She lives with her 80-year-old mother and has a daughter in her 30s living away from home.
Moore says with an ageing population and a cost-of-living crisis, it’s more important than ever to have a frank discussion about how long adult children should expect to be financially supported.
“Don’t be scared to have the conversations about money because there are a lot of other people who had the same fears and concerns and anxieties that we do about it. But we always think that we’re the only one who’s got this particular story, and we’re actually not.”
When do I cut the financial umbilical cord?
Observe your adult child’s lifestyle and how much they’re chipping in around the house, Moore suggests.
For example, if your adult child is paying less than a third of rent, but still going on holidays and you can’t afford to take a trip overseas – it’s time for a chat about household contributions, she says.
“Do they spend time [with you] at the weekend and help you in the garden or mow the lawns? Because it’s not always just financial. It’s all those other things that add value to your life. Do they sit and have breakfast with you? Or are you literally just being treated like a hotel?”
Pushpa Wood, director of Massey University’s Financial Education and Research Centre, says parents should outline how much they expect their adult children to chip in.
“However, what happens is – and this is what my daughter did on one of her back-from-overseas [trips] – it’s ‘hi Mum, I haven’t got anywhere to live, so I’m coming to stay’, and you go, ‘Oh, that’s really lovely’,” Moore explains.
“And then six months later, they’re still there ... So you haven’t had the financial conversation about board, about contribution to food, about contribution to the household.
“If you took a tenant or someone into your flat downstairs, you would have those discussions, but because it’s a child or a niece or a parent, we don’t tend to like to have those conversations, so we don’t.”
Moore says it can be difficult and emotional to talk about, but the longer you stay quiet, the longer your child will be stuck in a cycle of dependency.
“It really needs to be ... very early on, setting the guidelines about what expectations are and that might be two or three weeks in, it might be a month, but if you’re one, two to three years down the track then it’s really hard to suddenly say, ‘excuse me, we need you to start contributing’ because there’s kind of like the shock on the face, it’s like ‘but why? It’s been perfectly fine up to now’.”
Am I obliged to help them out once they have a job or left home?
Wood says when adult children are able to meet their basic needs – and that could be when they get their first fulltime job and they’re living away from home – consider cutting off payments. That’s when they are financially independent and are “paying all of their [basic] expenses without having to expect parents to top them up”.
“[When they’re] in the study mode and working part-time, they might be meeting their needs because parents are helping them. They might be living rent-free. They might be getting other support from parents, so therefore I wouldn’t call them financially independent.”
Feeling guilty about not financially helping the kids? Consider this: “Are you helping them short term or are you helping them in the long term to become financially independent?” Wood asks.
How can I help them be financially independent?
As soon as they start getting pocket money – whether it’s a weekly allowance when they’re 5 or 15 or just some birthday cash – teach them about splitting the money into third or quarter portions to spend, save, give and/or invest to enable a sense of responsibility and independence, Wood says.
“I usually say to parents don’t say to your child, ‘no, you can’t have it’, because that’s where the antagonism comes in. What you need to say [is], ‘I can’t give it to you right now because it is not in my budget, but if we work together and you help me to find some money in the budget, you can have it next month’.”
She suggests opening a savings account for them, so they can spend it on a big purchase, like a first-home deposit or furniture for their new flat.
One challenge facing families may be maintaining cultural expectations while immersing themselves in a society with different values, she says.
She explains in Indian subcontinent families, women are usually supported until they marry and may receive help when facing hardships or during special occasions. Whereas men stay financially connected to their parents longer and are expected to look after them in their old age.
“Parents are still sort of struggling – one foot in the Western tradition, one foot in the Eastern tradition. So emotionally, they’re still attached to their Eastern traditions, but financially, they really need to now take on some of the Western tradition of being financially independent, making their children financially independent rather than being dependent on them.”
