Financial divide in a family: How parents and adult children can recognise and resolve it
When I spoke to the son, who is already an engineer working in a large city and earning well, his story was very different. He was disillusioned with the education system that his parents put him through. He knew they were doing their best, and that they acted in his best interest, but he was unwilling to continue what he did not enjoy.
The four years of staying away from home, working and living independently had significantly changed his outlook on life.
He was now a voracious reader, an avid trekker, an involved cook and a gym rat, and had a large circle of friends. He wished his growing years had focused on these things that bring him so much joy and sense of accomplishment. He wanted to make up for the lost time.
To give up his job and go back to school meant giving up his independence and learning something formally, for which he had already lost interest.
The difficulty was in telling the parents that he now liked to live life on his terms. The parents remained anxious and he saw that as needless negative energy. They wanted him to pursue a path they had planned for him— higher studies, settling abroad, marrying a girl of their choice, buying a house, and having kids.
None of this appealed to him. The parents refused to see his point of view.
There are four personal finance problems to solve here. The first is about the allocation of corpus that the parents have accumulated to send him abroad and to get him married with pomp and style.
Since the money has been earmarked for him, the parents are unwilling to allocate it to anything else. The son believes he could use the money to start a venture on the side. The parents believe it is too risky.
The second is about the income of the household.
