D does her taxes with my H. She has a fairly complicated return, especially for a college student, because she worked in multiple states. We anticipate that she’ll start doing her own taxes after graduation and may just have H check them before she submits.
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I don’t know D1’s net worth because I have never asked. I know she doesn’t tell her friends of her income because it’s not important. She actually told me not to tell my family. She is very low key.
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I’ve acted as “financial advisor” to both my DCs, but had to encourage my older one not to share so much with coworkers. They graduated loan free, and was working retail on the way to their career job. They had a coworker who wanted a “loan”, to help a relative in Mexico, and needed it before the next paycheck which was less than a week away. Made my young adult feel guilty when the response was not an immediate yes. Not a close coworker either. They called, we talked about what outcomes could be, and I encouraged them to make their own decision. Perhaps it wasn’t a scam … but no loan occurred.
Up until the first of this year, I had to keep track of younger child’s income, as they were still a tax dependent, and our taxes were linked. Feels different not knowing, but I’m adjusting…
At this point in their lives, I’m encouraging them to save, we discuss financial moves they are considering (at their instigation), I gift contributions to ROTHs for them each year, and we talk about them moving on to a professional FA as they move along their paths.
But, they know very little about our finances, except, perhaps, that we’re doing fine in retirement.
Edited to add: I have gotten them both setup with offline financial software to keep track of their finances. And encouraged them to find ways to use said software that works for them.
My DD tells me practically everything. I have never hidden how much money I make and share news of raises/bonuses etc with her. I see no reason to hide that information. She does know how much her friends make as they are also free with that information. Oh my best friend and I also share information about salary etc. No big deal here.
We knew roughly S’s starting salary about a decade ago because we saw the letter he presented to the woman he wanted to rent his condo from. We know it’s gone up since and that he makes at least 2x that amount from his part time side business. We know some of his net worth and the gross amount of product he sold at a point in time.
We have no real reason to know his finances and have never asked him. He has no particular reason to know ours and has similarly never asked. We have reassured both kids that we will not ever need their financial support and hope we can leave them (or their kids) with a nice legacy.
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I don’t think it’s hiding, it’s just not sharing.
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Agree—there’s such a thing as “oversharing” and there’s withholding info that someone needs or ought to know. To me, if I have no need to know my kids’ finances and they have no need to know mine/ours, I don’t see why we should share it so we don’t.
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I have no clue how much my son and dil make. They are in late 20s and have already purchased their 2nd house in a high cost of living area. I do know they fully fund their Roth IRAs but only because early on I pestered them a lot about that. I don’t worry about them coping with a $ emergency.
I do know how much my dd makes, but only because when she landed her current job a year and a half ago, she was so astonished at how much someone would pay her for her particular job, I answered the phone one day with her screaming the $$ figure in my ear. ha. She also has an IRA set up and makes auto deposits. I have no idea how much she contributes to that, but I doubt it’s as much as she should be saving.
Both kids ask us for financial advice without giving us specifics about their situations. They have no idea how much we have or made, but do know that money was TIGHT when they were little and that we managed to retire early (55 and 61), which I think gives us some “cred” regarding that advice, and where our investments are just in case.
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My mom knew what I made when I first started working at my company… and then we had a discussion about salary again when I was buying my house at 25 as she wanted to make sure I double checked that I could actually afford what I thought I could afford (I could). My parents know I’ve gotten promotions since, but have never asked $$ and I haven’t shared. If they asked, I’d tell. It’s sort of a sensitive topic because I make more than my sister and she gets upset when you talk about salaries or money - as if you are bragging or rubbing it in that you can afford more than her. So, I just don’t go there.
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I do know that S earns enough to travel broadly, eat well, live in a nice place in a nice neighborhood, looked to buy a place (pre-covid) similar to the unit he was renting, has saved several times his annual income from all sources. He appears to have no financial concerns and is good at handling his finances independently.
