Читать книгу Launching Financial Grownups - Bobbi Rebell - Страница 11

We want to raise independent human beings, but we do not want them to make mistakes.

—KJ Dell'Antonia, Author, How to Be a Happier Parent

Welcome to orientation, my friends! If you are reading this, we have a lot in common. We love our kids to death but fear we are totally blowing it when it comes to setting them up for financial independence from us.

In some cases, that fear is spot on. Many of us, myself included, are at a loss. That's what compelled me to write this book. I wanted to figure out why so many young adults are so financially tied to their parents these days – and why so many of our children don't seem to be as bothered as we, their parents, are by the situation.

Let me assure you that if you are investing your time in reading this, you are on the right track. Getting yourself informed and ready to take on this challenge is the hardest part. If you are confused by why this is so much harder for us than we think it was for our parents, join the club.

The good news is I have found and will share some answers to those questions. Some of the reasons are of our own doing. We think we just want to put up guardrails for our kids to protect them. We cringe when we are called out as “helicopter parents.” But the truth is, many of us have gone past that moniker into what is being called “concierge parenting.” The term, by the way, has been credited to Julia Townsend, the principal of St. Catherine's School in Waverley, Australia.¹ For our purposes, think of it as the more financial- and lifestyle-driven version of over supportive and overly involved parenting than helicopter parenting. We are at the concierge desk ready to solve problems, which often involves throwing money at the issue. More on that later.

Many of the reasons we as parents continue to be so heavily involved in our children's lives as they move into their mid-twenties have to do with huge cultural changes. Something as simple as Obamacare, which allowed kids to be on their parents' health insurance until age 26, created a new benchmark for perceived adulthood. Kids' phone bills often start coming in middle school, and many parents, myself included, don't think to turn them off as the kids move through the different stages of becoming an adult. Bills are on autopay, and we just keep paying.

Gen X parents also often have more in common with our kids. Many of us get along with our adult children better than previous generations. Thanks to technology, we have more interaction with them, are more accessible when they need us, and can be more involved in their lives. Modern cultural values and priorities have brought us closer in so many wonderful ways, as parents today are intentionally more active in their kids' lives.

All this makes the idea of pulling away from something that has become so much of our identity painful and uncomfortable for many of us. We like our kids. Equally important, our kids often like us and enjoy being around on a more regular basis. They aren't as eager to cut ties as soon as they reach each adulting milestone, like high school or college graduation. In some ways, we are heading into a multigenerational society where family members of various generations live and spend time together in a more fluid fashion. There is so much good coming from this, but it also complicates how we transition the next generation into adulthood.

I have interviewed many of the top parenting experts, financial therapists, and money experts in the world and am so excited to share their incredible observations on the trends that have been shaping parent-child financial relationships. The advice they share on how we can best navigate the changing landscape will prove invaluable to all of us as we go through this journey. However, we must also do the work and make some tough decisions. It is essential that we come to terms with the fact that becoming a financial grownup ourselves is no longer enough. We as parents and grandparents must bring the next generations with us. But the thinking on exactly how to do so has had a massive shift for a number of reasons that we will get into soon.

It is becoming more apparent that changing cultural expectations have impacted our approach as to how our kids will separate from us economically and why that has become so complicated. The COVID-19 crisis has added a new wrinkle to the trend but has also opened up new lines of communication about finances that are proving very helpful. In previous generations, kids were expected to function as adults by their late teenage years. But our current parental expectations and realities leave many bewildered. Several families I have spoken to for this book have told me, often in confidence, that their 20-something and sometimes 30-something offspring are still very much economically dependent on them. The parents are exhausted and distressed. They worry how their kids will fare if something were to happen to them. They wonder if the kids will be able to step up in a family emergency. Parents are deeply concerned about their kids but also are becoming truly scared for their own financial futures.