Parents Who Give Too Much

By VALERIE MARCHANT

Remember those first years on your own? the odd, little apartment, the bricks-and-boards bookcase, the $700 jalopy, the chili dinners. You were living on the edge of poverty, and yet you were delighted to be managing on your own.

So if it was so much fun, why is it that you reach for your checkbook whenever your grown children ask for money to pay their credit-card bills, parking tickets, real estate agent fees, medical expenses and insurance premiums? Why do you buy them clothes, condos, new cars and vacations--and welcome them home again to live without asking them to pay rent?

C'mon, you do, don't you?

If it's any solace, you are not alone. There's a pandemic out there of softhearted parents. According to their confidants--from psychologists, financial planners, friends and relatives to radio talk-show hosts and hairdressers--more and more adult children are relying on their mothers and fathers long after completing their schooling. Some never stop doing so!

Granted, the economic scene has changed since boomers set off to seek their fortunes. Young people today often spend a much higher percentage of their income on rent than did their parents. In cities like New York and San Francisco, a one-bedroom apartment costs about $2,000 a month. Even in less expensive places, renters face annual increases in the 20% range. Transportation and medical premiums, necessary when first jobs provide no insurance, can add a burden to monthly payments that may already include college loans and credit-card debt. It's no wonder that a young person taking home less than $400 a week may find it almost impossible to manage without some subsidy.

But this is about more than mere money. Theorizes H. Stephen Glenn, co-author of Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World: the parents of boomers were too busy surviving--trying to provide a secure, comfortable home--for them to notice whether their children were content all the time. "So our generation wants our children to feel good because that is what we lacked." No matter how strapped they are themselves, boomer parents don't want their twentysomething or even thirtysomething offspring to feel bad because they can't pay a bill, take a trip or buy that purebred doggy in the window. Many parents also give because they feel guilty--that they were less than perfect, divorced or spent too much time at work making money. Now, what they are actually guilty of is overindulging in the name of love.

Generous parents explain themselves in various ways. Vern Bengtson, 59, a University of Southern California professor and father of three daughters, allows that he has spent a small fortune on his children since the early 1990s. He and his wife Hanna, 57, helped Julie, 31, buy a condo and Erin, 28, start a business in Santa Barbara. They have also been funding Kristina, 27, who tried a modeling and singing career in New York City and then returned to California to attend college. Bengtson expresses the same ambivalence so many parents in his situation do when he admits, "When they have a need that isn't permanent, it's fun to satisfy, though I don't like supporting my children now, when I should be putting money away for my retirement." Then he immediately adds, "We can afford to be generous, and I can see my daughters' progress toward independence." Maria Beltran, 50, an immigrant from Guatemala who is an accounts-payable clerk in Simi Valley, Calif., is just as committed to her children as Bengtson. Divorced, she offers a home and more to Jennifer, 22, and Tony, 24, because, she feels, "they are all I ever had. My dream was to keep the family together." Although Beltran's salary is modest and she has only managed to save $15,000 for her retirement, she admits that "it's hard for me to let go," i.e., stop giving.

However good the intentions, there is a serious downside to all this generosity: funding your kids usually means saving less for your retirement. In Ocean Springs, a town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a well-meaning couple worked for decades without ever indulging themselves or managing to save. Instead, they sent monthly checks, paid apartment deposits, covered medical, utility and tax bills, and clothed and fed their grown children and grandchildren. They once even made a $750 car payment when a daughter vacationing in Spain called home to complain that her Thunderbird might be repossessed if they did not come up with the money immediately. Only when the father suffered a massive heart attack did the two parents realize they simply could not continue to give their children more money without ever expecting any repayment. They learned that they might have retired 10 years earlier had they just said no. "By the time your children are out of college," advises Janet Bodnar, executive editor of Kiplinger's personal-finance magazine, "planning for your own retirement should take precedence. You should not be giving your kids anywhere near an amount that would have an effect on your retirement savings."

Moreover, the children themselves, left unschooled in the arts of delayed gratification and self-help, may be more hurt than helped by their parents' love. Betty Frain, a psychotherapist specializing in working with families and co-author of Becoming a Wise Parent for Your Grown Child, warns that "the downside for grown children [who are being funded] is that they don't develop internal coping skills, and so they feel weak and controlled and continue to be dependent." And often greedy and resentful rather than grateful. Jane Nelsen, a California-based therapist and author of Parents Who Love Too Much, observes that the overindulged "tend to want more and more and to think that what you are giving them is a not a gift or a privilege but their due."

Most experts agree that in the case of children who are responsible and hardworking, when they are starting out, it may be appropriate to help, such as giving or loaning some of the money needed to buy a car or co-op or condo, supplementing rent or insurance costs, alleviating the burden of very heavy college-debt payments or aiding them in an emergency. Many such young people, like Rachel Frank, 27 and struggling to make it in New York, quickly become independent if a time limit is set. Frank considers herself "extremely fortunate" because her father paid her rent--for just six months.

Parents should never try to duplicate the lifestyle their children enjoyed at home, however. "While children's expectations are that they should live in the same socioeconomic level that they did at home," explains Neale Godfrey, author of Money Doesn't Grow on Trees, "they need to know that they will be strapped in the real world." If they are living at home while getting started or paying off debt, they should pay some rent, if only to understand that they will have housing costs later.

The real problem, say experts, is chronic rescuing. Children who are continually bailed out never grow up. Cheryl Erwin, author of several Positive Discipline parenting books, says, "As parents, we need to be there to teach and guide, not to rescue and pamper. That is an ultimately unloving thing to do."

"The best way to help your children is not to help them," insists Nelsen's daughter Mary, 26. "Let them manage on their own because it helps them build character. And only then will the lesson stick!" Once a shopaholic, Mary ran up so much credit-card debt that she could not meet the payments. Moved by her distress, her mother paid the bill, hoping Mary had learned her lesson. Instead she did the same thing again. The second time, Mary, soon to graduate from university, paid the debt herself and learned very nicely how to manage money in the process.

How can you help yourself and your children break unhealthy patterns? Never cut your child off, blame or lecture. Be supportive, friendly and respectful. Listen and brainstorm. Tell your child that you are uneasy with the current arrangement and that you need to save all you can for retirement. Above all, ask what your child has tried or might try to do to remedy the situation. You might also suggest that your son or daughter keep a complete record of every cent spent in a month. That will certainly reveal some areas in which spending could be eliminated.

Many families are choosing to bring in a mediator with financial expertise, reasoning that it's often easier for a child to learn from an outsider than from a parent. Financial planner Randy Siller, regional CEO at Sagemark Consulting, has found that the amounts requested by grown children tend to increase every year. So Siller suggests that the parents set time limits and this way gradually wean their children from dependence. For example, parents might offer to help out with $10,000 one year, $5,000 the next, and that's it. When clients of average means ask Stephen Mintz, a financial planner in Monroe, La., whether they should give money to their children, he insists, "Don't give it to them! It would be better to save it and give them something when you die."

The message from the pros to the parents: Persistence will pay; the situation will improve--often in less than a year. Don't be discouraged if progress takes more time. The important thing is, you'll make it.

--With reporting by Alice Jackson Baughn/Ocean Springs, Miss., Sarah Dale/Chicago, Jacqueline Savaiano/South Pasadena, Calif., and Heather Won Tesoriero/New York

With reporting by Alice Jackson Baughn/Ocean Springs, Miss., Sarah Dale/Chicago, Jacqueline Savaiano/South Pasadena, Calif., and Heather Won Tesoriero/New York