Tea at Trianon: Adult Children May Be Sapping Their Parents' Retirement Funds

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Adult Children May Be Sapping Their Parents' Retirement Funds

From Employee Benefit News:

Parents are attempting to push their adult children out of the nest — but they’re not budging, and it’s coming at a cost. At the peak of the pandemic, 52% of young adults between 18-24 years old moved back in with their parents, according to data from the Pew Research Center. But more than two years later, 40% of parents are still hosting their adult child in their home, and in many cases, financially supporting them. The rising cost of rent, along with the need for financial support, are the top reasons young adults are struggling to make it on their own. Yet parental support may be threatening the financial security of older generations, especially when it comes to their nest egg for retirement.
“A lot of parents were in the sandwich generation, where they were taking care of older parents while also caring for their younger children,” says Delvin Joyce, a financial planner at Prudential. “Now, their parents are getting older and their health is fading, and their older kids are moving back into the house. It's having a compounding effect on the lack of preparedness for retirement, because people are feeling pressured to reach into their retirement savings for their younger kids as they move back in.” (Read more.)