To ask how much help you give your adult kids?

[BennettsHome]

And what type of help? My parents have always helped in any way they can- financially, with errands / care for pets, diy etc. I felt so sad for my friend recently who I discussed this with. Her parents do nothing for her, no support in any way even though they can. Is this normal? She said she wishes they were more helpful in her life but they just never have been. Do people stop helping their kids when they're adults?

It is quite common for parents not to help their adult kids financially- especially in lower income groups.

My mother and step-father are kind enough to help me with various DIY projects around the house. I am very grateful, as my step-father is a perfectionist, so I always know that it will look wonderful when he has finished!

My mother and I pet-sit for each other if we are going away/on days out. As she buys a lot of things for my brother's family of four, she tries to make it financially fair by buying me useful things like dog food, dishwasher tablets, and plants to add to my garden! Oh, and she brings us both food from where we grew up, as certain Lancashire delicacies aren't sold where we now live as adults (in different areas).

DIY and house deposit for daughter, never had help myself, my parents had nothing.

My parents don’t help, never have. They have plenty of money, but they like to hoard it. We will go and visit for a week at a time and they prefer us to bored stiffless because they don’t want to spend money even if I offer to pay! When they come to us we do days out but I pay for everything. They have never babysat etc. just makes jokes when they die we will inherit but I will probably be in my 70/80s by then so pointless.

It’s not a new thing to have parental help, I just think more people are open about it now. We also have huge intergenerational inequality and many need help onto the ladder. Those that have parental help tend to find life a lot easier.

I think you misunderstand. There's no expectation or asking for help, it's offered and freely given.
We paid for driving lessons, first car, uni, house deposit, regular gifts, practical help where we can. I do gardening for one DC and decorating for the other. I also pay for subscriptions for the whole family.
They are immensely appreciative, and have never, ever asked for anything.

When I was a child my grandmother cleaned for my parents. There was no money in the family so any help was practical.
It's what many families have always done. Sad for those who's parents have a cut off at 18 but that doesn't make it wrong for those who do.

It is frustrating having local healthy parents who won’t help. I never had much help from my parents, even when DD was a baby and i was on my knees with post partum psychosis.
They will have DD , now 8, for up to 2 hours one day after school. I am grateful for that. They have never had her overnight.
MIL was amazing help in a way but she is a hard person to be around and I never wanted to overdo it.

I wasn’t really suprised by my parents though, my dad never gave me lifts as a kid , teen, and my mum didn’t drive so i had to get the bus and walk everywhere. He even told me not to have children as they didn’t want to help me!

I try not to compare but it does feel shit when i see friends parents bend over backwards to help with childcare. One of my friends mums will get 2 buses and stay at her house for 4 days straight so she can go out every night, and gets her housework done for her.!

It is definitely a factor into why i stuck at one child. A positive is that as a result it made me self sufficient and never needing to rely on anyone.

I help my kids financially when needed, though they rarely actually ask and I have been giving them money to put in a LISA so they get a bit extra when they need a deposit. We help with advice and practical things but this hasn't come up that much, I have 2 adult dds not at home but they don't have children or pets, so its been things like helping them move house etc.

I live close to my parents and they have always done similar - helped me out with house deposit and other expenses that I struggled with when I was a single parent. They also looked after my kids in the school holidays a day or so a week once they had retired, but regular childcare before that wasn't an option.
They would generally pay if we went out for meals too, but now we always tend to treat them now we are in a better financial position and it feels right to do so.

They still look after our pets when we are away and water the garden if required and I do the same for them.

my mum was very helpful, with childcare and financially until she died. my dad helps out occasionally financially. my husband's parents (who live 5 minutes away) do nothing to help. 0. which I find so hard to understand.

Oh bore off. Lots of parents help their kids, it’s just the way it is.

Sadly many parents do feel that once you are 18/leave home you are not their responsibility any more. My mother was like this - what i didn’t take to university was binned and then she emigrated in my first year. I had no-one, no home and no financial support, but grew up fast.

