AARP Eye Center
Bank Of Dad A Boon For Adult Kids
By Carole Fleck, June 26, 2012 11:42 AM
Boomer moms may talk to their adult kids more about money matters but dads are more willing to dig into their wallets and hand out the cash.
The Bank of Dad comes to the rescue more than mom when it involves helping their grown kids:
- Buy a car (58 percent versus 48 percent)
- Co-sign a loan or lease agreement (42 percent versus 32 percent)
- Pay for car insurance (51 percent versus 43 percent)
- Help with car payments (37 percent versus 29 percent).
Those are the findings of a new study by Ameriprise Financial, which surveyed some 1,600 boomers, their parents, and their children age 18 and up, about attitudes regarding finances and other issues.
Not only are fathers more generous, the study finds, but they're even more likely than mothers to say they'd help their child buy a car or pay off credit card debt rather than continue contributing to the parents' own retirement savings. That kind of thinking, however, would surely get them into trouble with financial advisers.
Financial planners have been saying for years that older parents in particular should put their financial future first-before they help adult children-because it's more important that they don't run out of money in their retirement years and become a financial burden, possibly on those same kids. Children, on the other hand, have decades to earn wages and pay off debt.
Still, the study finds that most boomer parents (93 percent) say they give some degree of financial support to their adult children, perhaps due in part to the lack of available jobs for young adults and the enormous debt many college graduates have taken on.
The down economy has caused hardship for mom and dad as well. More adult daughters today say they're helping out their parents financially (67 percent) than they were five years ago (48 percent). Most sons (62 percent) also say they're providing support but that percentage remains about the same.
For boomers involved in the care of aging parents, the study found that women seem to be more aware than men (70 percent versus 59 percent) of how rising health care costs, including long-term care, could affect their parents' retirement security. When men who tended not to discuss these issues with their parents were asked why, the most common reason they cited was that their parent's money situation wasn't their business.
Boomer women not only discussed finances more with their own parents, they appeared to be more comfortable than men talking aabout such matters with their adult children (63 percent versus 55 percent).
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