Why parents ought to just be a safety net and a source of advice for their adult children

By Elizabeth Davies

When talking about financial issues as a young person, one simple solution often seems to pop into the conversation.

I’m told that I should simply live at home throughout my studies.

At first this seems to make perfect sense.

I’d avoid financial strain, live rent- free, I wouldn’t even need a part time job so I could really concentrate on my education.

However before long a number of questions and concerns come into my mind, flaws in the perfect plan.

The first fatal flaw is the assumption that my parents can afford to support me and are willing to do so.

It seems relatively selfish to place my financial struggles in the hands of another in order to make my own life easier.

Avoiding managing my own finances now does not mean that I will never have to do it, it simply delays the inevitable and perhaps heightens the shock when finally I do face the real world.

It would make me five years older with half as much experience and half as much time to figure it out before serious mile stones like first home ownership, marriage and kids are on the cards.

Living at home may not cost anything but it does come at a pretty high price. If you live at home until you are 25 you are undoubtedly missing out on a range of experiences that help you develop socially and emotionally.

Living in a flat situation for the first time at this age is almost unfathomable. Of course you must also be prepared to lie about your previous flatting experience because first time flatters are notoriously avoided like the plague.

Unless you have a particularly fantastic relationship with your parents and they are in a very positive financial position, living together will often breed negativity.

Perhaps you will feel guilty, or develop a sense of entitlement. Perhaps they will resent you as a financial burden, and think that you are ungrateful. Most likely however they will simply forget that you are an adult because for all intents and purposes you are living as their child. There is nothing more embarrassing than your parents attempting to ground you when you are in your early twenties.

One of the reasons many people choose to move out of home, including myself, is because they want a better relationship with their parents and know that this is incredibly hard to achieve when you are living together.

To ask your parents to take care of you financially, but then deny them a say in the other aspects of your life seems somewhat unfair. Those who want to live at home and also be treated as completely equal independent adults seem to want to have their cake and eat it too.

Romantic relationships can also be stunted by your living arrangements. Nothing kills the mood like a protective father reminding you whose roof and rules you are living under.

I’m not suggesting that parents should completely cut financial ties with their children, nor am I recommending we all be thrown out into the streets when we turn 20. However I do think some parents should reconsider their financial relationships with their adult children.

I think the best thing parents can do for their kids is give them a thorough financial education. Talk to them about money, teach them how to manage it, and then encourage them to be independent. I’m not telling parents to step away, but perhaps step back a bit.

Parents should be a safety net, a source of advice and, if they are capable, an emergency loan.

Neither money nor respect should be given freely, so parents should encourage their children to go out and earn both.

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*Elizabeth Davies is a 23 year old post graduate journalism student at Auckland University of Technology. She lives with her partner in Epsom and spends her free time refurbishing vintage furniture and attempting to bake while fighting a daily battle against her bank balance. She writes a weekly article for interest.co.nz on money matters and financial struggles from a young person's perspective.