Do you financially help out your adult children?

No, they are financially independent. I have helped in the past and would help again if required. They have never asked and I have never felt coerced. I would be very disappointed in them if they were to pressure me for money.

I have a friend who is paying her 38 year old daughter’s rent, and helping with other expenses. My friend is retired, and cannot afford to do it, but she’s a soft touch.
I help my kids a bit, but not to my friend’s extreme. My daughter has borrowed my car for the last couple years. She pays for the gas, I pay the insurance and registration. We split the maintenance. Otherwise, the car would just sit in my driveway.

I am giving financial support to my 29 yo stepdaughter. She is living with us and we do some things to help her out financially as well (i.e.car repairs). She took about every wrong turn in life along the way and is now getting her life back on a good path and we want to encourage that. If she starts back down those bad paths, I will boot her out quicker than she can blink. I’m not going to enable her.

Not so much anymore. But the contrast between my 2 children when it comes to financial
considerations and “dad” are stark. My son, even when growing up was the kind of guy who never asks for anything. In fact, we really have to pay attention and actually pry information from him to appreciate when he is (rarely) in a bind. So any request from him is actually greeted with alarm and granted on the spot. His sister, on the other hand has always operated on the assumption that her dad is planted atop some vast (yet invisible) bottomless fortune. Her saving graces are that she evinces no apparent resentments at my perpetual refusals to underwrite everything from “matching ponies” to month long excursions to Paris with the provision that I slso pick up the expenses of a necessary girlfriend. She is not one bit selfish, and is prone to share or happily give away anything she (or I) own. Back when they were in high school
and college, our family would gather at a restaurant a couple of times a week for dinner, and it was not at all uncommon for her to show up with 2–4 unannounced friends/ classmates with no explanation beyond “they’re hungry too”, or “they wanted burgers, but WE need salads snd decent wine.” I have no plausible explanations for the personalities of either of my children. They leave me convinced that there’s someting to this business of reincarnation.

I help mine out as well, it’s actually less expensive to carry the car insurance on my account, same with the phone. I offer, I’m never asked, but the thought that it allows just a bit more wiggle room to the members of a generation that struggles with student loans and (in the case of my daughter) some medical issues, I am grateful to have the means to help.

@canidmajor I agree with a lot of that. Except situations do change. I carried the car insurance on my account right up to the point my stepdaughter had her 3rd accident and 4th ticket. Then I could continue to keep her and watch my insurance rates triple, or I could have her go get her own insurance. I have discovered there is a fine line between helping out and enabling. Some people need a kick in the pants more than a hand up.

Oh, absolutely! There haven’t been those issues with cars in my family, so as long as the status remains quo, I am happy to help. This is why we pick and choose when and where to help, because we know what kind of people our children are.

I’m lucky in that my sons are older and doing well. I tend to spring for treats on occasion but it is not needed. I did give each some money when they bought a home but it was not an excessive amount. They never ask.

We have three “children”- all of whom are grown now. Our two daughters are both still in college working on advanced degrees, but both work and support themselves. We tend to send money sometimes as a gift, because neither will ask for it.
Our son is autistic, and will never drive or be able to hold down a decent job, but in the last two years he begged for an apartment in town (we live on a ranch about 20 miles from a small town) and we reluctantly agreed- thinking it was an experiment doomed to failure. To our surprise and pride, he manages his apartment well, cooks his own meals, and does his own cleaning and laundry. Social security pays for his apartment and provides a stipend, which we add to occasionally, but he has managed to find a job- on his own- folding pizza boxes at a pizza restaurant at night. He almost never asks for money anymore, as he loves providing for himself. It’s amazing.
My wife still drives him to the doctor and takes him grocery shopping, etc, and she usually pays for part of his groceries without him knowing, but he is incredibly independent. It’s funny, it makes me very happy and a little sad, all at the same time.

@AGRSAV8R Your son sounds like an amazing person doing all of that.

My son is 35 and expects to be taken care of. His father was very soft that way. His dad paid for everything for my son, who by the way has a drug habit amongst other issues. I used to scold his father for this worrying about how my son would manage if ever the time came that he had to.
Well, his dad died suddenly and the rage I have undergone from my son at not stepping into dad’s shoes has been mind-bending. Although to some point I tried.
I agree with the comment above, we know our kids, we would I am sure all help out to the best of our ability if we knew they were otherwise independent and without agenda.
Paying off drug lords etc., in the past has, of course, enabled my son to continue with his destructive ways. So it can indeed be fatal. At the other extreme, I have seen even mentally disabled adult children not being helped at all by their parents. It’ sad and I feel it is their duty to their children in this instance to help to the best of their ability of course.
Many feel that ‘the government’ should pay. I can’t understand that kind of mentality.

Oh, @LornaLove, how difficult for you, I am sorry you have to go through this.

@LornaLove I’m sorry you are in that position…I was a narcotics cop for many years, and I saw so many families destroyed by drugs and addicts. It is a very difficult road that, sadly, will probably not end well despite your best intentions and assistance.
I cannot remember a single addict who actually broke free and stayed free. Sometimes, despite the pain and guilt, it is best to move on and let him find his own path.

What a terrible place to be…I sincerely wish I could give you a positive outlook and say that things will get better, but the odds are heavily against that happening. Salvage your own life and allow him to do what he will do without you. At 35, he should know better…if he does not, he probably never will.