When the subject of boomerangers and/or grown children who constantly need financial help from the parents comes up there are several concerns the parents have that make them fearful of showing tough love.  The two most common I hear are:

• What if they keep my grandkids away from me?
• What if they hate me the rest of my life?

Being afraid of the grandkids being kept from us is selfish.  It is OUR responsibility to help our kids GO tackle the real world on their own two feet.  If they try to punish us with more immature behavior that is on them.  We have to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to teach our kids to GO.  Do we want this to be a generational problem that is passed on to the grandkids so that they end up being boomerangers too because we weren’t willing to do the right thing and teach their parents wisdom that they can pass down to them?  If we let fear of not seeing our grandchildren prevent us from doing the right thing we aren’t doing the grandchildren any favors.

The chance of our kids hating us for the rest of our life if we show them tough love is a risk we’re already taking.  Are we afraid of hurting their feelings when we yell at them or yank their arm out of socket to keep them from walking in front of a car?  Will we be worried about their feelings if they’re trying to kill one of their siblings?  Why should we be worried about their feelings as they kill their financial future and that of their children?  Remember this post about inheriting poverty?  This is your opportunity to end or prevent the curse.

The chances are at some point in everyone’s life this stuff is going to be learned one way or the other.  Our kids are either going to learn how to manage their own resources and love us for teaching them how, or they’re going to dwindle our resources until there are none (whether we’re alive or dead) and wonder why we never taught them.  They’re either going to learn it from us through a tough but loving relationship, or they’re going to learn it from someone tougher and meaner than us with no love for them at all.  Either way there is a chance that when it comes to their finances they might love or hate us for how we do or don’t teach them.  I’d rather take my chances on teaching them.

Think about this – if a boomerang child is unwilling to accept the tough truth about being a self sufficient adult then they are probably loving us for the wrong reason in the first place.  Is that the kind of love we want to have with our children when they’re grown?

Something has gone terribly wrong in our culture in the past decade or so.  You love them, feed, clothe and shelter them, and teach them the way they should GO (Proverbs 22:6).  But they come back.  Maybe we aren’t teaching them as well as we thought.  This might describe your adult-age kids or you might need to read this to prevent this from describing your kids when they become adult-age.  They have been referred to as the Boomerang Generation because they leave only to come back against your true will.  I’m not even at this stage in life as a parent yet, but I have counseled dozens of people who are.  Therefore I have seen what works and doesn’t work with regards to the boomerang situation, and I have hopes and plans for how I will manage it when my kids are grown.  The ultimate goal is to raise kids that come back to visit but not move in.

Notice I said they come back against your “true” will.  We’re parents.  We don’t want to reject our children and kick them to the curb during a time of need, but it also isn’t our will to have them back in the house after we thought they were gone.  Our true will is for them to stand on their own feet and become productive citizens.

I’m using the word “we” quite loosely because the fact of the matter is most of the time there isn’t much “we” in the decision making process for how to treat the boomerang child.  Often one spouse is in favor of allowing the boomerang child to move back in and the other is not so much in agreement.  This issue can cause SERIOUS frustration in the marriage of the parents and SERIOUS strain on their finances.  Not to mention if the boomerang child is married the SERIOUSNESS is amplified by a lot.  Yes – this is a problem that is out of control because parents don’t know what to do.

I’ve read some good simple advice that says to do three basic things: Establish a Time Limit, Set Financial Boundaries, Respect Privacy.  Those are very good generalities, but I’ve met with countless parents who know those basic things but have a very skewed perception on how to define them in their situation.  For example – a single mom with an average income, a significant debt-load, no retirement savings, and barely living paycheck to paycheck SHOULD NOT be paying ALL the bills and feeding her boomerang daughter – along with her boyfriend and their baby – so that they can use the money they earn at their job only to pay for their fun.  Yes – I’ve counseled that person.

Let’s face it.  For most people the bottom line problem with an adult child moving back home is the financial implication.  Yes – their personal development, everyones privacy, and your sanity are all very important too.  But I’d venture to say the only reason they come back is money.  They either haven’t figured out how to earn some or they haven’t figured out how to manage it.  So here are my more detailed additions to the suggestions of what your expectations might be to be perfectly fair while challenging and encouraging the boomerangers to become independent adults:

Establish A Time Limit:

Set Financial Boundaries:

• Help pay SOME bills.  Limit the “some”.
• Do not put more effort into improving their situation than they are willing to put in their self.
• Do not pay for their entertainment if they cannot pay for their own cell phone.  This is a pet peeve of mine you can read about it here.
• If the boomeranger has no job and cannot pay for anything with money require them to earn what they get by doing work around the house.

