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I don't mean to sound judgmental or for this to come off as a loaded question, rather im genuinely curious and i admit im a bit jealous! I have a couple good friends who's parents are mostly doctors ranging the gamut from psychiatrists to surgeons. Anyhow these parents paid/pay almost all of the bills in college including rent, cell phone, meal plan, car insurance/gas, a good portion of their tuition, etc and also sometimes even give them "spending money" to do fun things such as ski trips, impromptu shopping trips in bigger cities, amusement parks,etc. Some have part time jobs but the $ usually goes to alcohol, and, more shopping. I have trouble grasping this lifestyle maybe because i was raised in a working/lower middle class family where it would be nearly unthinkable to ask my daddy for shopping money as 20 something years old. It also goes deeper than finances-a lot of these friends dont really know how to deal with landlords, financial aid officers, professors,etc and will just hand the phone to their parents. I admit I am a little envious as I grew up with parents who advocate self sufficiency and subscribe to the school of thought that once you're an adult, you should for the most part be pulling your own weight. I tell my friends this and they always seem to pity which is embarrassing and think my parents seem cold. So I beg to ask why do so many parents give their adult children a free ride to college and then often continue financing them WELL beyond college? It is about control? Fear? Guilt? Just wondering how they think these "kids" will ever learn to navigate the world or do you plan on supporting them forever?
I think it's convenience and guilt. Its easier to hand out dollars than to do the time, even in parenting. And since they never did the time, they're still handing out dollars to these ill equipped, overgrown juveniles. Also if you have time, you should pick up a book called, "The Millionaire Next Door". A group of people, I can't recall their credentials studied the spending habits of rich people vs. richer people and he explains how these family dynamics work. It's a quick read compared to a text book.
Your parents did you a huge favor by raising you the way they did and obviously your friends are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to independence and experience. Think how many strings must be attached to all those gifts.
When our kids went to college we made them take out student loans. What they did not know was that it was our plan to pay off those student loans if they successfully got their undergraduate degrees. They did and we did.
When they wanted to go to graduate school they knew it would be on their own dime. One lasted only a year while the other got his PhD. We are extremely proud of them both. At 29 and 31 they live independent lives and they know how to manage their money.
I like our way better because it meant these kids knew college was important and not something they could do just cause mom and dad were paying for it. Many of their friends partied thru school and really had noting to show for 4 years. One kid, the son of a wealthy doctor in town, had a great time at his parents expense. he dropped out after 4 years and no degree and is on his second marriage and family at only 31. Doctor Daddy is still paying his bills.
Financially we could have paid for their schooling from the get go but both of us put ourselves through college and felt our plan was best for our kids.
I am 68, no kids, and middle class at best, so I can't answer your question. However, I have made observations similar to yours. It seems to me that this over-generous support of children beyond age 18 is a wide-spread national phenomenon among parents who can afford it, and that the implications go beyond the purely financial.
If I had the means (and the children) I would not hesitate to pay their college tuition so they can 1) graduate debt-free and 2) concentrate on their studies without worrying about part-time jobs. However, I think that frugal living builds character, and I would not want to set them up in posh apartments with late-model cars and gobs of spending money.
However, there is something a lot more troublesome and worrying about "helicopter parents" than the fact that their kids are spoiled financially. And that is what you related about the parents dealing with landlords, professors, etc. Indeed, how will their children ever learn to be autonomous adults without the experience of dealing with those facets of life themselves? I think that is pathological. My personal anecdote in that area is a woman whose daughter was a senior in college, age 23, and 800 miles away. This woman and her daughter would speak three or four times a day on their cell phones. Hello??? Is there no thought given to cutting the umbilical cord at some point? I don't understand it either so I hope the OP gets some responses.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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Hmmm...I'll try to answer this question with my own experience. My parents paid 100% for my college tuition (and that of my brother's and sister's). They also paid any other expenses I had in school including sorority dues, books, and spending money. I had jobs over the summer and winter breaks, but wasn't expected to work during school. When I graduated from college, my parents gave each of us a gift of a new car (up to $10K - this was the 1980's). From the outside, it may have looked like I was spoiled or privileged. I was, indeed, very lucky or some would say blessed.
But from the inside I didn't feel spoiled at all. My father was not a college graduate, nor was my mother. My dad learned a trade and worked lots of overtime hours to build up his savings. He knew he wanted to put us children through college to have a better life than he had. Money was not handed out left and right but was used for important things (ski vacations were not paid for, for example). And college was considered important. I grew up knowing that my dad sacrificed a lot to get us where we were. None of us squandered the gift of a college education. We all three worked hard. In fact, I remember going to classes when other kids were blowing them off because I felt bad that my dad was paying so much money for it! I think I maybe missed one or two classes in four years!