My PiLs however, despite being in the Midlands and DH & I living ‘down south’, have always been there for us. We lived with them for 5 month when selling one place and buying another (I had a new born at the time); FiL helped lay our first patio [perhaps relieved we had moved out 🤣], renovated our sheds into play houses, gave us some money towards our first joint home, our wedding, for the kids govt trust funds, have had the kids for a week at least every year when they were younger and were on hand when my second arrived.

It pained me on one hand to see how they couldn’t do enough for me, just their daughter in law, and my mother had effed off and never been there for me. but I’ve decided on balance that I have been so blessed in my PiLs and perhaps would not have appreciated that fact otherwise.

On that basis I will do anything and everything for my kids in adulthood - though will let them lead in this so I don’t become the mother/MiL from hell. I want a relationship with them, their chosen life partners and any children they parent. I can’t imagine it any other way, no matter how challenging that can be/has been at times.

Kids are for ever, not just for Christmas…

My parents are wonderful. They help in any way they can. They had saved so that between a scholarship, my working and their savings I was able to graduate from uni with no loans. They cat sit for me if I’m on holiday (in part because mum loves my cats). My dad inherited from my grandparents and gifted me money for a house deposit. My mum recently found lots of plants she knew I wanted and then helped me plant them.

None of it asked for. But they had a ton of help in terms of childcare for me and my sister from my grandparents and just see it as passing it on. I’m very grateful.

my mom lives a 5 min walk away ( doesn’t work so not busy) never helps . Has watched my kids less then 5 times , and one of them time I was giving birth And they are 20,17,9 not that the older ones would need watching now . It does hurt on school runs when I grandparents helping with school runs , going to watch school plays and sports day etc . But now I treat her like an acquaintance and prop only see her for two hours a month. She was never a good mom so didn’t expect she would be a good grandmother . I’m the total opposite with my children .

DS moved to a new city when he graduated and got a job. We helped extensively to help him find a flat (ridiculously hard due to high demand), unfortunately all he could get was unfurnished, so we kitted it out for him with furniture, crockery/cutlery, kettle/toaster/etc, DH built all the flat pack furniture, and we gave him our old car as the bus route was crap on the road he lived on. We rented a holiday cottage for two weeks whilst we did all that, as his first day at the job was before he could pick up the flat keys, so first week he lived in the holiday cottage with us, whilst we set it up and then he moved in for the second week, whilst we still kept going to buy more stuff that he needed.

Then, after 18 months, he had to move, but this time, he dealt with estate agents himself to find a new place, but we still booked the end of tenancy clean and removal men, and spent a few days helping him move out/move in.

Just six months later, he had to move to a different city, living in a furnished HMO, so couldn't take any of his furniture, so we got most of it sold, got a charity collection to pick up what was left, took his car back to our home town (he didn't need it in new city), and took him and a car full of personal stuff to the new city and helped him unload.

Sounds a lot of help, and it was, both in terms of time and money. But realistically, we genuinely believe he wouldn't have stayed in his first job had he had all that to deal with on top of the stresses of a first high pressure job and studying alongside for a professional qualification! We've not created a precedent either. In his new job/new city, he's done it all himself, sourced his own accommodation, sorted out transport, bought everything he needs that we couldn't fit in the car. He' basically now fully self sufficient, never rings us for "help", we no longer financially support him, etc. That's not to say we wouldn't help in any way, but he's doing very well now on his own.

It's how it should be, help them when they need it and pull back when they don't.

Neither my parents nor DH's parents gave us any help at all. When I needed to buy my first car, my mother gave me a "loan" towards it and expected me to pay back with interest! I only did that once - sorted my own finances the next time! When we got married, just bought our first house, DH went self employed, I became pregnant, we were really struggling financially, but neither sets of parents offered any financial help. It's not as if they were poor, they're all dead now unfortunately, and it turned out both sets of parents had substantial savings - we've already used some of that to help our DS and in our minds, it's "ring fenced" for him when he needs more help, i.e. deposit for his own flat/house etc.

My parents were mid 70s when I had my first child a lived abroad half the year so no practical help . But in my 20s they gifted me the deposit for my first flat, and if they had a windfall would give me the odd couple thousand. My in laws never did anything practical or financial for my DH or any grandkids. Even when my DH’s first wife was struggling with a difficult second baby and he asked if they could take the older child for the occasional day they said no. Never asked again.
So as with all things some help if the can, some don’t.

