<p>Very interesting and raises many different points, including historical and class perspectives on adult American children's growing dependence on their parents:</p>
<p>The</a> 40-Something Dependent Child - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com</p>
<p>This is a fascinating topic. One member of the panel reminded parents to teach their kids to live within their means. Thing is, you can’t give kids everything starting at age 1 and then at 21 say, “OK, you’re on your own. Go out and replicate this lifestyle”. Thrift has to be taught to kids early and often, IMHO. I look around at our community and wonder what’s going to become of the kids around here when they’re out of the nest, and then realise after reading this article that they’re not going to leave in the first place, if physically certainly not financially.</p>
<p>The article points out - “True, this largess only applies to a minority of the population, so the effects economic, social as well as psychological are hard to predict.”</p>
<p>I don’t see this happening much among my friends and associates. I paid my own way through college; my children are very fortunate that their grandparents are helping with college bills. They have had summer jobs and know how to save their money, so I am not worried about them.</p>
<p>I found it really interesting that one panelist pointed out that historically speaking, children who get parental support usually succeed very well – both in terms of passing down capital and in getting time to safely negotiate key transitions to independence. If you start with that premise, it’s unclear to me how that process has derailed into continued dependence in some cases – perhaps it’s simply there is a limit to most people’s resources or maybe our economy really has changed so radically that finding the right kind of employment has become much more of a challenge. </p>
<p>The article also points out that we were raised with the idea of each generation doing better than the last, and now we face this idea that our kids will never attain our standard of living on their own; and we see some parents endangering their own resources for their older age by helping their children – a downward spiral.</p>