This post is from our regular contributor, Erin.
As a parent, do you ever feel disappointed when you can’t give your child something they want?
It’s understandable to want to give your child everything you couldn’t have when you were younger. There can be a lot of pressure to provide for them, both for necessities and for things everyone else says they “should” have.
However, you need to think about the future and prioritize your own needs.
If giving into your child’s wishes now means going into debt, what does that mean for your retirement?
Parents might have to walk a fine line when it comes to putting themselves or their children first in financial matters.
If you’re a parent, here’s why you should start thinking about putting yourself first when it comes to money.
Who’s Going to Look After You?
As a parent, financial stability in retirement should be one of your main concerns. If you’re not financially stable now, chances are, your retirement might not look much better.
Who does the burden fall to when you’re unable to provide for yourself in retirement?
Your kids might very well have to shoulder it.
Is it worth it to give them what they want now, only to saddle them with that reality later? Probably not.
We’re going to get a little personal here.
My parents have been in debt for a while, and I remember feeling guilty when they went out of their way to get me something for Christmas or my birthday.
I knew money was tight, and when I realized my parents were going further into debt to put a smile on my face when unwrapping presents, you can bet that smile was very short-lived.
Now that my parents are actually retired, the only thing I want is for them to be able to enjoy it worry-free.
They’re steadily working their way out of debt, but from time to time, they still want to give me things.
I know it’s not easy to get over wanting the best for your child, but if your kids care about you, they’ll want what’s best for you. Even if it takes them a few years to fully understand that! (Obviously 3 year olds might not get the concept of retirement…)
And believe me – even if they throw a temper tantrum in the present, their future self will thank you.
Your Kids Will be Okay
I won’t lie – there were plenty of times I came home from school, begging my parents for whatever item was trending. But for the most part, I learned not to care.
My parents were great role models because they didn’t bother with designer brands or the latest trends. They didn’t bother keeping up with the Joneses at all. I am glad I learned that lesson early on!
Some kids and parents don’t, though. As I mentioned earlier, parents often face a tremendous amount of pressure to give their kids the coolest new things. If they don’t, their child might not fit in. They might get made fun of.
It’s a horrible reality and it shouldn’t be that way at all. There were a few times my clothes were made fun of, and being one of the last in my group of friends to receive a cellphone was shameful at times.
My parents were fine buying me necessities, but when it came to optional possessions, they always responded the same. “Why do you need it?” “Because everyone has it!” wasn’t very sound logic, in their opinion. ;)
But I came out of it alive.
I’d argue that’s one of the most valuable lessons I learned, and it served me well when it came to college. I saw everyone around me buying expensive things on credit, but it didn’t matter to me. I knew I could find friends who appreciated me for my personality, and not my belongings.
Provide Your Kids With Experiences Instead
If you do want to spend on your children, do it in a memorable way.
Yes, it’s easy to get caught up in giving them the most amazing present ever. After all, you look like pretty awesome parents if you give your kid a brand new car on their birthday.
That’s not going to teach them much, though. Do you want your children’s memories of you to revolve around what you purchased for them?
Growing up, my parents may have checked off the items on my wish list, but one thing we missed out on was travel.
I have to admit, I’m often jealous when I hear about the summer vacations that others took with their families.
I only have a handful of vacation memories with my parents. Heck, I think the first time we were all on a beach together was just last year, and we weren’t even on vacation!
However, some of my best memories with my parents are simply from spending quality time together.
I grew up playing video games with my dad, and completing puzzles with my mom. Board game nights were a common occurrence. They taught me how to play a few card games as well.
These are all low-cost activities that don’t require anything crazy. Your kids will still love you if you choose to focus on experiences instead of buying them material items.
Balance it Out, if Possible
All that said, I would never tell someone not to help their children out if they can afford to do so.
If you’re in a good financial situation, and you’re on track with your retirement goals, then there’s no reason to let your child struggle if they’ve been putting forth the effort.
I know there are many people out there who want to help their children afford college for one reason or another, and that’s not a bad thing at all.
