Offspring claim financial independence whilst taking cash from parents
March 28, 2009 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
A recent study has found that there are many young adults in the UK who class themselves as being financially independent, yet they are still taking money from their parents to help fund a wide variety of things.
In fact, the results of the research showed that around 80 percent or four in every five young adults actually still rely on their parents’ financial help whilst claiming that they are financially independent.
Officials from the Children’s Mutual, which carried out the research, stated that we were going through an era where many young adults are finding it more difficult to cut the financial ties with their parents, and in the current economic climate this reliance on their parents’ money could become ever greater. Officials are concerned not only for the people that are relying on their parents for money, but also for the parents themselves.
There are concerns that if children keep taking money from their parents in the way that they are doing the financial future of the parents may be at risk, with many finding that they do not have enough money left to enjoy a comfortable retirement or future. The report claimed that changes in society over the past century meant that these days an increasing number of children thought that it was their parents’ duties to continue supporting them financially even past the age of eighteen.
One official said that in light of the current trend parents with young children and those thinking of having children needed to start putting money aside now for their kids’ futures. He said: ‘There has been a major change in the dynamic of family finances and it needs to be dealt with now as the problem could be growing for anyone who has, or is planning to have, children.’
Tags: help, future, financial future, way, financial independence, cash, Parent, class
Some of these young adults may come from families who are financially positioned to act as enablers for children who choose to live their lives as unapologetic financial burdens. Lots of them, though, have parents who are ordinary working stiffs who may have managed to achieve a reasonably comfortable existence, but have always had to sell their labor in order to do so. Oddly enough, some of these parents, rather than impressing on their kids the necessity of preparing for careers likely to lead to a self-supporting future, have decided to play show and tell with the families of trust babies. The problem is that most of us working stiffs possess neither the deep pockets nor the invaluable networks of contacts available to the trust babies’ families, and thus cannot afford to indefinitely support dilettantes and bums who think it’s cool to swagger about calling themselves “starving artists.”
I work with a woman whose daughter is in her third year at an expensive, artsy school in NYC. From reading between the lines, I get the impression that the girl has no artistic talent, but she has always enjoyed crafts hour, LOVED going to Michaels Arts and Crafts Store, and didn’t have much in the way of basic verbal/math skills. My co-worker often refers to her daughter as “grown and gone.” Well, she is near twenty-one, and she has been away at school for most of the time for the last few years, but it used to be that the expression “grown and gone” was used only if, in addition to meeting the age and distance requirements, the child was also financially independent. The fact that she used the phrase without any apparent awareness that her daughter’s complete lack of financial independence makes usage of the expression inapplicable is just one more example of common sense slip slidin’ away.