Parents Who Give Too Much

Remember those first years on your own? the odd, little apartment, the bricks-and-boards bookcase, the $700 jalopy, the chili dinners. You were living on the edge of poverty, and yet you were delighted to be managing on your own.

So if it was so much fun, why is it that you reach for your checkbook whenever your grown children ask for money to pay their credit-card bills, parking tickets, real estate agent fees, medical expenses and insurance premiums? Why do you buy them clothes, condos, new cars and vacations--and welcome them home again to live without asking them to pay rent?

C'mon, you do, don't you?

If it's any solace, you are not alone. There's a pandemic out there of softhearted parents. According to their confidants--from psychologists, financial planners, friends and relatives to radio talk-show hosts and hairdressers--more and more adult children are relying on their mothers and fathers long after completing their schooling. Some never stop doing so!

Granted, the economic scene has changed since boomers set off to seek their fortunes. Young people today often spend a much higher percentage of their income on rent than did their parents. In cities like New York and San Francisco, a one-bedroom apartment costs about $2,000 a month. Even in less expensive places, renters face annual increases in the 20% range. Transportation and medical premiums, necessary when first jobs provide no insurance, can add a burden to monthly payments that may already include college loans and credit-card debt. It's no wonder that a young person taking home less than $400 a week may find it almost impossible to manage without some subsidy.

But this is about more than mere money. Theorizes H. Stephen Glenn, co-author of Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World: the parents of boomers were too busy surviving--trying to provide a secure, comfortable home--for them to notice whether their children were content all the time. "So our generation wants our children to feel good because that is what we lacked." No matter how strapped they are themselves, boomer parents don't want their twentysomething or even thirtysomething offspring to feel bad because they can't pay a bill, take a trip or buy that purebred doggy in the window. Many parents also give because they feel guilty--that they were less than perfect, divorced or spent too much time at work making money. Now, what they are actually guilty of is overindulging in the name of love.

Generous parents explain themselves in various ways. Vern Bengtson, 59, a University of Southern California professor and father of three daughters, allows that he has spent a small fortune on his children since the early 1990s. He and his wife Hanna, 57, helped Julie, 31, buy a condo and Erin, 28, start a business in Santa Barbara. They have also been funding Kristina, 27, who tried a modeling and singing career in New York City and then returned to California to attend college. Bengtson expresses the same ambivalence so many parents in his situation do when he admits, "When they have a need that isn't permanent, it's fun to satisfy, though I don't like supporting my children now, when I should be putting money away for my retirement." Then he immediately adds, "We can afford to be generous, and I can see my daughters' progress toward independence." Maria Beltran, 50, an immigrant from Guatemala who is an accounts-payable clerk in Simi Valley, Calif., is just as committed to her children as Bengtson. Divorced, she offers a home and more to Jennifer, 22, and Tony, 24, because, she feels, "they are all I ever had. My dream was to keep the family together." Although Beltran's salary is modest and she has only managed to save $15,000 for her retirement, she admits that "it's hard for me to let go," i.e., stop giving.

However good the intentions, there is a serious downside to all this generosity: funding your kids usually means saving less for your retirement. In Ocean Springs, a town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a well-meaning couple worked for decades without ever indulging themselves or managing to save. Instead, they sent monthly checks, paid apartment deposits, covered medical, utility and tax bills, and clothed and fed their grown children and grandchildren. They once even made a $750 car payment when a daughter vacationing in Spain called home to complain that her Thunderbird might be repossessed if they did not come up with the money immediately. Only when the father suffered a massive heart attack did the two parents realize they simply could not continue to give their children more money without ever expecting any repayment. They learned that they might have retired 10 years earlier had they just said no. "By the time your children are out of college," advises Janet Bodnar, executive editor of Kiplinger's personal-finance magazine, "planning for your own retirement should take precedence. You should not be giving your kids anywhere near an amount that would have an effect on your retirement savings."