To think it’s selfish for parents to retire early when their kids are renting?

I agree with you OP it is selfish. He could at least go part time. It's a million times harder to get on the housing market now, and it's such an important milestone in life for many people to have somewhere secure.

I would look after my parents whether they gifted me a house deposit or not.

That's because how they treated me (as you put it) has nothing to do with any money they gave me and everything to do with their love, support and actions.

It's very transactional to think that children will only care about parents who gave them money. And possibly says more about you than anyone else.

Your DH needs to decide where his priorities lay, you can "influence him" as the wife and try to push your own agenda but ultimately it's him who needs to decide what's more important, him retiring at 59 or helping your daughter. He also needs to know that karma is a thing, that he will be old one day and maybe he will only have the daughter to care for him and depending on how he treated her she will be nice to him or not. I believe it's a wise idea to give the daughter a deposit and work one more year, unless of course the job is unbearable.

YABU. Of course he should retire when he wants to if he feels able. My dad retired at 57 and I thank God he did, because it meant he got to go cycling across Europe and actually enjoy some of his retirement before he got diagnosed with motor neurone disease at 66. You never know what will happen. P.S. nobody gave me any money for a deposit.

So she should be on his case until he agrees to continue working. As long as he provided for his children when they were minors and enabled them to be responsible, well functioning adults, he did his job as a parent. Unless the adult children cannot take care of themselves for some physical or mental issue, parents should not be conditioned by the society to worry for them forever.

Would it be an incredibly generous and kind thing to do? Yes

Would it be selfish not to do it? No absolutely not.

If your husband isn’t keen on doing it, then you’ll just have to wait until you are ready to retire, you work an extra year and you do it.

Then they should be the ones who take part in building economy and politics of the country.

Currently 65 and planning to work until 70 in order to ensure I can help out my own child and my sister's daughter. My sister (late 50s) has been living with cancer for some years and is steadily going downhill. Her husband left when her daughter was 6 and she is really struggling financially. My niece is a lovely young women who's done all she can for her mum. I think of her like a second child and why would I treat one child better than another?

Next year I'll get the state pension. I started taking my main private pension this year and had a decent tax-free lump sum, so I split that in two and gave half to each youngster — enough for a deposit on a modest home of their own. I am also giving each of them £200 a month from my salary to help towards mortgage costs for the next couple of years, when with a bit of luck they'll be able to manage without help.

My plan is to go down to 3 days a week next year when I get my state pension and work on till 70 and save up a bit of a nest-egg for myself. I can work remotely and relatively flexibly so I hope that I can go on more holidays and work from abroad. I've been with my current employer for 15 years now and have mentioned my plan and they've been supportive.

I'd feel differently if my job was very high-pressure but it's fairly routine.

If you don't consider it better, I'm genuinely unsure why you felt the point was worth making? Not being snidey here, just genuinely don't understand why you felt it was relevant?

Maybe also save money for grand children's home deposit?

I think Id want to understand a bit more about DDs situation. But if she is the typical young person paying off massive student loans, whilst paying a huge rent while trying to save a deposit. Then yeah I might look at myself and my 'excellent' pension that she will never have a chance to have, my free education, my cheap as chips housing, and incredibly long period of low interest rates...
and think maybe I should help the child I brought into this world to have a tiny bit of the lifestyle I have enjoyed (that my generation has ensured no one after ever will).

I have officially peaked Mumsnet.

Rather disappointed this thread wasn't penned by an ungrateful offspring, who wants parents to work til they drop to fund child's lifestyle whilst at the same time offer round-the-clock babysitting services but have to send royal courier pigeon to humbly crave permission to schedule a social call six months in advance.

Op, yours is an interesting viewpoint but I wonder where it would end. Would you and dh deprive yourself of holidays etc until your dd has a flat?

And then what about when she wants a bigger home? I'm sure your dd would like you and your husband to enjoy your lives and make the most of your time - there has to be a balance between looking after your adult dd and making the most of your lives. My dad only had 8 years of life after he retired, something none of us could have predicted as he was fit and healthy for all of his adult life.

That's very unreasonable of you. How old is your dd?

If it's important for you to gift her deposit money, you work as much you want. You can't impose your ideas on your husband. Renting is not end of the world situation.

It's a personal decision that will be different for everyone. Both decisions can be right, and both could be wrong. It's for you and your husband to decide together what's right for your family.

