The big question parents need to ask themselves is whether their kids will support them in their old age if they bankrupt themselves supporting the kids' needs. (Photo: Shutterstock)
It's a bad move, say financial experts, but parents are doing it anyway—helping out the kids at the cost of their own financial security, including retirement.
According to a study from Merrill Lynch, not only are 90 percent of parents surprised at how much more money they've spent since they had kids, they just don't stop spending that way even after the kids are grown.
In fact, parents are acting more like banks or cash machines than parents, with 79 percent providing support of some kind to grown children. Yet the average cost of raising a child to age 18 these days is estimated to be more than $230,000.
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