Respect Privacy:

• Be respectful of the boomeranger’s privacy to the extent that they respect yours.
• Be quiet when they’re on the phone and expect the same, share dinner prep and cleanup responsibility, etc.
• Give them alone time and expect the same.
• Leave their stuff alone and expect the same.
• But if they’re spending YOUR money you deserve to know what they are doing with theirs.  When they move out of your house they can have their full privacy back.

I’m sure there is more we could add to these guidelines especially based on everyones unique circumstances.  What suggestions could you add?

A blog I enjoy reading regularly has a good related article –  Helping vs. Enabling

Remember that show from years ago called “Married With Children“?  Al and Peg and their two unruly teenage kids seem to have a miserably happy existence as a family.  It seems like they never left that living room and everything that happened was a picture painted with their crazy words so that you imagined how it went down.  Thinking back on that show if there is anything I could admire about it I think it would be that Al and Peg never really seemed shocked by the crazy things their kids did (or at least talked about doing), and nothing was ever taken too seriously.  Fellow parents let’s just admit – we’d all like to have a little bit of “whatever” attitude when it comes to having kids.

Now that I have kids I am more and more fully aware of the implications suggested by the title of that show – “Married With Children”.  Because being married is one thing, but having children is a whole-notha-thing and it can be crazy.  I think being married with money could be depicted in similar fashion.  I think we could make a new show titled “Married With Money” and portray a crazy middle class family like the Bundy family doing ridiculous stuff (or at least talking about what happened) with their money.  I’m sure there were moments of money issues depicted in “Married With Children” but I don’t remember specific episodes like that.

As funny as a show like that could be I think it would still be important to portray the husband and wife as light-hearted about it all.  I mean we should take managing money seriously, but crazy things are going to happen and we’re all going to make mistakes.  What we could learn from the Bundy family is to just take it in stride and keep moving forward.  That’s what kept Al and Peg together all those years…

What if there was a show ALL ABOUT the ridiculous money-related issues middle class families have today?  How would those story lines go?

As a married couple with different schedules, different habits, different priorities and responsibilities it can be very difficult to come together on the things that should be shared such as the family schedule, habits, priorities, responsibilities.  I know my wife and I experience this when it comes to doing our finances together.

When we made our financial turnaround and became serious about working together we did everything together – planned the budget, paid the bills, reconciled accounts, etc.  It wasn’t easy and there was conflict between us during the process.  But we did it anyway because it was the only way we could learn to make it work.  It would have been very easy for frustration to overcome us and cause us to go back to the old way, which was doing our own thing and wondering why it wasn’t working overall.

After a while of working on everything so diligently we didn’t have to do every single activity together any more.  Over time Shawna gained confidence that I was going to allow fun in the budget (because I’m the saver) and I became confident that Shawna was going to do everything she could to control the discretionary categories like groceries, dining out, clothing, and entertainment (because she’s the spender).  We still talk about the day-to-day money management but I do most of the details because it is more of my strong suit.  Now the only time we actually sit down to work through something together is when a new decision has to be made or a new concern has come up, or even better, when a milestone is being reached.

Shawna and I are about to sit down and do something financial together that we’ve been waiting for a very long time…

How is WORKING TOGETHER on the finances going in your marriage?  Don’t get frustrated and give up.  It takes time and diligence to get it.

A while back I wrote about a bad dream I had where a couple fought about their money in a failed attempt to manage THEIR money as individuals rather than together.  You can refer back to that post here.

One common conflict we see regarding money in marriage is when one spouse is the bread-winner and the other is the domestic engineer.  Typically in those scenarios the man is the one bringing home the money.  That is the scenario for my wife Shawna and I.  She does have a couple of things she does for part-time income but it’s not even close to being “even”.  But we don’t really look at that.  To us it all goes in the same pot and we agree on what gets funded – even when agreeing isn’t easy.

I’ve heard some people say they split the bills evenly.  I’ve heard some people say they share according to who makes how much (if one makes 60k and the other 30k the bills are split 2/3 to the 60k earner and 1/3 to the 30k earner – socialistic approach).  I’ve heard some people say they make all the money and the other spends it all.  I’ve heard other people say they make all the money so the other isn’t allowed to spend any of it.

The way Shawna and I do it is all the money goes in the same pot and we agree on what gets funded.  The closest we come to any of the other approaches listed above is sometimes I have a humorous attitude about what Shawna is funding with her part time income.  When I’m happy I take pride in how much fun and enjoyment I’m able to fund for the family with the hard-earned income from my job.  When I’m not happy I make sure the family knows how spoiled they are and tell Shawna she can fund the fun with her own money because I have to pay the bills with all mine.  Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it isn’t.  It depends on what we’re “discussing” and whether or not we are taking it lightly…. ok, whether or not Shawna is taking it lightly.

