To think many parents are subsidised by their parents at Christmas?

[EveryoneIsIll]

As I get older, it seems a lot of friends are getting financial help with everything from school trips to clubs or tutors, through to holidays and days out (in some cases so the grandparents can have time with their grandkids but sometimes not). Christmas also - whether that’s buying the turkey, the big ticket gifts or whatever.

It’s not my experience so it can leave me wondering if this is most people’s experiences, only it’s just not spoken about?

Nope. My parents used to go half's with me so the kids could have the big ticket item the kids wanted, but not sure that's the same.

Our parents didn’t help us out but we help our adult kids out as and when because we can and want to. We now help our parents out too.

If it wasn’t spoken about how would you know about it?

I know families with a mix of wonderful, generous, engaged grandparents, some who are utter nightmares causing nothing not stress, some people don’t have grandparents at all, lots have something in the middle.

I don’t know anyone who gets this

I think you'll find a lot of grandparents supporting their adult children financially all year round, not just at Christmas.

My parents are taking us and DS to the pantomime, and looking after him in the school holidays. It's not because we need the financial help, although I suppose it could look like that from the outside!

A lot of Baby Boomers have more spare cash than young families, final salary pension schemes etc.

Not my experience. DPs are generous with gifts and I often ask for a new outfit for me and the children for Christmas as part of our gifts.

I know a lot of people who get free childcare.

Well my parents buy my children nice gifts. And if we all eat together would contribute to the food and drink.
They don’t subsidise the gifts we buy though.
If we couldn’t afford it they would offer to help pay for clubs and activities that benefit the children as they’d consider this important and if they have the money wouldn’t want their grandchildren to miss out. We are a close family and if one of us was struggling financially we would each do what we could to help.

Nope, we financially support my MIL./ DM just buys the kids a present and brings a few food items for Christmas (I host).

Sorry, I think I should have removed the word Christmas!

I don’t think that’s the norm at all. And I think for families where that does happen, it probably happens the whole year round.

When you say things like ‘buying the turkey’ do you mean hosting xmas dinner, or contributing to a dinner they are attending? Neither of those are subsiding to me.

As for ‘big ticket presents’. Well again, isn’t that up to the grandparents on how much they want to spend on grandkids rather than actively subsiding? It’s not been my norm at any rate and we still buy the ‘big’ presents.

This is the post.

Some probably are, I doubt it's most.

And it's swings and aroundabouts in the way it is with familiies, the ILs are coming to us this year and we will pay for everything so technically we are subsidising them.

And I suppose even if some parents do subsidise their adult child at Christmas what does it even matter? It doesn’t seem like a particularly noteworthy thing either way.

My parents have given me financial help to buy a house and contributed to big ticket baby items as a gift. They also organise occasional big family holidays, where they shout the accommodation but we pay our way there, contribute groceries, do the cooking, buy a meal out, etc. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t all be able to afford to gather together that way.

On the other hand I’m hosting them for Christmas/New Year this year and paying for everything except their petrol driving here. And I’m catering to live up to their fancy Waitrose standards!

My parents’ view is that they both have massive final salary defined benefit pensions and benefited from free university/cheap house prices/good investments and luck, and are sitting on a pile of money they can’t take with them, why not make their children’s and grandchildren’s lived easier? But it’s entirely budget and attitude dependent, isn’t it? My best friend’s parents sold their London house for an absolute eye-watering amount, didn’t give her a penny for a flat deposit or any kind of help, and swanned off abroad somewhere dirt cheap.

I’m always open with friends about how I got on the housing ladder because it’s so shit to see people do it and not be able to yourself and think “How have they done it?”

I help my adult children out with big ticket items ie, house deposits, cars and holidays. I also do a lot of childcare for DGC. I’d rather them have the money now while DH and I around to see them enjoying it than have them wait till we’re gone.

Nope.
PIL are very well off yet their contribution to Xmas lunch last year was two £1 cheesecakes from Morrisons. For ten.

Oh absolutely, yes. My father is very generous, in particular. I do think though that this is because my parents were extremely careful with and anxious about money when I was a child (not without cause!), and my childhood was very bare bones.

My dad feels sad about this now, and realises that we went without a lot of things probably needlessly in this big push to save for the future, then my Mum died very unexpectedly in her mid-sixties and she never got to enjoy this mythical retirement, so to make up for it he takes part in our financial ecosystem a lot.

Contributes to education, music lessons, takes us on half term trips (my husband can't take holiday at half term), buys the "over and above" things that he couldn't do when I was a child, essentially.

Nobody that I know (or at least who has admitted it!)

My remaining parent has offered to buy a Christmas turkey etc when we were hosting, but I thought this was fair enough when we provided everything else!

They do sometimes pay for meals out/a night away if they want to treat us, but this isn't day-to-day support or propping up, it's a gift like any other.

This.

They have more money at retirement age than we ever will, sadly.

Not for me no my parents don’t support me financially at all and my mum is not very generous either (she buys my kids presents from the charity shop) some people do seem to have very generous parents though.

This is how my parents view it, and I hope I will should I be in the same position eventually. They don't want their children to struggle when they can afford to help. It doesn't mean we can't live without it, there's just not much sense in them keeping it

We’ve never had financial support but do support our adult dc.

@stuntbubbles good post. I think that’s it, you sit there wondering how people can afford school trips or whatever and they’re not transparent about it. That’s a good example of how I want to explain to my kids why their friend might be going on a £1k school trip and they’re not for example. And I wish we were more open about this kind of thing I guess.