Reverse Generational Weath Transfer?
Profunksticated again apologizes for the lag between posts. It’s been pretty busy on the job and on the personal tip.
Let me ask you all something. Should we 40- and 50-somethings be required to take care of our parents financially? I ask because I saw this article in the Washington Post. It quotes a minister as saying that folks need to be putting away money to help care for their parents in their old age.
And the writer chimes in, crowing about how she’s helped her grandmother.
I was raised by my grandmother, Big Mama, and I vowed that I would take care of her until the day she died. In fact, while in college I would send money home to help my grandmother with some of her bills.
After I graduated, I paid my grandmother’s property taxes every year (she had paid off her home). I regularly gave her money for groceries.
The article struck a nerve with me. The comments section for this article is closed, but here’s would I would have written:
“Bully for you, my sister, that you were able to help your grandmother. But not all of us have that opportunity. Maybe if I hadn’t gone through three layoff/firings in 11 years and my spouse hadn’t gotten ill, and then injured on the job, resulting in several income interruptions, maybe I’d be in a position to help my parents also. And maybe I wouldn’t have had to ask for help from them, which I hated like hell to do.
“But my parents don’t need help from me financially, at least right now. They inherited the house I grew up in. They had no mortgage. My dad joined the local electric and gas utility in 1971, and retired after 30 years. He has a pension and enough liquid assets to purchase with cash the house next door that his recently deceased older brother left behind (his eight kids amazingly didn’t want the house) to keep out what Dad considered undesirable neighbors.
“Like you, I am a journalist by trade. Hey, maybe if the Washington Post had hired me when I applied in the early 1990s, rather than having your spook gatekeeper send me a letter containing the bullcrap brush-off line ‘We need to see more depth and breadth in your stories,’ maybe I’d still be there today and had built up enough assets to help my parents. ”
Yeah, that last line sounds like sour grapes, but screw it. Anyway, what think you all of helping out parents? I thought it was all about parents passing down wealth rather than the other way around. At least, as I understand it, that’s how the white folks do it.
Peace.
I don’t think anyone should have to help their parents financially. My dad doesn’t need my finaancial help and probably wouldn’t ask if he did but I would be more than happy to give it. I consider it an honor. I am what I am today (financially and otherwise) because of my parents and for that, I’m forever grateful.
I take pride in the fact that my dad (my mom is deceased now) will have never have to want for anything as long as I’m alive (or dead for that matter cause he’s in my will). He’s retired and I truly enjoy giving him the things he can’t or won’t buy for himself. In addition, I’ve let him know that I don’t need or awant an inheritance so he should feel free to do as he pleases with the assets he has now. He and my mom worked hard for it and he should get to enjoy it.
Hey Savvy, welcome to my spot! I feel the same about my parents; they also won’t want for anything. Early on I made them the beneficiaries of a work-provided life insurance policy while I was still single (I’m married and now the spouse of course is primary beneficiary of policies I carry). However, if they needed help and I was able to give it, I would. I’m trying my damnedest not to have to go to the parental well for financial help ever again. That’s why I’m working 150 miles from home where the job opps are more plentiful. Thanks for visiting!
Comment by savvy — April 24, 2008 @ 10:52 am
I read that article. In my view, she was mostly speaking to situations where folks are irresponsible w/ their money and make poor life decisions that turn to their parents for bailouts. It’s understandable that a person who falls on hard times would seek help from their parents if they have the means, but it seems that the author didn’t really address those situations.
I think your parents’ generation is really the last one that could look forward to pensions & social security in retirement. In the future it seems that we’ll have a lot of elderly people living in poverty.
K., welcome back. Some of the “hard times” experienced by my wife and I were based on taking some risks trying to better ourselves. Our move out west right after our wedding, for example worked out (sometimes I wish we’d stayed there). Our moves back east, and then down south, on the other hand, didn’t. And yes, we got help from our parents in those situations. Speaking of pensions, my dad asked me some months back if my last employer offered pensions. I said, uh no, they offer 401k’s only. He seemed shocked.
You’re right there will be a lot of elderly living in poverty. But remember, the so-called American dream was borne of the fact that the US was the only power left standing after WWII. Now the rest of the world’s has caught up (Germany and Japan), or is catching up (China and India). And the corporate world, the source of American prosperity, has shown itself as really not giving a damn about national sovereignty, chasing cheapest labor regardless of where in the world it is. Americans are living through a painful transition that will probably take a century to play out.
Comment by K. — April 24, 2008 @ 11:21 am