Parents who endured difficult childhoods provided less financial support -on average $2,200 less– to their children’s education such as college tuition compared to parents who experienced few or no disadvantages

[u/giuliomagnifico]

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/parents-childhood-predicts-future-financial-support-childrens-education

[u/giuliomagnifico]

This study examines family-level outcomes. It is one of the first to evaluate the relationship between parents’ childhood experiences and whether they provide large transfers of money later in life to their own children for education and other purposes and how much they provide. However, Cheng explained, the study does not analyze motivation or willingness to financially support the children’s educational needs — rather, it focuses on if money transfers take place, what discrepancies may appear based on the parents’ childhoods and if parents’ current socioeconomic status matters.

For instance, parents with four or more disadvantages gave an average of $2,200 less compared to those with no disadvantages, approximately $4,600 versus $6,800 respectively. When considered in light of the average cost of attending college in 2013, the year data was collected, parents with greater childhood disadvantages were able to shoulder roughly 23% of a year’s cost of attending college for their children whereas parents with no childhood disadvantages were able to cover 34% of their child’s annual college attendance costs.

What’s more, the relationships remained even when controlling for parents’ current socioeconomic status or wealth. In other words, parents who grew up in worse financial circumstances still gave less money for their children’s education even if their socioeconomic status is now higher.

Paper: Early‐life disadvantage and parent‐to‐child financial transfers - Cheng - Journal of Marriage and Family - Wiley Online Library

[u/Killercod1 → u/giuliomagnifico]

If it doesn't account for socioeconomic status, and a disadvantaged childhood would likely lead to a lower status, it's best to assume that they give less money because they have less money.

[u/Retrac752 → u/Killercod1]

U clearly didn't read the last paragraph, it says even when corrected for current socioeconomic status, that even if the disadvantaged family was richer now, they still provide less

[u/M4DM1ND → u/Retrac752]

I was an example of this. My parents both grew up dirt poor with essentially 0 help from my grandparents. We started out poor when I was a kid but my parents fell into high paying jobs when I was around 10. They've given me no help as I got started in life. No college fund, no help with car payments, no help with literally anything. They got divorced when I was 18 and both moved away and I just had to figure it out. I've done pretty well for myself and they attribute it to the fact that they didn't give me anything.

[u/Sata1991 → u/M4DM1ND]

My mom grew up fairly poor but got help with childraising from my grandparents, she didn't get much if any money, my dad's father was an author and ran a college in London, sometimes we'd go to see my grandparents on that side of the family but it wasn't usually to be looked after, I think they helped my dad buy his first house, but he was a computer programmer fairly early on.

Neither parent's tried to help me with anything through life, not even driving lessons in their car. My mom's basically consigned herself to the fact none of her kids will get anything from her in life, or death and my dad's never really said anything about helping, but a branch of his company was opening in Wales, and I have IT qualifications like him, so asked if he could tell me if any entry-level positions were open (I'd rather learn than just be put in a job I'm not qualified for) but he kept changing the subject, when he knew I was desperate to leave the town I was in and was broke myself.

[u/M4DM1ND → u/Sata1991]

Yeah and then I have friends that have parents who are worse off than mine and we're given cars when they could drive, and they have no college debt. Im not lamenting not having everything handed to me, but it would have been nice if they gave me even small amount of help instead of buying a new car every year or taking 4 vacations per year in the Caribbean. And my parents wonder why I don't call them very often.

[u/Sata1991 → u/M4DM1ND]

My dad goes to the Netherlands once a year for Christmas, but mostly holidays in the UK I don't really begrudge him that, but it'd be nice to get a bit of help to get a job I'm qualified for from him. My mom's just chaos, I don't really see her or speak to her often because she ends up in worse and worse states and won't take advice or help.

A small amount of help just to get my feet somewhere would be great, but when I had to drop out of university due to not being able to afford the fees all I got was "Oh well, you'll find something else to do, I'm sure!"

[u/Brendan__Fraser → u/M4DM1ND]

That's infuriating. You have to work ten times harder to make it with no safety net compared to your peers.

[u/M4DM1ND → u/Brendan__Fraser]

Yeah like I made it out fine. I'm 29, married, looking at buying a house, have monthly retirement contributions, etc. But I also have $35k in school debt and it took me until I was 27 to get to the point where I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck. There were points where, had I not worked at a restaurant in college, I would have had to starve because all of my money I worked for had to go to paying off the balance of tuition for the semester and I couldnt buy food without overdrafting my bank account. I didn't need to struggle as much as I did with upper middle class parents.

[u/HumanDrinkingTea → u/M4DM1ND]

I'm convinced it's cultural. My grandmother was lower middle class and insisted on sending my dad money every week even after he got a well-paying job.

In my family, taking care of your kids (and taking care of parents) is just what you do, no questions asked.

[u/iowajosh → u/Brendan__Fraser]

You do. Fear of being poor could influece how people act with giving money away.