Are some parents going overboard?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Is it just me or does it seem that some parents just go crazy when it comes to their children? There was no way that when I was a kid that my parents would go out and buy me a brand new car. That seems to be the norm today!

I tried to get my 3 year old tickets to see The Wiggles, an Austrialian kids group becoming very popular here, but was unable to for there were people standing on line at 3:00 in the morning! That is like standing online overnight for Barney! I can’t believe that people would go to that extreme for a kids singing group! What are these people going to do when these kids are in their teens?

Whatever happened to teaching our kids about work ethics? Sure, we want to give our kids everything we can, but there has to be a line drawn at some point. If we keep handing them everything, how can we expect them to make their own way at some point in their lives?

2

Oh yea, I believe kids, in general, seem to be a bit spoiled these days.

I think even if you have the means to shower a kid with “things” it sould be done in a way where the kid somehow worked for it in some way.

For myself and my peers (very trailing end of baby boom/beginning of yuppie), we’re beginning to alter the trend where we feel we must go absolutley crazy is squirreling money away for kids further education (“DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH COLLEGE IS GOING TO COST 18 YEARS FROM NOW?”). The thought is, you put so much money toward their education, you’re gonna find yourself living with your kids when you 70 eating cat food. You’ve got to look after yourself first in that respect. You’d like for them to have a free ride but, if you can’t, they’ll have to suck up the loans like most people have to do.

If you don’t say “NO” to your kids, you say “YES” to kids who become adults who are whiny and disfunctional.

3

I’ve been thinking about this lately. To put myself in the “kids these days” context, I’m 24.

When I was in high school, I had a horse, but this was done on a shoestring. I worked my ass off cleaning stalls/exercising horses/baby sitting to buy anything I needed besides feed for the horse, and we kept him out in a paddock, which was cheaper than a stall.

Anyway, my point is, that at the time I didn’t appreciate that my parents were forking over the money for my horse, because most of my horsey friends were being completely spoiled by their parents. Looking back, it seems ridiculous to me the amount the parents would spend in time and money on getting their kids to these 4-H and local shows. We’re talking $1,500 saddles, weekly riding lessons, new truck and trailer, oodles of expensive accessories, $200 show chaps that would be outgrown in a year or two, etc, etc.

At the time I always felt I was fighting an uphill battle trying to show and compete when they had so many advantages, but looking back, I’m glad it was that way. I learned to sew to make show outfits, became self-reliant teaching myself to become a better horseperson, learned to meet goals and I developed a heck of a work ethic, which has served me well to date.

So yeah, developing character, and all that, is better done when everything isn’t handed to a kid on a silver platter. I can’t imagine having a new car in high school, or being given a full-ride through college. I’m better prepared to make it in the Real World since I wasn’t spoiled and called “Princess.”

4

[ul] Pay thru the nose [sup]and suffer[/sup]. :D[/ul]

5

I don’t get the ‘you must save for your kid’s college!’ thing, either. My parents didn’t put away didly squat for my education, and I managed to make it to college just fine. In the US, at least, there’s no way that you can’t go to college because of lack of money. There are so many loans/scholarships/etc. etc. out there that anyone can go to school. Yeah, you might come out the other side with some loans to pay off, but it’s not a big deal to get a job once you have a degree. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?

Sure, if I find myself with extra money and college aged children, I’ll help ‘em out. But I’m not going to impoverish myself so that lil’ Muffy can go to Bennington.

6

Athena,

The way college costs have been rising, people who have to apply for aid today are probably going to walk away with more loans and graduate with higher debt that previous generations did. That trend might continue. There has already been some speculation (and evidence) that student loans affect students’ choice of major and career, and might be deterring some students from attending at all. Also, higher costs may mean that working while in school doesn’t pay for as much as it used to.

That said, however, you’re somewhat right because the current funding formula in effect “punishes” parents who save. If you have college savings, you appear less needy and your package will be smaller. If they reduce the loan amount, that’s fine, but if they reduce the grant amount, then the student/family is worse off than they would be if they’d never saved a DIME.

