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 ...
It should be the other way around.
Well, this boomer dad threw four daughters out into the cold, cruel world. After all, a harem isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Really, I plan to get old and mooch off of my kids. Why else did I have them?
To measure or compare societal/family unit dynamics over the past several decades will show similar changes as comparisons between agrarian vs. industrial changes.
The data has to include divorce, remarriage, single mothers, working mothers, welfare subsidies replacing income earners, birth control, promiscuity, decline in church attendance, abortion, IVF, gay adoption, government interference in family matters, et.al.
“”We wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible,” said Liz Kitchens, a partner in The Kitchens Group”
Sounds like my kids! Kinda hurts my feelings, but whatever.
That's what I tell them all the time...they better study hard and be able to afford a nice big McMansion when they grow up....because we're moving in.
My wife and I have this discussion all the time. We have two sons in their mid-20’s that are not as independent as we would like for them to be. It’s improving though.
The biggest mystery to us is, WHY doesn’t this generation have that desire for independence that we had? I was moved out at 17 and also have never looked back.
The only reason adults should live with their parents is if they are caring for them.
None of my boys were very interested in living at home after college. For that matter, they weren’t really interested in living at home in the summers. For the most part they got jobs and stayed in the towns where they were going to school. When the first one went off to college I didn’t fully realize how *gone* he really was. In hindsight I would have been a little sadder if I’d known. I did kinda like him. Plus, he was my techiest kid.
I can believe the more than half, since they asked about adult children, many of whom are probably in college right now.
It is quite normal to support kids in one way or another during their college years.
It should be the other way around, but one also has to take into consideration how hard it is for younger people to get off the ground these days - taxes, lousy economy, no jobs, cost of living...
My sister is this way with her kids....
LOL yes, it’s why I made sure they went to college and got a good start in live. And I plan to be a burden. :)
It’s all our fault. The baby boombers spoiled their kids rotten, and now we are paying the price for it with a nation full of weaklings.
Great.
Ugh.
Assuming that's true, because the world is no longer some great mystery to be explored?
I think if more families took this approach, it would greatly help.
I believe in helping your kids when they graduate....do things that allow them to save money, even if it means living with parents for a year or two, rent free, with one stipulation, the “rent” money goes into an IRA. Money saved towards retirement while in your 20s makes a HUGE difference, over people who start saving for retirement in their late 20s, or 30s.
I had an assistant principal once and he hit the nail on the head. Kids today get to do what adults do when they are kids. Why bother to grow up? They have the benefits of adulthood without the responsibilities. Who wouldn’t go for that?
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