Everything I can as my parents did for me x

It’s not a matter of expecting help. I grew up in a 3 generation household on a farm - as many others did in the 60s and 70s. We all supported each other. My grandparents were wonderful and lived to a good old age in their own home as we were close by to do their shopping etc. We kept them young and they helped shape us as rounded individuals.
My own parents and my dear MIL supported my husband and I when we had children. Not in a monetary sense, but just being there and showering our children with love.
We are now grandparents and the bond between 4 generations is just as strong.
I guess we’ve been lucky but it’s the norm around here where community is still strong.

Nothing op. My daughter 21 this year prob wont get anything off her granny. I see it in other families they all very decent to kids. It does hurt.

We had a lot of help from my parents but my OH had minimal from his.

My Ddad helped a lot when I bought my first house as a single FTB. Decorating, improvements, lend of tools and of course endless advice. Dmum had a really good go through their house and donated lots including furniture, cooker, housewares etc (gave her a good excuse to treat herself to new stuff😆).
When both my parents inherited from their parents, they made us gifts cash gifts.
When we needed a cat-sitter so we could go away for a couple of nights they would come and stay.

Of course it worked the other way.
When they went on holiday (1-month at a time) one of us would visit weekly to make sure the house was ok, check the garden, make sure post was pushed through the letterbox etc.
As they got older we would visit to do jobs around the house & garden, take them to the doctor's, hospital, shopping etc. They gave us money "for fuel" but it worked out that we must have been running the most uneconomical vehicles available!😄

They were the most generous people out there and it was their pleasure to help & support us.
I think my OH wonders why his parents could have been so different.☹️

I agree. Things are very different today and life is harder for our youngsters. Student loan repayments, leaving home to go to Uni, never returning to your home town because there are no decent jobs, housing shortages and stupidly expensive housing costs, extended family no longer living close to your family home, high cost of living, wages not keeping up with over-inflated housing and other cost increase. They need help more than ever.

It was normal for most of human history, at least until children married (when they might be seen as joining another family). In fact, people often had obligations not just to their children, but also to unmarried siblings and other members of the extended family.

If you were wealthier, your web of duties and obligations could extend even further—to employees, tenants, servants, apprentices and, in some professions, colleagues who had fallen on hard times.

What you're describing—where people became financially independent around 18 and formed self-sufficient nuclear families—was largely a feature of industrialisation and increasing prosperity and social mobility in many Western countries, becoming especially common in the second half of the twentieth century. Adult children were often better off than their parents and therefore needed less practical or financial support.

The fact that we are returning to helping our children so much is a symptom of social mobility going in the opposite direction.

I don’t think people expect help , but you would think grandparents would make an effort with their grandchildren and kids.
As family should do for family , I find it strange when parents don’t make an effort .But got help from their parents with childcare etc when they had kids and even got inheritance house etc . But don’t do the same for their own children.
I just think it’s quite sad because if they don’t make an effort they won’t have a close relationship with their grandchildren and in my case will not be helping in their old age .

Zero help and support. My Dad died when i was 20. My mother is a horrible person, so no contact.

PILs live a three minute walk from our home. MIL never worked, FIL retired, very comfortable financially, never had money worries. Again zero help and support from them. We definitely would never expect financial support but it would have been nice for them to be more present with our children.

MIL health is starting to deteriote and I will 100 percent not be helping her. Payback and all that.

I really hope you don’t have children! You are very bitter and don’t appear to have a maternal bone in your body! We do everything we can because we love them. It’s as simple as that. Love for your children shouldn’t lessen with age, the desire to help in any way we can comes naturally to those who don’t resent their children. I would take a long hard look at your life and try and figure out what’s making you so unhappy!

Both of mine are young adults. neither have children yet, my oldest lives with her b/f, she does drive but I often drive her to work (she still lives close by) when I'm going in if she wants to go out in the evening after work and have a few drinks. I do some errands for her when she's needs me too but she's pretty independent generally atm, I'm sure once she has children, I'll help out there where I can

My youngest still lives at home so obviously financially we're still looking after him, he has a part time job and Uni which we pay for