The guilt of being a Bank of Mum & Dad who can’t pay out: Divorced mother reveals why she envies parents who can afford to help their children financially
- Marion McGilvary, 60, claims she can’t afford to help her children financially
- She is concerned over where she will live as well as where her children will live
- She claims none of her four children can afford their own place in London
- She was helped by her own parents when buying a car and given a nest egg
- Marion shared the guilt of not being able to give the help she recieved
Sad but true: none of my four children will be able to buy a place of their own in London.
When I mentioned this to one of my colleagues the other day, she looked aghast: ‘But can’t you help?’ I almost choked on my coffee.
It’s not that I don’t want to help my children climb on the property ladder, or that I wouldn’t saw off both arms for them, if me being armless would provide them with a home of their own. It’s simply that I just can’t afford it.
This branch of the Bank of Mum and Dad has collapsed due to insufficient funds. It’s not open for business for more than the smallest unrepaid loans.
It feels very selfish not to be able to give them a leg up, especially as every one else seems to be doing it. I have other friends with fewer children and steady marriages who can do just that — and I admit I’m envious.
Marion McGilvary, 60, (pictured) claims she can’t afford to help any of her four children climb the property ladder. She shared the guilt of having insufficient funds in the bank of mum and dad
Figures out earlier this year show the Bank of Mum and Dad will have doled out more than £5.7bn to children in 2018 and are now the 12th biggest mortgage lenders in Britain.
But, as a 60-year-old divorcee nearing retirement, I’m just as worried about where I’m going to live, as where my kids will end up. My youngest child, 26, still lives at home and can’t afford to move out. Who wants to still be house-sharing in their 30s? I had a mortgage and four kids by then.
If I could have stayed happily hitched it might all have been so different. The mortgage on the house we bought in West London all those years ago is finally paid off, and the house is for sale. Its value has increased dramatically. It’s on the market for £750,000. In another era we would have been swanning around in a pink Cadillac, drinking champagne.
If all had been well in the marriage of mum and dad, this is the moment we might have been able to dole something out to the kids, both to avoid death duties, and give them a bit towards a deposit.
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But instead, the proceeds are being divided with the ex-husband; we both get half — which is a nice sum if you want to live in rural France, but not so great if you want to be within commuting distance of London — and split any surplus four ways.
It certainly doesn’t leave anything over to ‘buy’ myself a grandchild by providing some cash for a two-bedroom flat.
My guilt is compounded by the fact that I benefitted greatly from the Bank of Mum and Dad myself. My parents were sound working class people of slender means, who nevertheless saved throughout their lives and were able to help me often with money — to buy my first and third car, and leave me a small nest egg, which gave me a boost at a time in my life when I needed it.
As a result, I’ve been financially independent most of my life. I left home and moved to Oxford at 17, where I worked as a librarian. I lived a peripatetic existence in a succession of grotty bedsits with no heat and shared houses with one-bar electric fires, powered by meters I was too poor to feed. I could have moved back to Scotland, but it was too late to go back to rural West Lothian — my life had changed. As a girl, all I wanted was a place to call my own, so naturally that’s something I wish for my children, too.
Marion (pictured) revealed the house she shared with her husband didn’t come from her own efforts in saving but from the generosity of her husband’s parents
In the end I got the two-up-two-down, but through no effort of my own. My husband’s parents gave us the deposit — a generous third of its total value.
However, that was 35 years ago, and times have changed. I could no more come up with the equivalent today than run for President and beat Donald Trump.
Property prices are just plain bonkers in most metropolitan areas, with London leading the madness — the average deposit on a starter home is now £114,952. That’s all my retirement money.
‘How did you even manage to save?’ asked my 29-year-old son incredulously the other day. He and his wife both have MAs and work hard for charities, but earn modest sums. Like many young graduates these days, most of their joint salary goes in rent for a bijou residence in North-West London.
I’m not sure how I ended up in this position. I’ve put away my pennies as instructed by my Presbyterian parents and have managed to pass on the theory of saving for a rainy day, but living in London, I can’t see a way for them to put it into practice.
Meanwhile, though I have savings, after years of child-rearing, housewifery, part-time and freelance jobs, no pension and nothing from the State until I’m 68 (so another eight years to go), what little I’ve got in the bank is all that keeps me from the fear of having to eat cat-food in my old age — or at least a lot of Tesco Economy Baked Beans.
Marion (pictured) says the only financial advice she would give her children is ‘Get out of town’ and that she also intends to leave London
OK I’m slightly exaggerating. I’ve made what sensible precautions I can on my limited income. I just have to ensure I don’t live too long.
I have had a comfortable and privileged life. As have my children. But, even with this, I don’t have much surplus to give the same helping hand to them that I had from my parents.
For many of my peers with grown up kids, the Bank of Mum and Dad just doesn’t have the same sort of funds at its disposal as is generally assumed. My family have had a good education and some, at least, have a roof over their head and are not looking for any help or handouts from me. Still, I want to help.
In this uncertain world I want to see them secure. I want them to put down roots — and yes, feel settled enough to start their own families.
My father had the strong conviction that he didn’t want any of us to wait till he was dead before we got any money. He wanted to give us financial help when we needed it. I’d like to do the same, but beyond the odd takeaway and lump sum in times of difficulty, my purse strings are tied.
I inherited my parents’ thrift and a fear of debt. My mother wouldn’t buy on HP, or even from mail-order catalogues. As a result, I’m the only person I know who doesn’t use a credit card (which means, perversely, my credit rating is non-existent.)
And my children can stretch a pound till it squeals, and know how to live well for not very much, but they are still in debt, saddled with student loans as are most of their friends.
The only sort of financial advice I’d give to my kids is, ‘Get out of town’, which is what I intend to do myself when I retire. But then their jobs are here.
Of course, if I did buy the farmhouse in France, they could all live with me. They love me, yes, but possibly not that much.
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