Prometheus 6

The 40-Something Dependent Child
By The Editors

First, parents were bankrolling their 20-something children, paying tuition bills for private colleges, globe-trotting adventures and rent after college. Then the 30-something offspring needed down payments, money for their own children’s summer camp, cars and school tuition. What next? If their net worth hasn’t been devastated by the recession, will these parents who reach their 70s and 80’s be subsidizing their children’s retirement?

True, this largess only applies to a minority of the population, so the effects — economic, social as well as psychological — are hard to predict.

But never have so many members of the nation’s younger generations been so dependent on their parents and grandparents. Should parents set limits, or is this transfer of wealth a social and economic necessity in the long jobless recession? How has this growing dependence changed the country?