Crogglement

[feuervogel]

Thanks to a conversation on twitter, I know I'm not the only person who feels this way; I'm just wondering how common it is.

I'm completely croggled that people casually assume or casually state that they'll be getting some sort of inheritance when their parents die. I've never assumed I'd get anything other than debt to pay off or possessions to sell off when my parents die. At least my mom's house is almost paid for; no idea about dad's. (And another comment on twitter reminds me that someone's got to pay for the funerals...)

To copy and paste someone's comment to a friend's post (completely without attribution and with some paraphrasing/editing), this is what sparked this line of thought:

There's also a sense of "it's spending down the inheritance either way; this way's just time-shifted". I trust my parents to have a good sense of their financial planning and what they intended to leave me, and if they happen to want to transfer some of that to me now rather than later, that's fine.

My mom doesn't buy me stuff. She stopped even sending me money at Christmas and my birthday a few years ago. She had to do two major home repairs last summer (ac/heat and water heater both died at the same time), and her tight budget got even tighter. I honestly don't know if she has a retirement savings plan, or if the United Methodist Church even offers one for their secretaries, or even if they did, if she'd have enough income to be able to split off a hundred bucks here or there to save up. (She's a blasted SECRETARY. For a CHURCH. If she makes more than 30k (or equivalent for the DC-Metro area), I'd be astonished.) The only thing I expect to receive from her is the treadle-powered Singer, which is what I told her I wanted when she asked when she made her will. If I'm still in this country, anyway. (It would be really cool if I could figure out how to get it to work, because it has feet useful for old-fashioned clothesmaking, like piping.)

Dad does buy me stuff sometimes, usually alcoholic beverages on the rare occasions we see each other. I have no idea what his financial situation is like. I assume not very good, because he's never been good at saving, and he's an owner-operator (that is, truck driver). I don't think you get 401(k)s with those jobs. He's got his truck and his house, which together could fetch probably half a million*, though I don't know what of that his girlfriend co-owns.

*Truck resale value depends on the age of the truck, mileage on the engine, and how fancy the sleeper area is. His has a huge bed (2 bunks, I think), a kitchenette, and a lav with shower.

Anyway, it just boggles my mind that people casually mention things like inheritance. Is it just me? Is it a product of my working class upbringing?

Comments

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

My parents are about equivalent to yours, and yeah, I don't expect much past having to sell their houses, which I doubt would go well. Though they do both have life insurance for the funerals. They save for end of life care, not me.

[feuervogel]

I have no idea what my mom has for life insurance, etc. My sister is (physically and emotionally) closer, so she might. My mom may have finally paid off her husband's final medical bills and final expenses, so I think she got rather a shock from that and may have started saving more.

Here via the network

[devilc]

It's a middle class thing, and it's kind of a bad thing, because these days, I know people who assume that of course Mom/Dad/Auntie/Uncle etc. aren't going to blow through that money or won't have a problem that depletes all the resources, and they spend money accordingly. I think the assumption of inheritances comes from a time of a healthier economy and cheaper medical coverage. Also, more and more people are starting to outlive their savings due to better medical technology.

I've already come into a modest inheritance (property) when my mother passed suddenly, but when both grandparents died, I got (and expected) nothing more than some personal keepsakes. When my dad goes (which will happen sometime in the next 20 years), I expect nothing more than some personal keepsakes.

Re: Here via the network

[feuervogel]

Those are good, interesting points. A lot of things in society have changed a lot even since I was a kid (back in the 70s and 80s) that make the assumptions our parents made less valid than they used to be.

(I like network commenters! I get them so rarely.)

[miome]

I just wanted to mention, since you were talking about inheriting debt - not sure if you were serious or not - but that doesn't happen in the US. As I understand it, when someone dies all their cash and property are put together into an estate, and that estate is used to pay off their outstanding debt. If there's anything left, it's distributed according to their will, or if there's no will then according to state law. If there isn't enough in the estate to pay off their creditors, the creditors are SOL. It's illegal for them to go after the persons heirs or family. Some try anyway, because if someone agrees to take of the debt, they immediately become responsible for it. It's a nasty trick that unfortunately works too often, and is prosecuted not often enough.