If you can afford to cosign a loan for your child, or if you can help them out with a down payment on a house, go right ahead.
The key is making sure you can help without compromising your financial future.
__________________
Don’t stress about not being able to give your kids the sun and the moon. They’ll be just fine. There are other ways to show you care about them, and they’ll know it by your actions – not what you buy them.
Do you ever worry about not being able to afford to give your kids what they want? How do you find a balance?
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My parents definitely focused more on experiences together than on things, which I really appreciated. We went camping and on roadtrips for vacations and we went to the beach together all the time (easy to do since we lived in California). Their focus was never on buying us lots of stuff, but more on providing a well-rounded, fun, and loving family environment. I’m grateful that my parents are frugal because it gave me such a wonderful basis for creating my own frugal life!
Retirement definitely needs to come first for obvious reasons – you can’t borrow money for retirement. We are saving for our children’s college education, but we’re putting retirement first. Because of our frugal lifestyle, we can afford to do both.
I agree that you give your kids more by not handing them everything, by modeling financial responsibility, and by teaching them that we don’t need everything we see and want. We hope to help them with college and feel fine about not spending much on toys or expensive outings to save money.
I grew up in an interesting dynamic. My mom is hardcore frugal, while my dad is completely careless about how he spends his money. But in a weird way, it balanced me out. I totally agree with your viewpoints that retirement should come first. Kids don’t need to grow up needing to constantly keep up with trends anyway.
Our biggest financial goal in life is to pay for our son’s college education if he decides it’s a path he wants to take. It’s important to both of us because our parents both gave it to us and because of that, we started our adult lives with a strong financial foundation. I know that we need to think about our retirement, etc. but I would rather work until I am 90 and know that I gave my son as good a foundation as I have than to retire early and know that he is struggling with student loan debt.
I had a somewhat similar situation growing up in that my parents were regularly going into debt for a variety of things – holidays and birthdays included. Looking back it wasn’t the stuff I remember but those times spent together as a family. All that being said, we focus on retirement first, but we also save for things like college. The last thing we want is to be a burden to them when they’re older because we didn’t plan ourselves.
I completely agree with giving kids experiences over things. My own parents were actually really awesome about that. My brother and I never got physical birthday gifts from them, but they would always throw both a family birthday party and then a birthday party with friends for us. We also went on a big family trip every year and all of my favorite childhood memories are from the quality time spent together on those trips.
My husband and I plan on doing the same with our kids, where we don’t buy a physical birthday gift but definitely plan on making family trips a priority. Kids don’t need more stuff, they need more of your time and attention :)
Mrs. Frugalwoods All of those memories sound wonderful! When we did go on vacation, we always took the car, but we never really had an actual road trip. I definitely agree with providing a well-rounded, fun and loving environment for kids!
Holly at ClubThrifty Exactly – it just kills me to hear stories of parents giving their children everything, and continuing to do so when they’re in college. They’re broke as it is and won’t be able to afford retirement. Not a good place to be in.
Pretend to Be Poor I think modeling financial responsibility is the biggest thing! I learned a lot of my financial habits from my parents (the good ones, at least).
Anum That does sound interesting, but I can understand how it would balance you out. Trends these days seem to be getting out of hand, too. Growing up, there weren’t too many expensive gadgets I was hounding my parents for, but now? Yikes.
blonde_finance Well I’m sure it helps that you love what you do! =) I often wonder what my financial life would have looked like had I not graduated with student loan debt. While I agree that not having debt provides you with a strong financial foundation (which is really important!), I’ve learned a lot about money management I otherwise wouldn’t have if I didn’t have student loans. I know your son already has all that down, though. ;)
FrugalRules I sadly don’t think many parents think that far ahead. My parents are on the older side (they had me late), and I guess they took it for granted that there would be social security. My mom also got “lucky” as she has a pension and great retirement benefits. But there are plenty of others who aren’t so lucky.
Christina@EmbracingSimple I like that you pointed that out – we always threw birthday celebrations for everyone in the family, and I definitely enjoyed celebrating with friends over getting presents most of the time. It was just fun to gather around and play together. And totally agree that kids need more attention and love than stuff!
