<p>well ariesanthena, i still spend the money i earn, i am lucky that my parents pitch in a little bit for tuition, i have never been given an allowance (in 21 years), i dont understand why on earth my parents would even want to pay for my cell phone.. after all, it is mine :) there are a lot of kids out there whose parents do all of this for them - and like you said, the results are that they know njothing about costs, jobs, or saving money. basically all of the responsibilities in life. of course, that is not always true.. but it seems that it is true more often than not.</p>
<p>Achat: thank you. I don't wander around the Parent's Forum very much any more, but I'll pop in every so often. :)</p>
<p>Fendergirl: the point I was trying to make exactly! Once, most parents just gave their kids the basics. Now, there are parents who give the kids the basics and some who do more than that: cell phones, nice clothes, new or new-ish cars, etc. Some kids are being provided with a much higher standard of living than they could maintain themselves, which is problematic as newly minted 22-year-old college grads. </p>
<p>When I got a cell, my dad wasn't thrilled - but it was the money I earned from my internship paying the bill, so there wasn't much he could say (note that he is all a fan of it now - I've had the same number for three years running, and I'm always reach-able). As a result, I feel like I at least know how much things cost and what it takes to earn the money to pay for them.</p>
<p>texastaxi</p>
<p>If you are abusive then so am I: "Not within 300 miles."</p>
<p>Ariesathena your situation is similer to mine. I know I wan't to go to law school, and I know the costs of it. If I can manage to live at home for a couple extra years in order to save for law school, I don't see the problem. No I don't want to live at home forever, but finacially it is the best option for me at the moment.</p>
<p>Fendergirl, I love your posts! And you're right, it's all about the parents...really. Some just have a hard time setting "limits" for their children. Somehow, they believe that by not granting most things that are asked for, they would be "denying" something that the child is "entitled" to by virture that all their classmates have it. After a while, the children just take thing for granted. To this day, we do not have TV cable in our home...never had it, and the kids never missed it. My H picked up DSL last yr since all 3 children needed to use the computer for school work...and, until a couple of weeks ago, only the desktop in the master bedroom was internet accessible! Living in Los Angeles, you can imagine the looks that came our way! ;) Still a 2 car family...our 15 yr old van died a couple of months ago---H kept reviving it---bought a 2001 model. Children still waiting to vacation in Hawaii--LOL!</p>
<p>H & I are working parents who determined a long time ago that our legacy to our children would be their education...everything else came second. That has not changed...</p>
<p>When I was in college I earened some money in summer jobs but my parents provided most of my spemding money. One of us paid for my dorm room phone. Our S's in college where it was cheaper to add a cell phone on a family plan than to pay for long distance calls on the dorm room phone. So that's what we did.</p>
<p>It's really not as simple as what you buy for your kids. When my son was in college, I bought him a cell phone and paid the bill for it - it was a birthday present for him, but the reason I bought and paid for it was that it was really for ME -- I was frustrated because it was so hard for me to reach him, as he was rarely in his dorm room. But my son quit college after 2 years and has been self-supporting since age 20 - and he switched cell phones to his own plan without my prompting, just about the time his work demands meant that he started running up the daytime minutes beyond the basic allotment. </p>
<p>I bought my teenage daughter a recent model car a week after her 16th birthday - newer than my own car -- because she commutes into the city for school, and I was tired of making the 45 minute round trip every morning to drive her -- and I simply was concerned about safety, so once I decided to get a second car, I wanted her in the newer/safer one - simply because she was the one out on the freeway every day. Again - nice perk for my daughter - but the reasons were for MY convenience and peace of mind. But she is very independent-minded, and recently arrived back from having been overseas for four months, and went out and got a job within 3 days of her return. </p>
<p>I mean, neither of my kids takes money for granted, and both are aware that they are espected to pull their own weight in an age-appropriate manner ... without the need for any parental prodding. And "age-appropriate" does not mean waiting until age 30 to move out -- I'll subsidize college, but I won't support either kid over 18 and not in school, nor do I plan to pay for graduate school. </p>
<p>So while I agree that parents can undermine their kids' ability to take responsibility for themselves by overprotecting them and providing too much,too easily -- I don't think it is as simple as whether or not the parent buys material things for the kid. It's more the overall attitude -- my kids have always been part of family discussions and decisions about money, so they certainly have grown up with an awareness and understanding of financial matters, even if being subsidized by their parents along the way. And of course there are plenty of times I say no or refuse to fund purchases - or agree to pay for something but ask the kid to shop around for a cheaper alternative.</p>
