Posted on 04/15/2011 12:43:50 PM PDT by decimon
ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – More than half of Baby Boom-generation mothers support adult children financially and 60 percent are the go-to person when their grown kids encounter problems, according to a survey issued on Thursday.
That trend contrasted with the 86 percent of those 46- to 65-year-old women surveyed who said they were fully independent of their own parents by age 25.
"We wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible," said Liz Kitchens, a partner in The Kitchens Group, a public opinion research firm in Orlando, Florida, that conducted the survey.
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Helen Bernstein, a 54-year-old former office worker from Casselberry, Florida, said her grown daughter moved back home with a new husband for a short time in 2008 while the young couple saved for a home of their own.
Bernstein now happily babysits full-time for her new grandchild but said returning home was something she herself never would have done.
"I left home at 17 and never looked back," she said. "I felt like once I left my parents' house, I would have been a failure to go back."
Denise Beumer, a 58-year-old manager of a bank branch near Orlando, has helped support two of her six adult children.
Although she moved back to her mother's home as a young divorcee, Beumer said her attitude was different.
"I didn't expect my mother to treat me like a child," Beumer said. "My son, he can't put the dishes in the dishwasher. It's like they feel it's an entitlement. I'm wondering if I made things too easy for them."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I think that's true. Without cheap apartments there's no where to go.
And what percentage of these boomer moms and the kids who moved back in vote Democrat? I’ll bet it is very high.
My daughters call us at least once a week to chat, tell us the latest jokes and news or ask Mom for a recipe but they would never consider moving back into their bedrooms. Who wants to live with old people who go to bed early and enjoy quiet evenings?
In all fairness, the baby boomers made out like bandits.
Typically emerging from university debt free into a healthy economy with high paying jobs, able to buy inexpensive good housing at low fixed mortgage rates. Night and day from what the current generation faces.
Today, university graduates are anywhere from $30-60k in debt, entering a weak economy with salaries stuck in neutral during years of inflation, while the jobs themselves demand much higher productivity. Housing is now ten times more expensive for comparable quality, with much harsher mortgage rates. Marriage and family are pushed back by a decade or more, with no hope of ever having an American dream like their parents.
How to get around this mess is that baby boomer parents often have a mortgage free home, and by living with them, debts can be paid off somewhat faster, while expenses are kept down. But even so, there is no job security, and savings might be wiped out with layoffs.
For increasing numbers, though, even with parental help, there is no future that is anywhere near as prosperous, no matter how hard they work. Those days are over for 10-20 or even 30 years, even if the federal government finally gets under control in 2012.
Oh, it’s true. But your answer may be right. Also, many “kids” have all the creature comforts of adults without the responsibility.
I know some adult parents that let their 20-somethings live at home rent free and have boyfriends and girlfriends sleep over.
My MIL has lived with us pretty much ever since we had our first child, and frankly I don't know what we would have done without her, with both of us working, as far as helping to raise the kids.
My husband and I started retirement savings accnts for our kids for their birthdays several years back. They put into them also, but it helps that we also put birthday money in every year. The money you put in early is the money that accrues the most, and many people just can’t put much early money it. What better birthday present is there?
It’s because Adderol destroys sex drive.
I wish we lived closer. When I have grandkids, I would LOVE to homeschool them. But we live in FL and they all live in TX.
me too....that old saying—— Live long enough to be a problem to your kids.....revenge is sweet and best served cold....:O)
More and more the concept of ‘extended family’ will become an economic necessity, in fact it is the abandonment of the extended family concept that is one of the major causes of the huge expansion of government.
I don’t know anyone without a mortgage. And yeah, I’m a boomer... (barely, I’m that unfortuante tail end of the baby boom)
as a child grows older, its the parents responsiblity to make the nest a tad uncomfortable for them....Every mother bird pushes her chicks out of the nest if they don’t want to go...watch over them for a few days and then leave them on their own...
Remember the old sitcoms with the poor little CPA or salesgirl,whose live-in parent always had some emergency that caused cancelling the younger person's plans?
I know of parents who expected/demanded the child to abandon her/his future plans to take care of the family business or sick family member.
It would be poetic justice if those were the parents that end up financially supporting their offspring.
But I suppose the real reason is those liberal parents who believe in ,and voted for ,the nanny state ,also treated their kids like that,and raised them to be dependent.
Remember that previous generations had an entirely different America inwhich the government didn't control every facet of life and confiscate half or more of the average worker's income.
And just who voted for LBJ,Jimmy Cahtuh,and decades of Democrats controlling the Senate and House?Those 30-something kids didn't.
Having lived in Florida, there is NO way I am going to retire there, it’s too depressing to contemplate, just hanging out with other old folks waiting to kick off.
We are basically going to move close to one of our kids. As long as it isn’t Florida. ;)
I agree. I wish we weren’t all spread out. I now wish we all lived within spitting distance of each other.
Uh, where’s the husband in this equation?
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