As for the OP, I think we live in a culture where what you have (or can afford to do) is more important that who you are. We pass that on (alas) to our kids. It also might be guilt at work here–people might lack confidence about their parenting or the quality time they get to spend, so making a huge effort in one area (buying expensive toys, a car, hard-to-get-tickets) makes them feel they’ve compensated. Just speculation on my part…but I know that some of the memberships we’ve bought (the zoo, the hands-on-museum, the petting farm, art association classes) may have been my way of compensating for similar guilts. I mean, as far as my kid is concerned, a trip to the park (free!) is as good as any of those things. But I feel like I’ve shelled out money and we’re going to someplace “special” so I pat myself on the back.

7

I don’t have kids, but one of my nieces is 11. Her parents have put over half million in an educational trust for her. She’ll never have to worry about money. But on the other hand, she works as a mother’s helper for a neighbor and buys many of her toys herself. She doesn’t have a Nintendo or Sega. Her mom buys many of her clothes at consignment sales, and she sells her outgrown toys at the same sales. She gets to go places like the zoo or the movies, but she does seem to appreciate all that she’s given. When she had birthday parties they were generally a pool party with some craft thing for the little girls to do. Her classmates had limos picking up the kids and taking them to movies and a restaurant. She’s never complained that she didn’t have everything the other kids have, and when her granmother offered to buy her a pair of Skeechers tennis shoes, she said she’d rather get something that was a better deal, because they were over-priced. My sister and her husband are doing something right. (Of course, the teen years are just around the corner. Watch out!)

StG

8

Hmmm…

I just checked my college’s Web site. The University of Minnesota charges $2700/semester for 13 or more credits, ie, full time college. That’s $5400/year for tuition. IIRC, when I went there, the cost was about $1400 for full-time tuition, and at the time, it was on a quarterly system. 3 quarters = 2 semester. So that’s $4200 for full time tuition.

The other university I attended currently charges about $4200 for a full year of tuition and fees. Both of these prices are for in-state tuition, and it goes up considerably if you’re out of state. That was the case when I went to school as well.

Certainly, costs have gone up in the fourteen years since I was in college. But they don’t seem to have gone up unreasonably, and I managed to get through school without owing a huge amount of money. My parents were going through financial problems at the time, and did not finance my tuition nor living expenses besides the occasional gift or bag of groceries.

Neither of these universities are top notch schools; however, they aren’t a waste of money, either. I’m not saying it’s not expensive to go to Harvard or other top end schools. However, an education can be had to just about anyone who really wants it. Lack of money is no excuse not to get a degree.

Another example: I had a good friend who found herself pregnant in 1992. She had her baby, and entered college as a single parent in about 1994 or so. She managed to support herself and her child while going to school full time and graduating in 1998. That ain’t too long ago, and I know for a fact that she had no parental help.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pay for your kid’s college if you can afford it. But I’ve been to plenty of financial advisors who use the “you gotta pay for your kid’s college!” thing as a big scary reason why I have to start investing NOW, even though I have no children.

I certainly hope I’m going to be in a financial situation to help my kids with college, if I ever have kids. But I feel absolutely no obligation to do so.

(yeah, I know this is all speculative evidence. And if I do have kids, I’ll probably turn into one of the people who decide at birth that lil’ Athenetta is goin’ to Harvard and I’m payin’ for it. But until then, I get to rant!)

9

My grandparents have very generously set aside money for college for me and my brother. I really appreciate this. As for getting a new car when I can drive, one of the following will happen:

  1. I will not get a car, and have to keep driving my parents’.
  2. I will get my mother’s old minivan.
  3. My parents will realize how much my mother’s old minivan hates me, and that it and I are a really awful pair, and buy a used car.
10

My grandparents have very generously set aside money for college for me and my brother. I really appreciate this. As for getting a new car when I can drive, one of the following will happen:

  1. I will not get a car, and have to keep driving my parents’.
  2. I will get my mother’s old minivan.
  3. My parents will realize how much my mother’s old minivan hates me, and that it and I are a really awful pair, and buy a used car.

I know that I will not get a new car.

11

My grandparents have very generously set aside money for college for me and my brother. I really appreciate this. As for getting a new car when I can drive, one of the following will happen:

  1. I will not get a car, and have to keep driving my parents’.
  2. I will get my mother’s old minivan.
  3. My parents will realize how much my mother’s old minivan hates me, and that it and I are a really awful pair, and buy a used car.

