A generational thing or was I just odd?

poorlittlefish

ab.da54 wrote: »

Doesn't sound like much fun.

Perhaps it depends what you mean by 'luxuries'.

I have an old car, no Sky/cable, no XBox etc, buy own-brand food, don't have take-aways or meals out, get my clothes from Asda - that sort of thing. Especially since my income dropped by £10k my money just goes on bills and petrol to get to work. I never buy anything unless I have the money in my account to pay for it.

Gloomendoom

I can't actually see anything wrong with parents contributing to weddings if they want to.

It's their money.

Poppy9

Caroline_a wrote: »

When youngest daughter was writing her personal statement for her uni application I corrected one or two spellings for her, that was all. She told me that out of her large group of friends she was the only one who hadnt had their statement written by their parents! Personally I can't see the point of this - like writing the 'why do you want this job' section of an application form for your kids!


She did get into her uni of choice - one of the top 5 in the country, whereas some of her friends didn't!

My DD in her first year of Uni we didn't write her PS. They were given no help by school so had to research and get on with it. I know she swapped PS with friends and those hoping to do similar degrees and even picked older cousins (and their friends) brains.

She never mentioned that she had heard of parents writing PS for their children. After she had written it she had to give to her Oxbridge mentor who looked at it and then submitted She thought it would get given back to her for her to redraft.

From visiting uni's the majority said they didn't really look at PS as they didn't feel it gave a real flavour of the applicant and it was grades they were interested in.

Georgiegirl256

Personally I don't think it's got anything to do with being a generational thing, more to do with being a family thing.

Some parents want to contribute if they can, and others don't. My parents view on it is that I might as well have the money now if I need it, and like to help out when they can.

They didn't contribute towards buying our house, as my husband got a big bonus from work and so that paid for the deposit and all the fees. They did however buy us some stuff and gave us some furniture to help get us started. His Mam bought us some stuff too.

They did pay for our wedding, but we neither demanded it or expected it. If they hadn't have offered we'd have simply paid for it ourselves. We only had a small wedding, so they paid for our honeymoon too. Their view on it was that if we'd have had a bigger wedding, it would have cost a whole lot more than it did, so we might as well have the money to pay for a good honeymoon. We were extremely grateful as we probably wouldn't have been able to afford anything like it ourselves.

My parents view on it is that they've saved and got everything they need, so if they can help us out then that's what they want to do and it makes them happy.

They did help me out with homework sometimes, but for the main I did it myself. I don't see how that links with parents paying for things though?

poorlittlefish

Help with money or help with homework, it's all help of one kind or another. I was curious to find out whether I was unusual in not getting any, of whatever form!

Georgiegirl256

poorlittlefish wrote: »

Help with money or help with homework, it's all help of one kind or another. I was curious to find out whether I was unusual in not getting any, of whatever form!

I don't think you are, some people didn't/don't. Like I say, I think it's more of a family thing, IMO anyhow.

Gloomendoom

I must admit that I'm in my fifties and my dad still helps me with my homework on occasions. My parents still take us on holiday too.

Poppy9

poorlittlefish wrote: »

Help with money or help with homework, it's all help of one kind or another. I was curious to find out whether I was unusual in not getting any, of whatever form!

Do you resent not having any?

I'm didn't expect anything and always appreciated what I was given.

I appreciated little things as much as big things, or things people take for granted now. As a child I used to have to help with the weekly shop as my mother couldn't carry all the shopping bags on the bus. Sometimes we were told we would have lunch in town because my mother had the money and we would be so happy as it was a real treat.

There has been lots on this thread of what people get from their parents but not much on what they give back.

Do people take off their parents if their parents have less income than them. While retired parents maybe mortgage free they still have bills to pay and shouldn't have to be frugal at this stage in their life to help out their children.

I see people in work who rely on parents for free childcare while they work and they take it for granted and even whinge when their parent goes on holiday as it means they have no childcare!!

TBagpuss

I suspect it is more to do with a family than a generation. My parents were supportive of school work -and we all learned to read before we started school, but they would never do it for us.

In terms of financial help - their attitude was similar - supportive, but they never did it for us. When I was in school, they paid for us to go on educational trips such as French / German exchanges, but when I anted to go on the school ski trip, I got 50% of it as a combined christmas/birthday gift and had to get a saturday job to pay for the other half.
I went to university just as student loans were coming in - I got a small grant, and my parents gave me the 'parental contribution' suggested by the government to make this up to the level a full grant would have been - I know there were quite a few students who were my contemporaries who were getting much more financial support.

My parents have not helped any of us buying a house. My sister was married recently - she and my BiL paid for the wedding, I believe that my parents gave them some money as a contribution but this was not expected - it was just a nice gift.

They have also helped out when necessary - one of my siblings got into debt when they first left home and got a credit card for the first time. I believe that my parents lent money to pay off the debt, and this was then repaid to them (so it effectively turned a credit card debt into an interest free loan).

So I think for us, the situation is / has been that we none of us *expect* help, but sometimes we get it!

Each of us got money to pay for driving lessons as a birthday present the year we 17/18 - when I got mine it was, as far as I recall, about £150 which was a lot more than we would ever normally have for a gift.

My parents did also pay the extra to add each of us to their car insurance when we passed our tests, but I think they would have laughed if any of us had expected / ask for a car of our own as a gift!

One invaluable thing they did for all of us was to teach us to manage money - we learned to save for stuff we wanted, and once we each got to about 11 my mum stopped buying our clothes (except school uniforms) and gave us a clothing allowance instead, so we each learned to budget for what we wanted.

Goldiegirl

I'm 54 -my parents didn't do my homework for me, but they did help with ideas if asked.

They paid for my wedding - but I think that is traditional that the brides parents paid. They expected to pay - I was grateful, but it was something they were always going to do.

But they were't particularly well off, so I bought my own car, and saved up for my deposit for my first house. It never crossed my mind that my parents would contribute to those things