[feuervogel]

Ooh, I didn't know that. I don't expect my mom will have much debt (beyond whatever medical and funeral expenses she gets at the end), and her house will be paid off in a few years. Depending on where property values in WV go in the next 30ish years, and her final expenses, I may get some fraction of the proceeds of the home sale. I'm certainly not counting on it.

[ranyart]

Hmmm. I do not know my parents' financial situation exactly. An inheritance has never been talked about, and that's fine - it's not something I really want to think about now and I don't think I deserve money from them or should assume anything about the situation. I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of planning around things that will happen when my parents die. But probably I would get some money from them? Or their house?

In terms of talking about it... my parents raised me to pretty much never talk about my financial situation with anyone or accept financial help, because both are Bad Manners and Not Done. Which makes the fact that they're now well off and sometimes give me money that I don't need weird and uncomfortable on a few levels. I remember when they worried about money more and my mom had her coupon stash and this clicker-thing that added up her purchases as she went around the grocery store (I used to bug her so much to let me play with it but I almost never got to hold it) so she wouldn't go over budget, and I guess that's where those lessons came from.

[feuervogel]

I definitely wasn't raised not to accept financial help. We wouldn't have had a roof over our heads without our grandparents' assistance, especially when the furnace died or the roof sprang a leak. I was treated to my mom's complaints about dad's child support payments being inadequate to support us on her paycheck, and when he sent her the bill for some semi-emergency dental care while he had us with him, how she raged about that.

Not talking about finances is probably one of the major things that's completely fucked up my relationship to money. I don't really know how to budget; I can't convince Ben of the utility of budgeting (because his parents never had to worry about money, of course); I have the mindset of a poor person: I have money now, I can use it to buy the things I need, like fixing my car or replacing the broken window or whatever.

[ranyart]

I wonder if my parents were taught not to accept help from their parents? I think both of them grew up in homes where they were just barely getting by. I've heard some of those details but not many. I do know their financial situation was pretty dire right when they got married; I've heard some of those stories and I know it was a stressful time.
My dad has historically been very much a BOOTSTRAPS!!! sort of person; I think this may have changed a tiny bit, but I heard a lot of that when I was younger. Maybe you have to bootstrap yourself up and it's bad to have someone else help you? I don't know. It may have taken a while for that financial worry to go away, even when they were more comfortable. I don't even know exactly when that changed for them.

I saw that heirloom comment below; honestly, if I'm "expecting" anything from my parents, it would be some of my mom's Depression glass pieces. That would mean so much to me. I'm in favor of my parents taking care of themselves, helping my grandmother out when her health eventually gets worse, and doing whatever else they need to do. If I don't see any money from them in thirty years, that will be ok.

[feuervogel]

Well, the bootstraps myth is predicated solidly on "and I did it ALL by myself, without anyone else's help." I've long understood that if it weren't for my grandparents, I wouldn't have had new clothes or shoes (which we got at discount stores anyway). That's probably why the bootstraps/Rugged Individual myth makes me want to stab people: I know it's 98% shit. There's a small subset of people who actually DO manage to pull themselves up with minimal help from family--but did they have student loans and/or scholarships for college? Does that count as help? What about public high school?

The comments on lj are interesting, too.

[ranyart]

I've had a few conversations with my dad about privilege and the bootstrap idea, and his thinking is verrrry sloooowly changing. He isn't one of those people who's always yelling about hard work and bootstraps and never helping anyone else, but his personal idea of success is very tied to it, I think, and the concept of "it's good to work hard for what you want" was given to us in a pretty simple format when we were little. And I think that's a great thing to learn, sure, but it's so much more complicated than that as we know.
It's not something I discuss with him often, because we butt heads on it a bit, but I do think he's changing. I wonder what he would try to teach a little kid today.

[lian]

I don't know, actually -- I'm firmly middle class (2nd gen) but I don't expect to inherit anything* apart from my share of the house (which my parents will be looking to sell while they still live, anyway, and then live off the sale.) My parents assured me their debts would be settled tho, so that's good.

*my mom has a gorgeous pair of earrings I asked her about, but that's it.

[feuervogel]

That seems like a reasonable thing to me. Passing on heirlooms or mementoes is what I've always expected to happen, not some giant wad of cash.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

I think it must be some kind of middle upper class wishful thinking. I bet that most folks don't know just how freaking expensive it is to die, or what the reality of the older generation's money situation is.