I know that I will not get a new car.

12

The thing I don’t understand is how some parents spend every moment shuttling one kid or another to this lesson or that practice or that activity. My sister’s life revolves around her kids and their games and rehearsals. She and her husband seem to be living for the kids. I can’t imagine!

We set a rule early for our Perfect Child[sup]TM[/sup] - she could only do one extracurricular activity at a time, because Mom and Dad did not exist to drive her around. Over the years, she’s tried ballet and tap, gymnastics, piano lessons, 4-H, and softball. At most, it would require me to drive her twice a week, and the rest of the time, she amused herself or hung out with her friends.

Now that she can drive herself, the main determinant is her report card. If the grades fall, the activites start to go away. She’s learned to pick and choose, budget her time, decide what matters and what doesn’t. And yes, she has her own car and yes, it’s new - it wasn’t planned that way - she wasn’t supposed to get the car till she went away to college, but stuff happened and she got it early. She pays her share of the insurance, all of her gas and maintenance, and she runs errands for me. She’s most definitely not spoiled. She only smells that way when she hasn’t showered. :smiley:

And thanks to Florida Prepaid College Program, her tuition is covered for 4 years - costing us all of $35/month since she was 2 or so until she graduates. Good deal, I think. My grandfather left her enough to cover books, at least for a couple of years, and my grandmother’s diamond ring will cover the rest of the expenses, I hope. Then she’s on her own, and she knows it.

13

My parents always gave me the basics, I never went hungry of had poor-fitting clothes. I never needed for anything–they took care of it.
Except, they made me start working when I was 14.
Except, they made me buy my own car.
Except, they expected me to pay for anything “extra” I wanted–if I didn’t absolutely need it, I bought it myself.
Except, they expected me to keep an A average.
Except, they made it very clear that I would pay for my own college.
Except, I paid for a goodly portion of my wedding.
So, here I am today, barely turned 20, married, going to a top notch school which costs 19,500/yr (of which, I’m paying only 4000), living in my own apartment in a great neighborhood well on my way to a happy, successful life.
So, I have to thank them for treating me like an adult when I was still a kid, even thoughI resented them for at the time.

14

I don’t have kids, but have babysat many of them, and have spent more than enough time with family members’ kids to know that the young’uns have too much of everything and appreciate almost nothing.
I had a thread some time ago about kids’ elaborate birthday parties. Well, how about multiple parties? My cousin’s kid had
four birthday celebrations this summer–one with her dad’s family, one with her best little friends for a sleepover, one with her classmates, and another involving a trip to Vegas. She’s eight years old. Her entire life is cheerleading, girl scouts, parties, trips to amusement parks, lots of TV and videos, tons of toys and clothes, and so on. (Get this: her mom complains about how she is spoiled and demanding. Hmmmm…I wonder how she got that way? :rolleyes:
My nieces aren’t quite as bad, but they do have a ton of stuff, and whatever one has, the other has to have as well. The older one got a cat, so the younger one demanded and got one too.

  It's no longer a surprise to me.
15

I think that these parents are just trying to outdo their peers. To bad in the process they are creating monsters!

16

Regarding college:

I have 15 year old twins and I worried and fretted over how we were going to pay for college. They have the grades and the drive, but where would the money come from. My husband and I did save some money, but no where near enough to pay for it and no matter how hard they worked they would never be able to afford any of their choices.

My son wants to go away so he dreams of Florida Tech-- one year tuition, room and board $26,700. MIT was another-- 9 month’s tuition; $26,960, room (no board): $7500.

My daughter wants to stay close to home, so room and board would be, well, free. Her picks-- NYU: $26,646; Barnard, $25,270.

We were quite frank with them. We can’t afford it. It was either CUNY-- $3200 a year-- SUNY, much the same or start cracking those books and pray for a huge scholarship.
If I could have afforded to pay for something better I would have and it would not have crossed my mind that I was “spoling” them. A car seems a bit much to me but some parents think a car is as essential as I believe college to be.