At the end of the day it is all OURS, not mine and hers.  For anyone who is married the same is true – the two become ONE, and that includes the wallet.

How do you manage the money and bills in your family?

Recently my friend Joe wrote about an interesting point of view regarding inheritance titled “Hey – You’re Robbing My Inheritance“.  It’s a great point of view and I believe there are probably a lot of people who have thought or felt like their inheritance was being robbed from them by irresponsible siblings.  I have another point of view to share.

The comments on Joe’s post were great and I have to say that I relate most to the fact that any inheritance would be blessing rather than something I need or feel entitled to, and I’m way more concerned about my parents well-being while they’re alive.  What a holier-than-thou point of view – right?  Wrong.  I am human and I’m big enough to admit there is an element of selfishness in my point of view.  I REALLY do care about my parents well-being and want them to have enough resources to take care of their needs as they age.  But I ALSO really care about my own resources as I age, so I don’t want to be forced to use my hard earned resources to care for my parents if it can be avoided.

To connect the dots here’s how it all plays out over time:

• Financially irresponsible kids never learn their lesson and continue to make disastrous mistakes that they can’t afford to fix.
• Hard working, loving, and caring parents repeatedly help them out by dipping into their own hard-earned resources.
• Parents eventually retire with little to no resources to provide for their needs.
• Hard working, loving, and caring SIBLINGS OF THE IRRESPONSIBLE KIDS step in to care for the parents by dipping into their own hard-earned resources.  (the irresponsible kids might WANT to help but they can’t because they never learned and they’re still living hand-to-mouth despite all the help their parents gave them)
• The kids grow old and broke just like their parents did.
• Process repeats itself over and over resulting in a growingly popular term called GENERATIONAL POVERTY.

This is a very real problem and it is not a problem that is going away as the average net worth of people planning to retire in the next 10 years is $25,000.  The last time I checked that is not enough to pay for living expenses for very long.  So forgive me for being selfish and not wanting my generation or my kids generation, or their kids generation to be BROKE.  Just as there is a start to all cycles there is a way to stop all cycles.  Each of us makes a difference in breaking the cycle or preventing the cycle from starting – generational poverty does not have to exist.

Maybe families should adopt an atmosphere of open accountability for good or bad financial decisions.  I wonder if that is part of the reason for some of the most prosperous families success.

What are your thoughts?

Why is it so hard for us to say no to ourselves?  My friend Joe wrote here that No Equals Yes and saying no to stuff is actually saying yes to more important things in the future.  I wrote similarly about the same subject here regarding a quote I heard on The Biggest Loser about saying no to instant pleasure really meaning yes to long term health in body or finances.  It is apparently something we all have to think about – saying “NO”.

Here are some scenarios I see in families that make life difficult for spouses to say “no” instead of “now” when it comes to financial decisions (I’m using Joe’s list of examples):

• The kids don’t understand why their college fund is more important than the game, so we’ll say no to our own well being much less a college fund so the kids can be happy NOW.
• The wife has to drive a new car for “safety” reasons, so that is more important NOW than the retirement account.
• The kids are being deprived of family memories and relationships if vacation isn’t at least a week at the nearest beach every year, so small vacations NOW become more important than saving for big-once-in-a-lifetime vacations to Hawaii or Europe.
• The kitchen is so embarrassing we can’t invite people to our house so it needs to be upgraded NOW even though we’ve been called to give that money to a worthy cause.

The list of scenarios like this could go on and on.  As you’re reading this don’t let it cause a spontaneous conflict with your spouse.  Instead consider a method of managing it.  What if you both made a list of things that are important to each of you.  Stagger the list with one thing that is more important to her followed by one thing that is more important to him then repeat her, him, etc.  Any time a NOW want comes up that will interfere with that list of priority you both have to agree where it will interfere or IF it will be allowed to interfere.  It has to be ok to say NO.

For example when a weekend getaway or painting the bathroom becomes a NOW desire a decision has to be made where the money will come from or if the NOW is going to be  NO.  Refer to the list of priorities and you have to both agree where it’s coming from or the NOW becomes a NO.  I’m not saying this happened at my house recently but….. it came down to taking it from the car repair savings or the Christmas savings.  We agreed to take it from the Christmas fund and we have a plan for paying it back.  That puts us in debt to our Christmas fund but we’re ok with that because we’d rather be in debt to ourselves than to anyone else.  The answer was NOW this time but there are plenty of NO moments too.  Let’s just say we’ve been wanting hardwood floors for a long time.

How do YOU manage these decisions effectively and keep the peace in your marriage?