[quote=bearishgurl][quote=eavesdropper]…Very often the parents have also put themselves at extreme risk by remortgaging their homes to the point of foreclosure, depleting their retirement savings, and maxing out a dozen credit cards to deal with their child’s demands and financial screw-ups…[/quote]
Great post, eavesdropper. As to the above, I’ve seen a LOT of this in recent years, done mostly for “children” (aged 30-40) and their children (grandchildren of near-retirees). These “codependent” parents have virtually, in some cases, rendered themselves near-destitute in their looming retirement years financially “helping” their able-bodied adult children. After being widowed w/o life insurance, divorced one or more times or never-married with multiple children, these “adult children” move back to their parent(s) home or even live in an RV or small granny flat on their parent(s) property, using their (often “better”) address for school attendance purposes and using the parents home for laundry, cooking, hot showers, cable TV purposes, etc. The returning kid (now parent) typically comes “back home” with no job, no assets, expensive cell phone contracts for they and their child(ren), maxed out CC’s, car payments and sometimes even student loans they have deferred into oblivion……….[/quote]
BG, there’s no shortage of horror stories like this, are there? I have to admit: when I encounter them, I’m careful to show empathy to the parent, and provide such resources as I’m able. But I’m careful not to give advice (yeah, I’m being a chickenshit) because they don’t take it as such. It’s taken more as a criticism of how they raised their kid, or a criticism of the kid in general, even though I’m very careful not to go there at all. I’ve realized that most of them don’t want advice. They want a solution to magically appear and make the situation resolve itself. And miracles are the one thing I’ve never been able to master.
I do confess to seriously wanting to deck some of these adult kids though. I mean, I really want to ….badly. Especially when I look at THEIR kids. It’s all such a waste. And it doesn’t bode well for our future as a nation. I keep hearing a lot of tough talk from people about “kicking ass” and “taking care of business”, and it’s hard not to laugh when you’ve just heard their mom complain that they can’t be bothered to pick up their dirty laundry from her living room floor.
