In Sherman Oaks, California, a couple faces an unexpected financial burden as they support their 27-year-old daughter who has moved back home. Provider Kim Muench is a certified parenting coach with a focus on young adults. She has personally leaped in to help them get through this difficult transition. The young couple’s original vision was to settle down with their menagerie of pets out in the country. Their daughter came home from college.
Kim Muench, a longtime advocate for parental engagement, emphasizes how emotional needs mainly fuel parental advocacy for their adult children. “I would say 80% is emotional, 20% is financial from the parents,” she explains. This statistic reveals just how complicated parent-child relationships can be. These taxonomies can complicate the reasons driving parents to financially support their adult children, even when it means running their own resources ragged.
The couple, appealing for help with the financial impact of their daughter’s return, contacted Muench for advice. They worried about the effect on her deteriorating relationship with her and their financial security. The mother remarked, “At this point, I was hoping to do a lot more travelling … we’ve really put that on the back burner.” This motherhood statement resonates with the sacrifices parents frequently make when confronted with unforeseen family structures.
Muench recommends that parents push their soon-to-be-adult kids to take on small financial obligations themselves. She recommends that young adults begin with assuming responsibilities for expenses like their phone plans. This year’s incremental approach to implementation eases some of the financial pressure on parents. It further encourages adult children to take responsibility themselves.
Additionally, Muench recommends that adult children set aside a portion of their income into a separate savings account to mimic paying rent. This approach would be a good way to help millennials build healthier financial habits and relieve some of the weight off their parents’ shoulders. “When their son or daughter is not taking [financial responsibility] on incrementally, they actually get very worried that they will be financially providing for the rest of their lives,” Muench notes.
The young couple has plenty of company in their travails. These are difficulties that many families with young adults returning home due to increasing cost of living and unstable job markets are experiencing. Muench points to the need for ongoing and frank conversations between parents and their adult kids. She states, “It takes consistent conversations because it’s probably not going to happen in the first conversation.”
Even with the challenges these living situations may create, Muench urges parent-donors to take care of themselves first. “Parents sometimes hesitate to get help for themselves and invest in their health because they’re already spending more than they would like to support their adult or emerging adult children,” she comments.