<p>I think a lot of things depend on different circumstances and one size certainly does nto fit all. I have resigned my self to the fact that when my daughter returns from college that she will probably live at home because they will be no way that she will be able to afford a NYC rent (where currently a hole in the wall in manhattan is a "steal" for $1700/month and rent control is a thing of the past). </p>
<p>Regarding the cell phone issue, I am with Dadofsam, where daughter's phone is an add-on to my plan (I get a 23% corporate discount)on my cell phone bill, so after you flesh everything out her phone cost about $10 month a price which I am happy to pay.</p>
<p>MY daughter works and pays her own student contribution from summer jobs, but I paid to set her room up. I pay tution, and books, but she works and earns money for all other incidentals, and saves money for any trips with friends that she wants to take.</p>
<p>Sybbie, it is very common for kids from all of the ivies to filter into NYC living 5 to a one bedroom apartment. It's almost a cult culture, and as a young ivy grad, your daughter will probably find it strange to live at home. I have to agree with those who think a responsible young person does not return home after college. For every generation there are constraints upon graduation, whether it's high rent or something else. But as adults, it really is, IMO, time for them to learn to create a life without support from mom and dad.</p>
<p>Sybbie, I don't know about NY - maybe Kirmum is right that it is 5 Ivy grads to a one bedroom apartment -- but my son was living on his own in San Francisco (where rents are also high) simply renting a room in an apartment. He had the tiniest imaginable room in a very chic downtown location on Telegraph hill - and probably paid about $500/month for it -- a somewhat larger room would have cost around $700. It's pricey - but it is affordable to my son on an entry-level salary. He did live at home for about 3 months when he first started working; then he moved in to share a tiny studio apartment with a young woman from his work - they were sharing a bed too, but I don't think that my son would have considered that at all inconvenient (I think these days the kids call this "friendship with benefits")... and then later he found places with his own room. His job requires him to relocate frequently, so he has actually lived about 6 different places in the past year, leading to some harsh lessons about security deposits. </p>
<p>Now the problem that I haven't yet resolved is the fact that though my son has moved out, the stuff in his bedroom hasn't. Perhaps a good idea to help finance our kids would be to hold a yard sale to get rid of all the stuff they leave behind, and then give them the proceeds of sale....</p>
<hr>
<p>I'd like to add one note -- my son has received two or three promotions in his first year of work precisely because of his flexibility and willingness to relocate. I actually would be glad to have him live at home if he was working very close by -- but it was easier for him to find an apartment closer to work, and within 6 months his employer was relocating him to another city. So twenty-something kids who stay at home in suburban or rural areas may also be seriously limiting their earning capacity or employability, creating a vicious cycle: they can't afford housing because they aren't being paid enough, and they can't get a better paying job because the jobs are too far from home.</p>
<p>texastaxi and SBmom--if you could be considered abusive, then I must be uber-abusive (not within 3,000 miles). ;-) During this past holiday season, S informed us that CA is now his home. When he talks about "going home," he's referring to CA and his apartment. I must confess I felt a twinge of regret but realized that he's just growing up. It also must be contagious because D mentioned that she's thinking about what to pack because she'll be "moving" when she heads off to college next fall. That one took me by surprise, so I haven't probed further.</p>
<p>S paid all his bills out of his college savings starting from day one. He also bought himself a cell phone (he really didn't need one in HS). We were worried that he would miss payments and reminded him periodically, but in the end, he wanted to be financially independent and became much more self-sufficient with earnings between $8-12K/year doing part-time work (design work, mostly). He does call out of the blue, sometimes, to ask questions such as "At what temperature should the stove be for making scrambled eggs?"!!! That's when we laugh and remember that, no matter how independent he thinks he is, he's still our kid.</p>
<p>My daughter is a creature for comfort and she will not share a 1 bedroom apartment with 5 other people when she has the opportunity to have her own apartment in a brownstone for little or nothing and have the best of both worlds</p>
<p>Well Sybbie, maybe your place will become Dartmouth digs NYC! It's funny, but watching my NYC friend's kids brings me back to the years following college. Hard to explain, but so as not to really leave, college for so many of us just continued in NYC. I went to Harvard, but our crowd included kids for many schools and the Dartmouth crowd was probably the most determined not to leave each other. I've always wondered what it is about Dartmouth that creates this amazing loyalty and incredible bonds. There are apartments passed down from older alum to new grads. There are bars and restaurants, school clubs that become the center of after work activity. This crowd works hard and than parties hard. Wow, to relive those years!!</p>
<p>Kirmum, in my NYC highrise after Wheaton down the hall was a Holyoke apartment with 6 or so grads in it, and one floor down was a Harvard apartment, and next to it a Dartmouth one......it was wonderful.....just like college all over again.</p>
