Children’s expectations are in fact completely unrealistic: they look at what their parents have now (e.g. nice house with decent furniture, nice car) and think they should have it too, and right now, disregarding the years of work and effort their parents put into getting to where they are now. It’s difficult to know how kids learn the real cost and value of things when everything they have comes at no cost to them, financial or otherwise.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Culturally we’ve become too much about instant gratification. It is quite sad because I do believe the generations above us have made so many sacrifices so we could have plenty.