Seniors Supporting Adult Children
My plan is to raise financially fit children so that, when the times come, they can get out of my house and off my books.
I love my children, but I look forward to the day they can support themselves. If they need help here and there, my husband and I are willing to assist.
But, for various reasons, some parents who are long into their retirement years find themselves still having to financially support their grown children. And I’m not talking about young adults just out of college.
The Pew Research Center has found that “among the 60-plus set without jobs anymore, 43 percent are still helping grown kids out with the bills,” reports Chris Taylor of Reuters.
This trend is troubling.
“Older Americans are entering a new, more dangerous phase: Supporting their adult kids not out of new income streams coming in, like annual salaries, but out of their own pot of existing savings,” Taylor writes.
Kim Parker, Pew Research Center’s director of social trends research, says in the Reuters story: “Obviously, families are doing what they have to do to support each other. But I assume it’s going to become much more financially stressful for them if they don’t have new income coming in.”
It’s natural for parents to want to help their kids. But, as Taylor points out, “such familial generosity can have long-term implications that need to be taken seriously. After all, retirement-fund withdrawal rates are critical to how long the money ultimately lasts.”
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Source: Washington Post