Are You Ever too Old to Get Money from Relatives?
As a kid, money was my favorite present; preferably cash since I could go out and use it immediately. I could never leave a store with any money left over, probably a lesson I picked up from the old Wheel of Fortune where the contestants had to spend their winnings in Service Merchandise show rooms. The happiness was much anticipated and quickly over.
When I was seventeen my dad gave me a checking account. In spite of the $100 opening deposit that gift didn’t go over so well. It was a smart idea to try and teach his son about managing money, however I saw through it immediately. It was like being given a neck tie, a symbol of the grey oppressive adulthood that lay before me.
That was not the last time I received money from my parents, but those times (especially in college) were rarely cause for celebration. There were a few other times after college (and student loans) I legitimately needed help, but that was nearly four years ago. And still every year like clockwork, the money comes on Christmas, birthday and sometimes even Easter. They’ve been politely offering to buy me a housewarming present from IKEA for the last year.
For those of you who haven’t read my bio, I’m thirty two years old, living on my own and working as a business analyst. I make relatively good money and as you’d expect from a personal finance blogger, I manage it very well. So when my dad hands me a couple of twenties when I visit or my aunt sends a fifty dollar check, I’m a bit mystified as to how I should feel.
While free money is good, I don’t have the most exciting plans for it. A large chunk of my personal savings is windfall money I put aside immediately rather than spend. It’s just the sort of responsible thing my dad wished I would have done when I was seventeen.
Still it’s a little embarrassing to my inner adult, like having my mom start cutting my steak for me in a fancy restaurant. While we go through many developmental milestones on our path to becoming independent adults, the relationship with our parents is sometimes slow to change. They still remember us in diapers.
I’ve never been a big fan of the old “oh you shouldn’t have” vs. “oh but I insist” dialogue. If someone makes a move for the bill at a restaurant, I don’t try to tackle them. I generally trust that when people offer to do something it’s because they want to and I accept graciously. After all I’m lucky to have supportive parents who are in a position to offer their financial assistance.
But for the sake of discussion’¦ At what age would you say we’re too old for parental handouts?
When not sitting in a “grown up chair” and drinking from his “big boy cup”, Mike writes Broken Cupid, a dating blog for single gay guys.
I’m 24 and a very independent person. My parents regularly give me gifts of money for Christmas, birthday, and sometimes “just because” when my dad receives some sort of award or recognition from work.
I’ve spoken with them about this issue a couple times because I have a true desire to be seen as an independent adult who doesn’t rely on his parents for support. Their philosophy is “we’ll do it while we can” and they give these gifts to me, my sister, and my mother’s parents just because they are in a financial situation where they feel comfortable doing so. It makes them feel good to give something to those they love, so I’ve stopped arguing with them. I don’t take advantage of them and they don’t give more than they’re able, so at the moment I see no problem with it.
My mother’s parents and my parents all have a wonderful sense of generosity and that’s one of the values I hope I’m able to learn from their example.
I’m 25, and trying to convince my parents that I’m autonomous is nearly impossible, despite the fact that I live almost 2000 miles away. Getting money for gifts doesn’t bother me too much, but my parents don’t do that much any more. My Aunt Grandma do, but I think that has more to do with convenience and senility than with thinking I’m still a kid.
What really bothers me is the “family plan” stuff. My parents keep trying to get me on their family plan for everything from cell phones to insurance. I find it ludicrous that someone who has two college degrees, a full time job, lives two states away, and hasn’t lived at home in seven years would need or want their parents to pay for their cell phone.
My mother provides childcare for my niece a couple days a week. It has revealed a fascinating family dynamic. My brother hates her to spend money on them (we’re talking grocery shopping, low-level stuff) but is fine with her helping out around the house. My sister-in-law hates for her to do anything (house-cleaning, minor errands) but doesn’t care if my mom buys a meal or two worth of groceries.
I think it is all down to family dynamics – money means something for some and doesn’t for others. Age has nothing to do with it.
I treat money the way I treat any other kind of gift from my parents: they can give it to whoever they want and it means something to them to give it to me so I accept it, regardless of the issue of whether I need it or not.
I have two answers to your direct question:
1) As soon as you start earning your own money full time, and
2) Never.
Unhelpful, eh?
I moved back home after both college and grad school, which is the ultimate in parents giving you money!
Now I’m 45, and my parents still always want to pay when we eat out together. However, when Dad’s cash flow from his business is tight or Mom’s unemployed, then I pay, using the phrase “My turn.” So far, they have been able to handle this.