My uncle passed last month; he owed my aunt for a short term loan she made him early this year. My mom told my aunt not to cash the check he post dated for her, because she (my mom) needed to pay off as much of his bills as possible. {She told me yesterday that one day in the ER, right at the end of his life, cost $39,000.}

I've always known that the only inheritance I'll get from my parents is in the form of stuff. My great great grandmother's salt cellar, the peddle organ, some other random heirlooms and whatnot. Things that are not to be sold or traded away for anything at all ever. But a big lump o money? Yeah, no.

It was a big deal that my mom found paperwork among my uncles stuff for a life insurance policy he purchased in 1976. If he paid on it, it'll be worth $20,000, and go to her. It's like, whoa. That's a surprise. And every penny of that will go to paying my parents bills, like their mortgage and car payments.

So, I suspect that a lot of people are living in a happy dream world where their parents have a lot of money just there, to help them out and leave them in a big vault they'll be able to swim in like Scrooge McDuck. There's this idea that our parents are better at this whole adulthood thing than we are, and that they'll take care of us after they're gone even. To which I say: ha. I wish.

[feuervogel]

Death is so much more expensive now than it used to be, especially because Americans are completely incapable of having a grown-up discussion about end-of-life care and whether a $30,000/day hospital bill is worth it. We're all obsessed with quantity of life, rather than quality. So people with horrible cancers get drugs that make them feel horrible to get an extra 6 weeks of life (after 6 months of feeling horrible from chemo). It's ridiculous. Spend that time with your family and OxyContin and relatively enjoy it. (Obviously, for cancers with good prognoses, the equation is different.)

This article is really interesting.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I have my grandma's pump treadle Singer. (I was the only one she taught to use it.)

Someday when I have a larger home I want to pull it out and remember how to use it.

[feuervogel]

My grandma never taught anyone how to use it. She got it at a yard sale in the 50s for like $5 then kept it around as an end table. I looked up the serial number once to see how old it was, but I can't find that email :P (And I suspect it was actually a scrap of paper.)

It's a Singer No 15, still has all its bobbins and feet. No idea about needles, though.

[luckykitty.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't speak for others, but I know my parents planned from the outset to make sure they had enough to take care of themselves barring something really horrible happening, at least until they are 90, and have also sat us down and told us what they have tried to set aside for us and how we are to take care of things after they pass away. But, they started out from the time they were married being very careful, saving, and consider it pretty much their top priority to save for "the next generation." I don't know if it is cultural, or what, and I do know they both worked very hard, planned very smart, and were very lucky.

When I was growing up we lived very lower-middle-class to poor, but as we've gotten older my parents have begun to live more upper middle class. Is it because in the beginning they were saving so much, and now they feel more comfortable and spend more (though they are still stingy)? Or because they're one of the success stories of actually raising yourself financially upwards? I don't know.

I just wish I could manage to follow their footsteps, because I only half-heartedly follow their financial advice, and I know my finances have suffered for that.

[feuervogel]

You at least have financial-planning footsteps to follow in! My mom never made enough to put much (if anything) away and keep our bills paid, so I know jack-all about finances. Money came in, money went right back out to the bank, the electric company, the city, the grocery stores... replacing the furnace when it sprang a leak, replacing the roof when it sprang a leak...

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

It's a completely foreign idea to me, too. Even if I did talk to my mother (I don't really like her, so I don't bother. She still gives me inexplicable Christmas gifts through my sister, which annoys me, but I haven't figured out a way of getting her to stop without being rude to my sister.), I wouldn't expect inheritance because she's very poor. I assume she still has a job as a social worker, but last time I checked was like ten years ago.

I think one of my fathers (my mother's ex-husband) is better off, but not significantly. I hear from him occasionally via e-mail and holiday card. The other one (my biological father) I haven't talked to since I was 13, so I have absolutely no idea what his situation is.

Anyway, my weird details are irrelevant. The point is: yes, I'm poor too, my family is poor, and the idea of inheritance is a thing that happens to other people.

[feuervogel]

I can't wrap my brain around the idea that there are people--people I know, people whose parents aren't named Hilton or Rockefeller or Kennedy--who assume there's an inheritance waiting for them and that such a thing is perfectly normal and to be expected.

