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Just to be clear, I myself am not doing this, so I need no advice.
Reading back over some more interesting solid retirement issues from the past, I ran across several CD threads that deal with this. I'm sure there are many retirees who out of necessity have to take care of elders or adult kids or grandkids in some financial capacity.
I know many will jump in and say the adult kids are on their own, no way will they help them, etc etc, so no need to repeat that position. I'm sure there are many who are handicapped or in crisis who need family support.
Child one is independent however struggles to overcome a bad start of McJobs and slow career growth.
Child two is not independent and may never be, based on a combination of nature and nurture factors.
Parents live in a home suitable for thirty or forty somethings raising kids in an expensive place. Cost of living and cost of care is huge. Even outfitted with inheritance child two would have a rough go in this area.
Neither parent has many friends left in this area and cannot get solid work due to age discrimination. Increasingly their hood is an enclave overwhelmed by immigrants from Asia who are in their 40s.
If it were up to me, I'd have cashed out and relo'd somewhere cheaper but with good services. That "somewhere" would have been a place where child #2 could realistically carve out some sort of survival, perhaps as a land lord. Picture a duplex, ranch style, with some land, but not too far outside a town that had good care and services. Upon the death of the last parent child #2 becomes land lord of the parents' former unit. But instead child #2 will have a very rough go, especially after the amazing shrinking inheritance due to the final death struggles of the parents.
Heck, if parents had pursued such a plan, child #1 and wife may well have eventually joined them in their new area, as they burned out / got aged out / etc.
I see people who do plans like this and it strikes me as a reasonable way for people who are not super wealthy or have challenged offspring to cope. But I guess the heat of battle fogs over the mind. Bad decisions or more properly a lack of any decisions and a sad clinging to that which is long gone, or never really happened in the first place, often results.
Last edited by BayAreaHillbilly; 07-23-2012 at 05:37 PM..
We both worked for most of our adult lives before retiring 4-years ago and have always been blessed with sufficient resources to care for ourselves and help others ... after first returning a part of our blessing to the Lord. Everything we have, we worked for, although one lady we helped left us a sizeable chunk of money to support various ministries.
Our parents are now gone, but, we helped my mother financially for a number of years. Our kids are also now raised with kids of their own and we would gladly help them financially, if they needed it. However, they work hard and support themselves and do not really need our help. Otherwise, we take advantage of whatever opportunities present themselves to help others. If we ever needed financial support, I'm confident that our kids would provide what they could, but, that is not an expectation. In fact, we are now investing in ways to help our grandkids with their educations and our kids with their retirements in a few years.
For us, 'giving' or 'helping others' is simply a matter of passing along what we have been 'given' during our lives here. I've never found any other use for money, besides spending it. However, we have always been good stewards over everything we have and do not simply waste our resources on meaningless self-indulgence.
Just to be clear, I myself am not doing this, so I need no advice.
Reading back over some more interesting solid retirement issues from the past, I ran across several CD threads that deal with this. I'm sure there are many retirees who out of necessity have to take care of elders or adult kids or grandkids in some financial capacity.
I know many will jump in and say the adult kids are on their own, no way will they help them, etc etc, so no need to repeat that position. I'm sure there are many who are handicapped or in crisis who need family support.
Opening the discussion.
Our plan leaves us with limited choices. We can either give money our kids or give it to a charity. We are prepared to carry a nest egg to the end and if plans workout we should be able to handle nursing homes etc and keep the nest egg there. However as we all now there are long term medical emergencies that could challenge it all. But by no intent do we intend or want to die anywhere near broke so that leaves money for the kids in the plan.
Biscuitpop and I would help anyone in our immediate family who might need it. They all work hard and try to be independent but stuff happens. We were lucky to be able to accumulate a nice nest egg and retirement benefits, they might not be.
That includes our aging parents (whom we did help / are helping), our siblings, and our adult children.
Adult children living off their parents rarely ends up being a good thing. Generally speaking it is a disaster for the relationship and builds resent in all. Except in the most dire of circumstances, it is good for our children to learn to do with less and figure out solutions to their own problems. There are exceptions of course.
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