75% Of Parents Are Helping Their Adult Children Pay Bills

An astounding 75% of parents with adult children are helping them pay some of their bills, according to a new report from CreditCards.com

The financial planning site found that most parents of kids over the age of 18 “help them pay debts and living expenses. Thirty nine percent pay their cellphone, 36 transportation, 24 rent, 21 utilities and 20 percent pay their kids’ student loans.”

“They pay everything for me, because I just turned 18,” one woman who spoke to CBS news said. She followed that up by saying she knows people in their 40s whose parents still pay their cell phone bill.

Local media covering the study found a variety of excuses from parents whose children still live at home rent-free, or who are subsidizing their kids in other ways, but most of them center around parents willing to pick up the slack while millennials “follow their dreams.”

“As a grad student, it’s kind of impossible to do that – work and study,” one woman told CBS New York.

If they’re working to acquire marketable skills and actively looking for full-time employment, parenting expert Tammy Gold told the same network, paying some of their bills, so that kids are able to stay afloat is fine. But in many cases, parents are being easily taken advantage of.

“If your child is trying and doing everything right, they’re trying to get a job, every day they’re building their skills, and nothing’s working, it’s OK to help them,” Gold told CBS. “If they are spending thousands of dollars, if they’re abusing the privilege of being home, that’s not OK.”

There is a major financial burden on millennials, and it begins with student loan debt. The cost of higher education is steadily climbing, thanks to steadily climbing government subsidies to four year public universities, but so is the availability of degrees with no return on investment. It’s understandable if parents want to help their kids stay afloat during tough times, but it can’t be on parents to make up the difference when students aren’t looking out of themselves.

One parent says she believes her children will repay her by taking care of her in her old age. That may be a bad bet.