| The primary job of a parent is to prepare their children | | | | money-management habits! Excuse ME...?! |
| for how the world really works. We teach and train | | | | Let me see if I get this right. Young adults, married or |
| our children from childhood the knowledge and skills | | | | living together, working full-time jobs, with or without a |
| necessary to become independent adults, | | | | child to support, choose to spend their money |
| self-sufficient and upstanding members of society. In | | | | frivolously, rather than ensuring they are living within |
| the real world, you don't always get what you want. | | | | their means, and when they run into financial trouble |
| Many young adults today have unrealistic expectations | | | | and can't pay their bills, the parents OWE it to their |
| when they initially go out on their own. Many feel they | | | | children to rescue them?! Sometimes even expected |
| are entitled to immediately live a middle-class life style | | | | to "help" many, many times over? Huh?! |
| (or better), because that's what they're used to. They | | | | I'm of the thinking that if my grown, adult children, |
| weren't born, or were very young children, during the | | | | CHOOSE to spend their money on things they |
| years their parents struggled to make ends meet, pay | | | | "want" rather than their "needs" |
| their bills (and on time), having to eat hot dogs and | | | | (like a place to live, utilities, food, etc.., like the rest of us |
| beans instead of steak dinners, struggling to live within | | | | do) and their electric gets shut off because of |
| their means. | | | | non-payment? Okay! So their food goes bad and they |
| Many young adults are living at home with their | | | | have to throw it away. Maybe, just maybe, it's more of |
| parents, not out of true need, but out of what I refer to | | | | a "help" to allow them to experience the |
| as the "Whine Factor." They whine about | | | | consequences of their own poor choices, in order to |
| the costs of housing, and how they just "couldn't | | | | learn the valuable lessons needed to be grown, |
| possibly live in a tiny little apartment, in a sub-standard | | | | independent ADULTS. |
| neighborhood." They whine about having to live | | | | Rescuing them from their choices and subsequent |
| on red beans and rice, ramen noodles, or macaroni | | | | consequences, giving them money as a fix to their |
| and cheese, because their current salary doesn't allow | | | | immediate self-made problem, allowing them to move |
| for the kinds of meals they were used to at their | | | | back in with their parents, this is called |
| parents home. (Someone get me a tissue.....snif) | | | | "help"? I think it's actually enabling our young |
| What happened to teaching our children how the Real | | | | adult children rather than help, preventing them from |
| World is?! That in order to have the things you want, | | | | the realities of the real world. In the real world, you |
| you have to work very hard. That you have to | | | | work long and hard for the things you need and want. |
| perhaps work two jobs instead of one, all the while | | | | That's the only way to truly appreciate what you have, |
| going to college? Many young adults, some who now | | | | when you've worked very hard for it, all on your own. |
| have children of their own, believe their parents | | | | Sometimes the best help of all parents can give is |
| somehow "owe them" financial assistance, | | | | saying no. |
| to rescue them from the burden of their own poor | | | | |