Worried about your retirement accounts? Help Your Child Become Financially Independent.

I wrote this article for Career Counseling Connecticut.

“We are still paying for David’s apartment.”

Jim and Cindy, two parents from Old Lyme, CT, noted.  “We are now seeing how this hurts our retirement planning.”

David had a series of jobs in his twenties but no defined career.  Having not graduated college, he followed the path of waiter-bartender-restaurant manager that some do in their early twenties.

In part, because the money is solid for a young adult, they often drift a bit too long.  Assuming that the restaurant business is not their career path, they wind up like David, not making enough to be fully independent and sometimes needing emergency assistance.

Recent articles on how many young New Yorkers require financial help from their parents, as well as the more common articles on failure to launch, illustrate the epidemic.

Back in our day….I laugh, knowing how I sound.  But “our parents” – just a generation before – would not “tolerate this nonsense.”

Not my words or sensibility.  I sympathize with parents helping their adult children in all ways.

But… teach a man to fish.

That’s where we come in.  We can help your child become financially independent by finding a career path that pays the bills and hopefully more.

That money – the 500-1500 or more – that you have been sending each month will now go into your retirement accounts.

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If you are a Learning Consultants client, you likely have a high school age student and might not be thinking too much about your child’s financial independence.

Sorry to say, but you should.

The work world has changed in the last 15 years.  Quite radically.

The drifting, unfocused high school student, so common throughout history, often sorted things out in college or soon thereafter.

Today, not so much.

These students often have rougher landings in college and drop out.

The chatter about “college not mattering” is CRAZY.

I say this as someone who routinely suggests to many young adults that they should consider the trades and the military.

Those who don’t go to college or drop out of college without a plan (such as the trades/military/genuine business venture), even due to the sensible reason that they don’t want to waste their parents’ money, usually flounder in their twenties.  Yes, I am well aware of outliers.

But given my work and my extensive reading on the subject, I assure you that 95% simply do not become financially independent and/or live with a bunch of guys eating ramen and smoking weed through their twenties.

Help your children do well in school.  They will character that will lead to financial independence and help you with your retirement plans.