<p>In my roach filled building we had a Harvard apartment, luxury by comparison, 2 bedrooms with 4 of us. Next door was a Yale quartet in one small bedroom with a Williams apartment with 5 beneath them. Now I was from the projects, but most of the others were from Scarsdale and the like! If only we had a college friend with a Brownstone in the City! Sybbie, you will be popular! We had of course little furniture, so dinner parties were held on a quilt on the floor. One by one we got married, made real money, or moved on to another city and yielded our place to a newly minted grad. The good ole days!</p>
<p>anchormom - thanks :) I haven't watched TV..period.. (Other than Eagles games.. oh how I love football..) in at least ten years.. My on campus apartment comes with cable, so I have to have it, but I don't plan on having it when I have my own place after school. If I want to watch a football game, I'll go to a sports bar :) We do have cable at my house as well - and cable internet. We each have our own computer on our network, that we all have been responsible to pay for.</p>
<p>calmom, if your daughter lived here in my house, she would of had a job already and bought herself a car. (i do understand why you did it for her, and i'm sure she was very grateful :) I know i would be. ) I share our three bedroom house at home with six other people.. my parents, my aunt, my sister, and two cousins.. both myself, my one cousin, and my sister have been working since we turned 14, and we've all been responsible for the purchase of our cars. We also all have cell phones, and we each are responsible to pay our monthly bill. (about 20 per month.). also, along with driving comes insurance. we each have to pay for our own insurance as well. My sister wanted a computer when she was almost 15, so she saved up $600 dollars and bought one. I have paid my way to Florida three times in the last four years - and will be going again this spring break. On November 2nd I bought myself a newish car - a 2002, with 12,000 miles on it.. my old car was a 1992 with 140,000 miles on it.. nothing was wrong with it, it was just time for a change. So I also have that bill every month.. I really don't know how other people of my age can seriously be knowledgable about their finances if they have never been responsible for such finances in the past. The knowledge doesn't just 'appear' overnight. :)</p>
<p>also about apartments in NYC - as mentioned above, a one room hole in NYC runs for like 1500.. and i literally mean one room :P</p>
<p>Fendergirl, my daughter has had paid employment before -- one reason that she was able to find a job easily is that she has plenty to write in the "experience" section of the employment app. I realize that even though I am a single parent, I obviously am financially better off than your mom - so that is clearly a factor. I also admire your fortitude and your ability to fend for yoruself. But the point I am making is that it is a mistake for you (or others) to assume that a kid is spoiled because of what their parents pay for. It is important for kids to learn about money and responsibility early on, but that doesn't make it wrong for parents of teenage kids living at home and attending school full time to buy things for them. </p>
<p>And you are right -- my daughter was very grateful for the car and has expressed that many times. She takes great care of it. She did not know that she was getting it until the day we bought it -- I had originally simply planned to let her use my old car, but then my car (a subcompact with 120,000+ miles on it) broke down on her the first week after she got her license, and I simply was not comfortable with the idea of her alone on the road with it. If she didn't have the car then she would be relying on me to drive her everywhere - and me spending 2-3 hours of my work day chauffering her about is <em>not</em> a way to teach responsibility or independence. Again - my idea - (she never asked or expected me to buy a car) - my convenience. It also happens to be MY car (in my name) -- but the rule I set is that whoever needs to drive the farthest each day gets the good car, and realistically that is almost always her.</p>
<p>i didn't say that i think someone is spoiled because their parents buy things for them - i just don't agree with a kid NEVER working at all and getting whatever they ask for, you know? I didn't mean to imply that she was spoiled - sorry if it came off that way. :)</p>
<p>i do agree though about the decision to buy a car - new car's with lower milage are better than older cars with higher milage..which is partly why i bought myself another car. my roommates mother bought her a car last year for reasons similar to why you bought it for your daughter.</p>
<p>like is aid, i dont have a problem with people buying things for people.. for example, my little cousin that lives here just turned 6.. she's having a skating birthday party tomorrow... should be fun :) I already gave her the birthday presents i got her - a curious george painting game for her computer, and a dora the explorer chair for her "room". i have one present left for at her party tomorrow - a pair of rollerblades! I hope that she likes them :)</p>
<p>Kirmum,</p>
<p>You know I wonder about that whole Dartmouth thing myself. I tease her and call them pod people. To say they are a cohesive group is an understatement (maybe it's that rural NH location) and I wouldn't be suprised to have a few extra kids at the house.</p>
<p>I remember when she came home for Thanksgiving on tuesday and returned on sunday. The kids were all running and embracing each other like they had been away from each other for 20 years. They saw other people in line who were going back to Dartmouth and just started chatting up like these were their new best friends.</p>
<p>She cahtted and e-mailed with her friends every day she was home on break and all met for dinner monday night when they all returned to campus. She called thursday hapy that it snowed because they were going out ffor a midnight snowball fight and sledding.</p>