attn:money » contract between parent and youth

“How to Cut Your Kids Off”: Wall Street Journal

Ken Kaye — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:22:10 +0000

The Wall Street Journal’s “Wallet” section notes, In addition to moving back home with the folks, some adult children are relying more and more on their parents for financial support–a situation that can put added stress on already weakened retirement accounts and strained family budgets. The short piece, illustrated with a boomerang, recommends sitting down with them [...]

When Adult Kids Move Home

Ken Kaye — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:21:27 +0000

"If you're going to let a young adult move home, then you should at least have some rules about what's what. Blog post by Gail Vaz-Oxlade.

Caught in the Safety Net

Attn:Money — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:38:18 +0000

Joyce Wadler writes in the New York Times (May 14): “When hard economic times force adults to move back into their parents’ homes, the move is rarely without tensions.” Wadler’s article includes interviews with numerous individuals and couples well into their 30s, some with young children. According to the Census Bureau, as of last year there were [...]

NYC economy hit by decline in parental subsidies

Ken Kaye — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:04:07 +0000

The flow of parental money that helped fuel one of New York City’s most radical gentrifications has ebbed.

Insensitive advice

Ken Kaye — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:15:08 +0000

Here’s an example of bad ADD advice to a 25-year-old college grad who sounds like his ADD (which may be the cause of his depression, or an additional problem) has paralyzed him with regard to work and money. The advice columnist, Salon’s Cary Tennis, is apparently clueless about adult ADD as well as arrogant in his [...]

Parental Bailouts

Ken Kaye — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:20:49 +0000

Different kinds and degrees of debt demand different kinds of intervention. But let’s begin with the general question: Is it wise to bail our adult children out of trouble they got themselves into? Or should one let them bear the consequences, so they learn?

Unless this is a long-term chronic problem, grab your bailing bucket. Absolutely. The lessons taught by overwhelming debt aren’t taught any better by letting a bad crisis become hopeless. Debt isn’t like water standing three feet deep in a basement, which has ruined the books and games stored there but will eventually flow away again and leave the owner with some cleaning up to do. It’s a rising flood, threatening to carry off the whole house—literally. Left alone, it doesn’t go away, it just gets deeper.

What’s The Deal?

Ken Kaye — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:04:31 +0000

“Trust me,” my younger son said–sincerely. Yet there were countless mishaps with money, related to disorganization and unreliability. The freelance web design job that was going to earn him $750 for ten hours’ work turned out to take sixty hours—and then weeks more before the clients finally paid. His optimistic rent check, mailed to a landlord in expectation of being able to beat it to the bank with a promised payment from a client, bounced. Cell phone and internet were cancelled at various times for nonpayment, leaving him—unless rescued hastily by his mother or myself—without a way for prospective clients to reach him. Time and again, we found reasons to keep the wolf from his door—usually extracting nominal assurances that he’d learned a valuable lesson. Our son’s “trust me” had long since acquired the opposite meaning to us: a red flag.