Worrying endlessly about finances sucks the joy out of life – why wouldn’t we help when they need it most?
On the face of it, our two children are fortunate – both happily married with children and in decent jobs. But they’re not high-fliers and life seems so different from when we were that age. It’s been such a struggle to buy a home, weigh up the cost of having a family and juggle childcare and going back to work. The last year in particular has been so hard for them and all their friends and it’s having a terrible effect on their health and happiness. We could help them, but my husband refuses to consider it and I can’t believe he’s being so harsh.
Our son is worried sick about their fixed mortgage rate coming to an end later this year, while our daughter is equally concerned about her maternity leave finishing and their nursery fees rocketing. We’re both still working part-time, winding down to early retirement in the next couple of years. We downsized, so we’ve been mortgage-free for a while, and have decent savings, which will be greatly bumped up when we retire as we’ll both get good lump sums and pensions.
I think we should help our children now – and I’m not talking about funding holidays or treats, but rather helping keep their heads above water. When I suggested to my husband that we give them £50,000 ($105,000) each, I was shocked by his point-blank refusal to help. We were so skint when we got married and I remember many sleepless nights worrying about money, leading to my husband doing late-night shelf-stacking at a local supermarket on top of his normal job and me doing maths tuition at the weekends. It was exhausting and we weren’t together enough as a family, but we had no one to help us and we were in very real fear of losing our house.
Now I’m seeing my children having the same worries, but we can afford to make life easier for them and make sure that every month isn’t another panic till pay day. My husband says we managed in the end and it wouldn’t do our children any favours bailing them out and he also made some strange comments like, “What happens if they split up from their partners, as half that money would be theirs?” and, “They’d probably spend it on a trip to Florida instead of getting their finances in order.”
