British Kids Lending Parents Money

[Jaguar]

This write up was on Bell Sympatico.ca Site under Your Money.



A new study has found that British kids as young as eight are lending money to cash-strapped parents. Worried parents are turning to fiscally responsible children for loans? That can’t be a good model of patterning to set for your children, and it certainly must influence how stable a child feels. No parent wants their kid to have to worry about money, but it seems that finances are a common concern for children. I find that very sad.

Rest of the write up.......

blog.yourmoney.ca/2012/08/british-kids-as-young-as-8-are-lending-their-parents-money.html

Have a go at it.

[Jaguar]

My mom was always bad when it came to paying bills. So bad in fact that I took my money as a kid and paid off my dental bills. It was embarrassing to say the least. She had no problem getting money for her cigarettes, booze or bingo. As a teen I started paying for half the rent, half the food and all the phone bill cause she couldn't do it. She wouldn't take my money, my dead beat brother did that. But she would give me lectures about how tough it was for her. All the while I was also dealing with my health issues, including a blood disorder.

[emma1420]

My dad has never asked me for money. Ever. He does give his mother money ocassionally, but she would never ask him for it. She's the type that would go cold and hungry before asking her child for his hard earned money. My dad is the same way, so if there every comes a point where I feel he needs the help I would help him (although he's been so careful I would be surprised if it ever came to that).

My biological mother, on the other hand, has asked me for money repeatedly. And she's on her own.

[Opti]

Wow Sugi that's tough.

[qofcc]

My grandpa paid me to work in the family business when I was in HS, but my dad usually "borrowed" most of the money back. The business was failing and sometimes I had to turn over my babysitting money so he could meet payroll. I had a big garage sale and received some wedding money right before I moved across country at 19 and pregnant with no job lined up and my dad was on my front porch needing to borrow money the day we left. Within a couple of years I was paying for a phone for my grandma's house so I could get ahold of her and my dad, it worried me having to wait for a letter. I still pay for him to have a cell phone and when he had a car he'd always call me from the garage asking me to give the man my credit card number otherwise he wouldn't have a car to be able to work. He's never been able to save money. He's generous to a fault. Now that he needs physical assistance he takes the friends and paid workers who help him out to eat and buys them little inexpensive gifts. Before his accident, when he was out of work and came to stay with me, I paid deposit & first months rent on an apartment, then he couldn't pay the 2nd months rent because he spent all of his money taking a woman out to dinner every few days that month.

My mom doesn't ask me for money, but she offers to help, then takes the offer back or changes it after I've committed financially. She offered to let me use one of her credit cards when we were trying to finish up the house & get a C of O to be able to refinance. When we were a few weeks past the time I told her it would be paid back, she panicked and demanded I pay it back right away, so I had to cash in a retirement account and pay taxes & penalties. She needed the available credit back on that account to remodel her basement. She offered to contribute $2k to the wedding, then at the last minute after the venue and food had been chosen and paid for, she didn't come up with all of the money and we were ripping open envelopes of wedding money on the way to the airport so we could eat on the honeymoon. She also offered to babysit the kids so I could work and not hire a babysitter during a couple of weeks in the summer, then when they were bickering demanded I drop everything and come and get them (7 hours away) immediately. TWICE. Guess I'm a slow learner.

I'm trying to make sure that DD learns to pay her own way and be responsible, but I have bailed her out a few times and I make sure she always has safe reliable transportation for her to be able to go to work/school and drive DG around but I insist she give me a good chunk of her tax money every year towards her car debt. Looking back it seems like many of the really bad decisions I made were because I felt like I was making the best of a bad situation but if I had had a parent in a position to help me I would have had other options. I don't want her to ever feel that way.

[raeoflyte]

I think there is a difference of borrowing money because the kid has cash on hand and paying it back right away, and 'borrowing' money to pay the bills that never gets paid back.

My parents and sister always borrowed cash from me growing up because I liked to hoard it.

[Nazgul Girl]

I don't think that borrowing money from your children for a snack or a car wash is bad. It's sharing, and if you pay them back, then they learn that trustworthy relatives will pay them back. You can also remark that "honest people" pay back the money they borrow when you hand over their quarters to them....it's a good lesson in the right way to do things, I think.