The spoiling comes, I think, when the kids expect their parents to do these things. Some children have an inflated sense of entitlement that their parents rush to re-enforce and validate. It’s not what they get, but how they get it.

17

You realize that those schools are ridiculously cheap compared to most, though, don’t you? And I’m not talking about private colleges, either, my tuition and so on came to $12,000 a year (granted $2000/yr or so was room and board- I lived 150 miles from the school my 1st 3 years) by my senior year- at a public state university. IICR out-of-state kids paid $18,000 a year. That was three years ago, and in-state tuition has been inceased every year for the past ten, so my little brother, who is a freshman, is paying even more, although he’s commuting this semester so he doesn’t have housing costs.

I worked my butt off and got some grants and scholarships, but I still owe nearly what it would cost to attend all four years at first school you mentioned. I’m amazed I managed to pay off nearly half of it while I was a student, considering my parents weren’t in a financial state to help pay for it. It’s rather disheartening to graduate from a state school already $23,000 in debt.

18

Some kids grow up and seem to expect these things. I don’t know where the money comes from as I see kids in some high dollar machines. I want to give my kids all that I can but they must earn it to get it and to keep it. There is just no way that I can afford the college rates that are quoted above and still pay my mortgage. I don’t know what we are going to do when that time comes.

19

If you’re going to school in the same city,living at home, and don’t have a car, take a bus. Screw the room and board. I don’t know why some teens thinks it’s “cool” to have the whole dorm experience. $45.00 a month for a bus pass saves you alot of money.
I can’t believe my friend’s mom gave her their newest car to drive an hour to school and back every day, sometimes twice a day (it’s an SUV ontop of it). Not to mention her car-pooling friend complains and skips school if she doesn’t get a ride. Taking things for granted a little too much?

Speaking of the ungrateful friend, her family is well off, spent too much on their credit cards though (because they just HAVE to have Teak furniture in their house), and have a bit of debt to pay off. Her family is paying for her school which I don’t know the price of, but it’s not cheap. Her dad has taken up a second job to pay for her tuition and she’s missed 5 classes for stupid reasons. And it’s only been 3 weeks. That’s what I call a selfish brat. How dare someone even think of doing that, especially when she’s trying to get in pharmacy. I’m betting $1000.00 she’s not going to get into that and has wasted $8000.00+ of her parents money.

My parents have set aside saving bonds for me (I think there’s $1500 or something) and my grandparents gave me another $1500 worth of bonds for my school. So I’m lucky for that much, as well as I’m part Metis so that helps somewhat for my schooling costs. It’s kind of a must still to take out a loan, as much as I want to avoid it. I think it’s true with the price of schooling and people’s choices being cut short because of the costs. I wanted to do something in the psychology feild, but that won’t happen unless I win the lottery. I’m scared shitless of going to school because of the money involved. And with the choice of career I want, I don’t know if it will pay off in the end (interior designing, or graphic designing).

As some of you have read my thread called “what’s wrong with me?” (Have you noticed my typing?) and how I was a spoiled brat and how I get cut off of everything when I’m 18. Since I am now 18, I’ve gotten a job, and have paid for all the little things I used to get from my parents (gas, make-up, clothes, etc). I actually enjoy buying my own things. I don’t have to wait till their pay-day, or when they go to the store to pick me up anything. I go when I want, when I need it. I seem to have whipped myself into survival mode instead of living off my parents (my car payment to my Dad is another story). I’ve gotten a budget going, paying off debt’s with people, and I’m forcing myself to freeze to death because I can’t afford shoes or a jacket for another 4 weeks.

I find it completely stupid of parents to buy their kids brand new cars (ei, cavaliers, sunfires which seem to be the most popular because they’re apparently “cheap”). You get them started off thinking the only cars they should own are brand new ones, so they waste years of paying monthly for leased cars because they can’t afford to actually purchase it. And because kids are retarded when it comes to driving for a few years, they end up crashing and destroying it.

I completely agree with parents making raising children such a competition between each other. Everyone wants to come out as the super mom and dad of their neighbourhood.

20

Being a residential student is not just about being “cool.” However, I don’t want to hijack this thread utterly.

But trust me on this one.