The Life You Keep

Note, this was originally started back in November, but unfinished until now.

Interesting little discussion going on over at the NYT's Room for Debate. The original article was commenting on the call to extend the ability for parents to cover their childrens' insurance beyond the college years. This issue has come alive in part due to the increasing trend of adult children going back home to live with parents (dubbed "boomerang" offspring, since they come back after you throw them out). Explanations for this phenomenon range from cultural norms to financial practicality, to broader economic difficulties, to the tendency for extended adolescence, to increasing materialism in developed countries.

A few of my own friends had graduated from school, only to un-empty their parent's nests for various reasons. Personally, this would have never worked for me. My parents aren't as into paid escorts, gambling, and sleeping until 2pm as I am, and things may have gotten awkward, as for the third day in a row, I try to shuffle a different "date" out the door at 2 in the afternoon, after a night of decadence. But I'd suggest that the notion of cutting the purse strings completely is a very independent, very individualistic, very American notion. In many cultures living with one's family until you were married (and even living in the same family "compound" afterward) was/is pretty normal. Now, modern lifestyles have made living together physically difficult, even in very interdependent, very collectivist cultures. People go where jobs take them.

However the financial linkages between parent and child are often still very alive. For example I consider myself to be very independent, particularly with regard to my finances. And I've also realized that my view of material goods lean towards Spartan (though not excessively so - I drive a '99 Toyota Camry, a fine car, but I also realized that the undergrad RA's that I have hired all drive nicer cars than I do). But over the years, as different major issues have come up, my parents have been gracious enough to help with things like the closing costs on my house, and giving me two cars while I was in school (note, in fairness, I was in school for a really, really long time). In that sense, it's been very comforting to know that any financial concern of less than, say, low 5-figures wasn't going to be much of a problem. What I think is interesting is that conventional wisdom in American culture is that this would result in an entitled brat. Now, I'm not suggesting that I am anything but an entitled brat, but I think that the reason for this is that I'm smarter than everyone else, not because I'm richer than everyone else. Certainly, I think that the structure of the financial help matters. For example, having an ongoing line of credit w/out any accountability could be much more problematic than giving money based on specific episodes, with discussions attached to each episode.

But what I think is more interesting is that I believe that there's a cultural linkage to the outcome of whether or not financial help from a parent leads to negative results (like a sense of entitlement, irresponsible fiscal behavior, excessive materialism), or are positive (offering a sense of security, promoting responsible fiscal behavior, having an appropriate view of material goods).

Over the years, I'd guess that my parents have given as much assistance to me as they have to my younger brothers'. I think that it's interesting that we have very different perspectives towards this. Until about a year and a half ago, my parents were helping out my brother on a regular basis, and he still had a credit card that was billed to my parents. You could describe this as more of an ongoing support. And he lived on that credit card and that line of credit so that he was living the same lifestyle as he was when he was living at home. My brother's view is generally, "of course they should be helping me out - we're family." And you could easily argue that this is a very Asian (interdependent, collectivist) view of the world. I wouldn't call my brother fiscally irresponsible, but he definitely has more/better stuff than I do and is a bit freer with his spending than I am, especially once you factor in our difference in income (he's a teacher in public schools, whereas I'm rich, bitch).

The way in which my parents supported me was somewhat similar until I started grad school, and I had gotten my own income. During those undergrad days, though I think that my perspective was a little different. Though I fully understood that I was unable to pay for my needs (like tuition, rent, utilities, and even my groceries), I sort of disliked the idea of depending on my parents too much for things that were "wants" (like my paid escorts, my gambling, etc.). So, my spending on those activities were always minimal. You'd probably describe me as having that American ethos, where you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Once I started having my own income, I cut up the credit card that was linked to my parents, and tried to take over as many payments as quickly as possible, to the point where I really did describe myself as independent financially from my parents in grad school. That is, until things like car accidents emerged. Or my mother wanted to give me some money to fully fund an IRA contribution. What happened was that the help that my parent's gave me was viewed in terms of helping me through particular events, and not something that was a given. And I'd argue that if you had to compare between myself and my brother, that I'm definitely less materialistic, feel less entitlement, and am a little more fiscally responsible.

What I think really drives this is how our cultural perspectives fit in with the norms and values of the society as a whole. I think that my views toward finances are more in line with the norms of American culture, whereas my brother's were more collectivist/interdependent. And I suspect that the way in which I perceived the assistance that my parents gave (as being event-based) was different than the way in which my brother perceived his assistance (as being ongoing). This leads to a couple questions. The first is what happens when you change the style of assistance (i.e., give me ongoing assistance, and give my brother event-based assistance), given our cultural perspectives. The next level question is to ask what happens when you change the setting, so that it's still me and my brother with our cultural perspectives, but you change the societal norms. Then how does the style of the assistance change the effects on us as people?

My suspicion is that if you were to take this across a large sample, you'd see that they way in which financial assistance is offered affects people differently, depending on their cultural perspectives. However, I'm not entirely sure the direction of the change (i.e., would giving me ongoing assistance make me more or less materialistic than I would have otherwise been), though I have a suspicion that the level of cognitive dissonance associated with this would have been a key factor, with decreases in cognitive dissonance reinforcing the things that you already believe, and increases in cognitive dissonance stymieing those processes.

In any case, at this point, I'm sort of geeking out in a social psychology kind of way, so I'll end things here. But the point was that how we process information (in this case the message that is sent by receiving assistance from our parents) influences/is influenced by our personal beliefs and how they fit into societal norms. So, it's not necessarily a good or bad thing that people are moving back in with their parents, but how it's happening is going to affect things greatly.

-Chairman