Erin @ Journey to Saving Holly at ClubThrifty I think there is a time and a place to help kids, but it HAS to be situational. Not everyone is going to be able to give their kids a lot of help during college, while other parents will be able to fund the entire 4 years and maybe even send them off with a newer used car to boot. It all depends on your income, expenses, and how much is “left” to put towards kids higher ed. I think you are right on, Holly, and a good example for some of us who don’t have kids but plan on it someday.
I absolutely agree that parents need to consider their financial needs first and it is also one the hardest things for most parents to do. And I absolutely get it. I want to give my girls everything their hearts desire too. But … I also don’t want to be a burden to my girls because I didn’t plan well and need to them to support me. I also want to have a good life too and shouldn’t feel guilty about that either. It is a balance and sometimes it’s a really tricky one. But destabilizing your family foundation by going into debt in order to avoid saying “no” never turns out well.
ShannonRyan You always summarize things so well, Shannon! Not having any kids, I can’t imagine how tough that balance really is. When I was younger, I gave my parents a hard time more than once for saying “no” to me, but you’re so right that it’s not worth going into debt for. Besides that, being said “no” to made me think twice about asking them for things, which helped me form good shopping habits. ;)
Parents most certainly need to take care of themselves first financially. We are dealing with that situation right now with my inlaws and feel its going to get much harder as time goes on. The best long term gift you can give your kids is being financially sound in retirement years. I would absolutely hate for my daughter to have to take care of me because I didn’t have any money.
Eyesonthedollar “The best long term gift you can give your kids is being financially sound in retirement years.” Agreed, and sorry to hear that about your in-laws. I really wish more people in general would adequately prepare for retirement. It’s not as simple as relying on social security.
Providing your kids with experiences over things is extremely important. I’m working on raising my son to be appreciative of what he has so that he doesn’t grow up feeling entitled. Right now while he’s so young, expenses are super low and I’m taking advantage of that time to get my finances in order but I know that his needs will only increase as he gets older. With young children though, it nice that all they need is food, a nice place to stay, clean clothes, and your love and affection. The rest doesn’t matter and they won’t even remember materials things that much at such a young age.
Agreed Erin! It’s the sort of thing that a lot of parents are going to start struggling with, which is probably going to create a big issue with how we as the younger generation provide for them..
I know I’ll look after my mum the best I can however not everyone will be as fortunate as me to have that opportunity..
Very topical article.. Good effort! :)
I’m not 100% sure that I agree with this assessment. Generally, parents should make wise financial choices especially where there is debt involved. Planning for retirement is generally important.
But I think if the parents value a stay at home spouse and they can tread water for a few years (not investing but not going into debt either), then that is a good trade both for the parents and for the kids. I would classify this as deferring a goal for the betterment of your family. You can almost always figure out how to make money later on, but you only have the privilege of molding your kids for a few years. It’s not a privilege that I would discard lightly.
I know that this is not the direction that you were taking the article (more like, parents don’t buy stupid crap for your kids or pay out the nose fore their education if you haven’t saved for retirement), but it is actually the biggest financial decision that parents face.
Chonce I think it’s great you’re focusing on getting in better financial shape now while you can! I think you’re right that it’s a bit easier when kids are younger. It’s all about the expectations you set for them.
mycareercrusade I’m on the same page as you. I’m really grateful for everything my parents have done for me, so if they ever needed my help, I wouldn’t hesitate. However, they’ve also done their best to get back on their feet, and I can appreciate that!
Hannah UnplannedFinance You’re right – that’s not the direction I was going in. It would be hypocritical of me to disagree with you, considering I left my job and was essentially earning nothing in order to get started as a freelancer. I fully believe there are some opportunities we simply have to take, even if that means halting our financial progress temporarily.
I am not a parent, nor do I plan to be. I was only providing my view as a child who grew up watching my parents struggle, and feeling guilty after realizing some part of it was due to them wanting to provide more for me. There’s certainly nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home-parent, but I would hope that couples would discuss and plan for that beforehand.