Personally I wouldn't retire unduly early if it disadvantaged my children.

I see OP has scarpered.

But YABVU.

My parents very generously gifted us some money towards our deposit. We had already saved up the required deposit but the extra money enabled us to secure a lower rate mortgage.

I put away saving every month for my daughter in the hope that might one day help her with a deposit.

Both of these things are gifts which should not be expected or relied upon. Your adult daughter is an adult, it's up to her to save her deposit. If you/your husband contributes towards it, that's very kind of you and I'm sure she'd be very grateful, but it's not his responsibility to work longer to do so.

I don't know how working for another year and gifting the money would work as surely there are outgoings to come out of it?

I'm glad that my DDs will have a good start and a lump sum they can use for a deposit or whatever they want and it doesn't effect our retirement plans.

But if you are on good salaries and have paid off the mortgage surely you could have put some aside for them already. I certainly wouldn't be selfish and be living in luxury while DDs struggled but I'm not sure in this case what working another year will achieve.

I retired at 62. Not for a minute have I been bored and depressed.. Assuming this isn't a reverse and OP is who she says she is, she is BU to tell her husband what to do, as long as he can meet half of their expenses and isn't going to be depending on her financially.

YABVU.

Firstly in the sense that it's not up to you. It's his career and his choice as to when he retires.

Secondly because gifting money to your children for a deposit is a nice gesture if you can afford it, but under no circumstances should it be felt to be an obligation.

If you feel that is something you should do, then YOU should try to get a better job and/or work for longer.

Being sixty is not like being thirty. The time you have left is valuable and precious, and lots of DHs don't get the chance to work past sixty because one in five of them is already dead by then. If he can retire at 59 without undue hardship (for him and you that is - not adult children!) then it would be absolutely a good thing to do.

@TeenLifeMum I actually think we could end up with the opposite problem - we have drastically falling birthrates and fewer and fewer young people to take on essential jobs - whilst the aging population is healthier and living longer. We could end up in a situation where we do not have enough nurses and doctors to treat our elderly/infirm, not enough junior staff to learn the ropes requiring people to be financially enticed to stay in work well into their 60’s, maybe 70’s if it’s on a part-time basis.

Automation may help with physical jobs older people cannot do - bin men, pothole fillers, certain construction jobs, but we are actually going to end up with not enough young healthy builders/plumbers/plasterers (they don’t work much past 50 due to bad backs, knee/shoulder replacement surgeries as far as I can see). Add to that the fact that Gordon Brown raided the pension pots when labour were last in - and famously left nothing in the coffers; and then we’ve had covid/CoL/fallout for Brexit and Ukraine which mean there is eff all in reserve and certainly nothing to top-up state pensions… being free to retire by 60 may be a fantasy for many people.

@YouHaveAnArse absolutely. Totally agree with you. But I do think a lot of that is because people don’t want to be tied down when younger. Far more now (of the young people I have experienced) take years out, choose to rent, don’t want to work all hours and overtime that I did when young. I’m always surprised how many young people nowadays ask to reduce their hours. They definitely favour work/life balance more. I do appreciate how hard it is but you can get comparable mortgages that we could many years ago as a 1st time buyer which requires less deposit. And interest was 12.5% for us so much higher than now.

We gave ours a lump sum for deposit deposit 5 years ago. One bought straight away but the other still rents as hasn't been settled in a particular place until now.

Where did I say that was better? Just that the outcome of him leaving was likely to benefit someone younger. I’m not very young myself!

How is that ageist ffs. People working until they’re 70 will mean less jobs for younger people (I say that as someone likely to need to work into my 70s). I’m not suggesting 59yos shouldn’t work, I’m showing the other side of the argument. Even if someone older took this specific job, someone younger is likely to get moved up the ladder as a ripple affect. The op wants him to keep working to benefit a younger person… I was just suggesting his leaving could do the same, just a different younger person.
some people are quick to read the worst of every post. In no way was I suggesting he wasn’t able to do his job due to his age ffs.

It's quite a leap you've made though. OP posted about her family, not random younger people, so I find your point odd/irrelevant. And yes I do see ageism in your suggestion that his retiring could benefit a younger person. Why is that inherently better than an older person continuing to reap the benefits of his/her job?

Thank you for saying 59 is very young.