As parents, we spend the first 18 years of our children’s lives trying to teach them how to become independent. Unfortunately, too often we spend the next 30 years making sure they never have to be.
According to a recent AARP study, an astonishing 75% of parents surveyed reported providing financial assistance to at least one of their adult children. Almost half of these parents said they experienced financial stress related to this support.
I think for most parents of young children, making sacrifices is just a natural instinct. We don’t think twice about putting off buying that new car so the kids’ college savings accounts can be funded, or brown-bagging it at work so we can afford those new Nike high-tops they want for the first day of school. Even watching the animated movie our child is obsessed with for the tenth time instead of watching the game is something we do with a smile.
But there comes a time when sacrificing for our kids can actually become harmful, both to them and to us.
As a financial advisor, I see this all the time. Clients who are either preparing for retirement or trying to make their retirement savings last, choose to give large sums of money to their able-bodied adult children, sometimes even when they can’t afford to do so.
In fact, according to a 2025 Savings.com study, working parents who financially support their adult children give an average of $1,589 per month, almost two and a half times what they contribute to their own retirement accounts. The long-term financial consequences of such decisions can be enormous.
Consider a parent who begins providing $1,500 per month to an adult child at age 50 and continues until retiring at 65. Over those 15 years, that parent will have given away $270,000. But the true financial cost could be considerably greater. Had those same dollars been invested and earned an average annual return of 7%, the parent’s retirement account could be worth approximately $475,000 more by age 65. That’s nearly half a million dollars sacrificed to support an adult child.
But the financial consequences for parents are only half the story. By continually providing financial assistance to their adult children, parents may unintentionally prevent them from developing the discipline and independence necessary to succeed on their own.
When someone else is always there to pay the bills or provide a bailout during a financial emergency, the child may never develop the ability to make difficult financial decisions, live within a budget, or distinguish between wants and needs. Over time, what begins as an act of love can develop into an unhealthy dependency, leaving parents financially vulnerable and their children emotionally unprepared to face life’s challenges when their parents are no longer around.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with helping our adult children, particularly when they face unexpected hardships. But there’s a sizable difference between helping someone through a rough patch and subsidizing a lifestyle they cannot afford on their own.
As parents, our responsibility to love and support our children never ends. But perhaps we need to recognize that financial support and financial independence are sometimes not compatible. After all, the greatest financial gift we can give our children may not be more money, but the ability to survive without ours.
(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)