I read about someone else who has a solution you might like: Save all of the money they are giving you so that later you can give it back to them. Sometimes in retirement, people end up with expensive medical problems that eat all their savings, and it’s hard to rebuild those savings once they are no longer working. So wouldn’t it be lovely to have a fund set up to help them in that event? Then they get the pleasure of giving you money, and you get the pleasure of a sneaky plan.
It sounds like at least they are giving you money they can afford to do without!
I laugh as I read all this, “I am a adult see as a independent person” hoopla. You are their child, you will always be and forever be their child. They love you. You can not begin to understand the benevolent love a parent has for their child until you take on that roll for yourself. The gifts of money has nothing to do with your ability to take care of yourself or responsibilities, it has to do with their heart. It is filled with love for you and they just want to make things easier for you. If it really bothers you, take it and say thank you and donate the money or stick it in a “family fund” so if they or a sibling ever hits hard times you can use the money to help out. But I say just say thank you mom I love you to.
Jason,
I see your point, except that money is not the only way to say “I love you.” A hug says, “I love you.” Money says, “I love you and I don’t think you are capable of providing for yourself.”
Just my humble opinion.
My parents are in their 50s and they still get monetary gifts from their parents. I never really gave it a second thought. Even now when I go out with my mom, she feels bad if she doesn’t buy me anything. I think it’s fine since it’s always the case of the more financially well off family members giving gifts to others – if it were the opposite, I might have a problem with it.
Mike: From my perspective, handouts are different than gifts. My parents still buy me a birthday and Christmas present every year, but the “handouts” ended the day I moved out of their home and was officially deemed an adult and self-sufficient.
In my recent interview with Jennifer Boylan, she talked about the memory of asking her parents for money and I thought the story was interesting:
Money is a convenient gift when the kid has everything he wants and your taste in clothes is utterly foreign to his and you’d like him to have something from you that he actually wants. Maybe he’ll take the money and purchase the same.
Also, at some time in your life, if you’ve accrued a decent net worth, you need to start transferring assets to the next generation. You can legally transfer a certain amount to relatives each year without a gift tax. This isn’t an attempt to make the kids dependent on you. It’s a legitimate way to keep money in the family.
That said, I do have to allow that I’ve known some wealthy folks who seem to have made real jerks out of their kids by giving the offspring everything and denying them nothing. But who knows…maybe the kids were jerks to start with.
Parenting a child is an experience that does not end when a child reaches a particular age. It is a lifelong commitment.
As evidenced by its ubiquitousness in human history, the practice of giving/receiving gifts is a part of human nature. A popular view classifies it as one of the five fundamental ways in which humans give/receive love (gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, service, and physical contact). It is a joy and privilege for some parents who by good fortune, blood, sweat, and/or tears put themselves in a position where they can continue to give gifts to their children (whether or not that particular child interprets that gift as an act of love). The actual gift is not as important…whether it’s money, another material thing/gadget, a card, or an ugly tie. What matters is the experience of giving and receiving.
From this perspective, the question turns into one of balance and reciprocity. If parenting a child is in your particular case, an experience that lasts a lifetime, then how does your role, as the child, evolve as you reach higher levels of maturity?
In particular, what do you do with the money that your parents give you? What do they get in return? For me, when they give me money, it makes achieving balance and reciprocity in gift giving 100 times easier.
My family is all about gifts (I am the only exception). My two sisters and I each send one another $50 or a $50 gift for our birthdays. I think it’s stupid. It’s just money flowing in a circle for years and years. My sisters, however, interpret gifts as expressions of love. I have grown to respect that and continue the cycle because I want them to feel loved by me and this is an EASY way to do it…especially since we are scattered around the country and the net monetary gain/loss is zero.
My parents send me thousands of dollars a year. I don’t need or want their money, but I recognize that for each of them, it is a sincere joy and privilege to give it. So, I call them and thank them as soon as the gifts arrive, I send the best thank you cards that I can create, and I put that money into an interest bearing account. I use it for family purposes: the added cost of huge mother’s day presents consisting of things that I know she will buy anyway in the near future or something that she will just melt over, the difference in cost between a regular airline ticket and a holiday airline ticket when they insist that I travel in the expensive seasons, etc…anything that directly benefits them that I wouldn’t normally be willing to pay for. Last year, my mom had surgery and I flew across the country to be there for her for 10 days. Since I had saved a lot of the money she has given me over the years, I was able to afford the unpaid vacation, flight, etc with no thoughts of my own bank account.
As long as our parents are set for retirement, emergencies, etc, and are giving from their hearts, we are only too old for parental hand-outs when we can look our parents in the eye and say that we are too lazy to think of ways to use it to enhance their lives and/or our relationships with them, and we prefer that they keep it or give it to a worthy charity.