I will try to save enough for retirement – 401k plus SS should be enough.
Read in FB today:
I will break my back for the ones I love, but who will push the wheelchair for me after?
I hope/expect my kids to repay my H and I sending them to college by sending their own children to college when the time comes.
My boss put all of her kids through expensive private boarding schools, and has paid big $$ for their college, too. She has almost nothing saved for retirement, and is expecting her kids to support her. Only…one can’t hold down a job due to mental illness, and one makes minimum wage. So that leaves the third son to basically support his parents and his brothers.
Presuming that you’ll get money or otherwise is a terrible burden to put on your kids. I help my kids as much as I can and I expect my kids to pay it forward by helping their own kids as much as possible. And so on. Anything else is irresponsible, as far as I’m concerned.
I am wondering if there are grandparents here who also helped or are helping their grandkids to pay for college?
Very nice and generous of you to give your parents money. But there are many ways to “honor” one’s parents without writing a check. Certainly it’s not a sign of not honoring one’s parents if writing them checks is not happening.
If our Ds offer to pay for dinner now and again when we they are out of school and working, fine. But we would not accept a check from our D’s while we are both working and financially very blessed. If they truly had some extra money burning a hole in their pocket, I’d encourage them to give it to a charitable organization and help someone who needs it far more than we do. YMMV and that’s all good. To each his own.
I cannot imagine to accept from my kids instead of them spending these money on their own kids. After all, my goal of paying for my kids’ education was to put them into better position of helping their own kids.
Just before my in laws were due to retire my father in law was downsized in his job to part time and they were having difficulty making ends meet and preparing for retirement. For perhaps five years we contributed regularly to help them out. To be honest, they likely would have been fine without our help, but we felt that they had done so much to raise and educate my husband that we would be happy to help. Honestly the money did impact how much we were able to save for our kids educations - but they are still fine neither our kids nor us will have to take any significant loans to pay for school.
Our college gift to our children was free tuition at any school in the Maryland system. Their dad worked many years to have that opportunity available to them after his retirement. They have grown up with the knowledge that they can take the opportunity or find merit offers at other schools. Our oldest daughter is at a Maryland school as a freshman. We pay travel expenses and will support her financially through any unpaid internships.
As for what we expect in return, I’ve extracted promises from both kids that when the time comes, they’ll put us in a home that is at least one step up from those that smell like cabbage and urine! Seriously, though, we feel it is our responsibility to take care of our retirement, so our kids won’t have to.
As an aside, we just toured UAH during Engineering Open House. It’s a good choice if your son is truly interested in engineering. 
It’s @dad3sons not 2 sons. I’m copy/pasting this so the right person reads it, because I agree with you @calmom
I am raising our daughters to love us and want to be around us in our dotage, but the only support we need or want now or in the future is emotional.
My parents are lifelong screwups (we were sometimes homeless when I was a kid before my grandfather gave my dad a job because my grandmother was in tears over us living in a barn with livestock. She’d bought a mattress for me and the roof had leaked and ruined it.) They went from living with one relative to another, until it was my turn. I said no, but offered to pay for an apartment for them to live in. That wasn’t good enough. That was 10 years ago-they haven’t spoken to us since (including their two grand daughters).
So I feel no obligation to help them out if something happens to them. I put my husband and children first. I have very harsh feelings towards people who don’t plan for their own old age and expect others to diminish their savings because they couldn’t be bothered.
Ants and grasshoppers…