the bank of Mom and Dad

Here’s an interesting Times piece on how parents are still supporting their children past the teenage years. It’s an interesting debate, if you will. My parents and I have had extensive talks about money and how much they would be willing to support me. As I have mentioned before, I completely understand my privilege and I grew up with absolutely everything I needed, but I think my parents did a decent job of instilling the value of working for money and not just being able to have material items whenever I wanted them. However, this is very much a cultural thing. I can only speak from the Jewish cultural perspective. If I whined and asked for some clothes or a new cd my parents would tell me to buy it my damns self, but even now if I told my parents I wanted to get a law degree and a PhD, they would quickly whip out their checkbooks. I think some parents and cultures see education as the highest value and would pay anything for it. Also, there is this societal thing that I have mentioned before about god forbid children are not extremely happy every second, so some young professionals do not have to take the first job they are offered because of the paycheck. They can hang out for a while and “find themselves” or go pursue a career in acting or whatever.

My belief is, if parents have the money, what better way to spend it on their children? That is what family support is for. Of course, this can go way too far and then you get privileged children who have no appreciation or concept of privilege. There is always a line that is crossed.

Of course, if it isn’t already obvious, I am taking this perspective from one of class privilege. If one were to look at my bank statement at face value, I don’t know what bracket I would fall in to. At this point I could not support a child, much less a whole family. However, should I ever lose my job, go bankrupt, etc., I wouldn’t be homeless. I know that my parents, however begrudgingly, would take me in and support me. I worry about money, but not to the point where a majority of Americans depend their lives on it. I see that as the basis of the class divide. And I try to recognize this privilege everytime I take out my credit card.