I grew up knowing the value of a dollar and was taught to save first and not buy anything you cannot afford. When I graduated, I think I lived at home for maybe three weeks before I moved to a new city and started my career. I've been on my own ever since, paying my own way.
So while on the outside it may look like I am spoiled, I don't think I was because I appreciated what was given to me. I think if you teach your kids to be responsible with money and you model that behavior, they will grow up to be responsible - whether their parents had money to pay for things such as college or not. And if you modeled irresponsibility with money, you will likely raise kids who are also irresponsible with money, whether you paid for their college and other things or not.
In high school, one of my friends (a senior) was going to get a Porsche from his parents as a graduation gift. Yes, a Porsche. But he kinda took his foot off the petal in his last semester and his grades suffered. As "punishment", his parents bought him a Lexus instead of a Porsche. My friend, true to form, was fuming mad at losing his Porsche. "Holy f***!! Only old people drive Lexus!!" He told me.
So yes, I'm quite familiar with the over privileged and pampered. What you described applies to the majority of my friends from high schools and college.
And here's the thing: in the long run, those over privileged over pampered kids eventually do figure out how to deal with the world outside of their environment. And that happens sooner than you think. Another thing that I noticed, being pampered as an adult doesn't mean you can't be very successful in life. The friend who lost his Porche to a Lexus? He graduated from Columbia University with an MBA and working in Wall Street. Needless to say, he's not starving.
When my sister was in the graduate program, I stayed with her briefly and got a chance to hang out with many grad students from NYC - PHD candidates, MBAs, Physicists, etc, from the city's surrounding schools (NYU, Columbia, Cooper Union, etc); and basically what I noticed is that those high achievers come from all walks of life - middle class, military, foreign countries, and yes even the spoiled pampered kids from rich families. They're there, among the elite. Even my sister, who'd qualified as being "coddled" under your definition.
The bottom line is that the key to success requires so much more than just "not being coddled." It's about drive, work ethic, personality, intelligence, focus, etc, etc. Two of the most coddled men that I know of are George W Bush and Mitt Romney. Now, you may not like them, but there's no denying that they managed to obtain quite a resume despite being coddled as adults.
In the end, I think some rich parents pampered their adult kids because they know it doesn't really matter in the end. If a kid has the right stuff, that kid can overcome anything; even overcome being coddled well into adulthood. What makes some people have a higher drive/focus/work ethic than others? That's a study that I've love to read up on.
I don't mean to sound judgmental or for this to come off as a loaded question, rather im genuinely curious and i admit im a bit jealous! I have a couple good friends who's parents are mostly doctors ranging the gamut from psychiatrists to surgeons. Anyhow these parents paid/pay almost all of the bills in college including rent, cell phone, meal plan, car insurance/gas, a good portion of their tuition, etc and also sometimes even give them "spending money" to do fun things such as ski trips, impromptu shopping trips in bigger cities, amusement parks,etc. Some have part time jobs but the $ usually goes to alcohol, and, more shopping. I have trouble grasping this lifestyle maybe because i was raised in a working/lower middle class family where it would be nearly unthinkable to ask my daddy for shopping money as 20 something years old. It also goes deeper than finances-a lot of these friends dont really know how to deal with landlords, financial aid officers, professors,etc and will just hand the phone to their parents. I admit I am a little envious as I grew up with parents who advocate self sufficiency and subscribe to the school of thought that once you're an adult, you should for the most part be pulling your own weight. I tell my friends this and they always seem to pity which is embarrassing and think my parents seem cold. So I beg to ask why do so many parents give their adult children a free ride to college and then often continue financing them WELL beyond college? It is about control? Fear? Guilt? Just wondering how they think these "kids" will ever learn to navigate the world or do you plan on supporting them forever?
No one wants their kids to be saddled with massive student loans if they don't need to be.
Considering that student loan debt is one of the biggest burdens to people aged 21-30, it seems only logical that a family would try to minimize it. Especially with the insane expense of a college education. For what you receive in the first years out of college, it seems incredible disadvantageous to a lot of people who can't afford it. Just my $.02
Here's how it was supposed to work. My JOB was school. I was supposed to attend classes and for that my parents were going to pay my tuition and I worked in the summer for books and spending money.
However, my father died while I was in college and that went out the window.
I think a number of people do coddle their kids, but I don't think it's the majority.
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