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We are also very open about financial matters with our kids. We know how much my adult D makes, how much her increases were and what her bonus is each year. My son-in-law works for the family business so I know that same info about him. We know what their mortgage is because we advised them during their home buying process. Our D also regularly seeks our advice on her investments. We don’t know what their other monthly expenses are but if we asked them, I have no reason not to believe that they would be honest about it. We didn’t raise them with the premise that asking money-related questions was taboo, but rather we taught them in what scenarios it was appropriate and when it wasn’t. We also reserved the right to give vague answers when they were young, and didn’t need to know specifics.
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Our family looks at our finances as a whole. Our children have trusts and we have one accountant who deals with all of our taxes. We pay. So yes. We know everything about our children’s finances.
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My SIL is so closed about money that when my kids were talking to their cousins they realized that the cousins weren’t told they were beneficiaries of trusts set up by their grandparents. This was when the cousins were at that point young adults and SIL was trustee. My kids were like “ oops did we say something that was a secret”? . I assured that that this should not be secret and had to gently remind SIL that not telling her children ( who are hardworking and successful) was a violation of her fiduciary duty. Oy. To her credit she was embarrassed.a
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We are pretty open about income, investments, and taxes. Both Ds tell me about salaries and bonuses and we also talk about their investments.
D2’s fiancé is somewhat uncomfortable that we discuss such things. (Interesting that his parents are both in the home-financing industry — mortgages and titles).
One recent discussion was a few months ago, before D bought a house. The future SIL was present as we discussed “how” to buy a house: which account the deposit would come from, would taxes need to be paid if investments were cashed in, whether she had a checkbook with a check for the deposit, when the money would be moved to the checking account so she could write a check from it, etc.
After that, I think F-SIL had a greater sense of our financial usefulness!
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Okay, let me flip the question a bit - did you know how much money your parents made/had? I’m trying to figure out if this is a generational difference or a family/cultural difference.
I had no idea how much my dad made or how much money my parents had.
Growing up I didn’t know how much my parents had - probably because it was clear it wasn’t a lot! In fact the house I grew up we rented, my parents didn’t purchase a house. Once I grad college and got married (one sib was still at home) they bought a house - a modest nice house - and paid cash for it. Savers.
My dad died in 1994 and so over the years I have known a fair bit of my mom’s financial info because she wanted us to know where “stuff was”. I admit to not paying a lot of attention. Mom died in November 2021 - well, that saving clearly continued - she didn’t win the lottery but she had plenty of money - at least by her living standards and me and my sibs are surprised how much she had saved.
Yes for my dad. My parents were divorced and I lived with him. He thought it was important that I understand where the finances came from and went. He wasn’t great with finances TBH. It did help me learn a bit (like investing in the lottery isn’t a good idea).
Since, according to my dad, my mom was evil I spent very little time with her until I was in college and realized I’d been duped. I didn’t know anything about her finances until H started doing her taxes, well into her retirement years. Then I learned more doing her estate because she saved practically every piece of paper. She did well with her finances considering what she started off with (next to nothing).
I think knowing the difference between the two is why I feel it’s important to guide our kids as they were growing up. I told them the highlights of my mom vs dad too.
We are older than many here. Our kids discussed offers and asked for guidance on 401k choices etc when they were first starting careers but I have no idea how much they make now (over 30).
Well, one is in the public sphere so I guess I could google salary ranges, but it’s not my business.
Growing up I had no idea what my parent’s income was. Not that it was a secret, but it was of no interest to me (or to any of my friends about their parents). They had enough for reliable used cars, a house and to pay for state university. Beyond that it didn’t even occur to me to be curious. I now know how fortunate I was. Dad grumbled about the bills, inflation, etc but we had everything we truly needed.
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Never knew what my parents made. They also would never tell me who they voted for when I was growing up. Even into young adulthood I assumed I needed to keep that info under lock & key. Now that my parents are seniors and watch network news 24/7, they are very vocal about their politics - so no need to wonder 
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Yes.