Why am I always gobsmacked by blatant displays of privileged ignorance?

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I'm not sure the person being referred to thought that this was "normal and expected" among her social circle, but merely that she expected it in her situation. As I mentioned in another comment, while I don't feel like my parents owe me an inheritance, just doing the arithmetic implies that it's very likely that I'll inherit something.

I do, however, agree that the level of inheritance expectation and the sheltered attitudes that come from having a trust fund (I was astounded to find out how common having a modest trust fund was in this social circle) are disturbingly widespread among people we know.

(Actually, there's one object in the house which blew my mind when I found out how valuable it was. Mostly because it basically wasn't valuable when they acquired it nearly 40 years ago (I think Mom took a class from him in community college or something), but then the artist became really famous in classical Asian art circles.)

[feuervogel]

Well, considering several of the core that our social circle was founded on went to a posh boarding school, I'm not terribly shocked at how widespread the sheltered privileged attitudes are. It's just one more thing that makes me Not Like Them and more uncomfortable.

I mean, the main reason I didn't go to CTY was because we couldn't afford to send me. I got the letter and everything, and I looked at all the course material and wanted to go take German, but there was no way my mom would/could pay for it. It would have been half her paycheck for the month (I think they were charging $1000 at the time?)

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

I was only able to go because they offered me financial aid and scholarships for every session. It didn't cover the whole thing, but it was enough. It's also why I only went one session per year instead of two like most people I knew.

CTY sent me a survey after one of the sessions basically asking if I ever felt weird or ostracized because I'd gotten financial aid. At the time, I remember thinking WTF, because how would anyone know? It's not like people talked about how we could afford to be there; it just never came up. Now, I admire their intentions.

[feuervogel]

I remember saying, "But there's scholarships!" and being told no. (Then the AP exams were a hassle, but I vaguely recall getting fee waivers because I qualified for free lunches.

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

That's just infuriating.

[feuervogel]

There are a lot of things I haven't forgiven my mother for to this day.

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering whether my parents' attempt to write me a pretty large check (in the thousands, not hundreds) recently (the thing which prompted my post) is in part because Dad feels a little guilty at not being able to afford stuff like CTY when I was growing up. I wasn't eligible for financial aid because the money that could have sent me to CTY was instead being sent to some of Dad's incompetent siblings. So given how weird Mom sometimes was about money when I was growing up, I'm not sure if there are any strings attached. I really doubt there are, but even though there probably aren't, I sorta feel like there are. Does that make sense?

CTY's financial aid hasn't grown all that much lately, especially relative to administrative expenses- it's sorta pathetic these days. There are no longer CTY frisbees or class T-shirts, but back when there were, the one thing that they did right was tell the RA and Instructor of a scholarship student that there's included funding to get the kid one of whatever frisbee/T-shirt everybody else was getting, and that if we ordered out for pizza or something, a reasonable expense would be covered out of petty cash.

Also, akiko, they were probably already charging over $1000. I think you're about my age, and it was already about $1300 when I was in 7th grade.

[faithful-summer.livejournal.com]

Not directly related to your topic, but I am amazed that there's room for all that stuff in a truck. I never had any idea that rigs could even have half of those things.

[feuervogel]

It's not a fancy kitchen or anything--more like one you'd find in an RV except more compact. Here's one from 1979, and here's something a bit more modern.

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

Since my dad was a government worker who started back in the days when they had excellent pension/insurance packages, and we moved into a house a little further out and which wasn't huge (it was plenty big in that my sister and I both had our own bedrooms, and there was a small guest room, but hardly the McMansion common in suburbia these days) so they'll have it paid off in another couple years, I do think it highly likely that there will be some money to inherit. It won't be huge, but I think they said that if either of us start a family, they expect to be able to leave us enough to pay for a couple years of in-state college expenses for a few grandkids.

A lot of this was because we basically didn't have vacations when I was a kid (just visits to the grandparents in NYC, which didn't cost much more than gas), since they were determined to save enough $ to send us to college without debt. As it turns out, they didn't need to spend anything at all for my college, so that's been sitting in the bank ever since. I've taken a look at some of their retirement planning numbers, and they appear all set. Basically, we went from about 60th percentile in my youth and HS years(not adjusted for living near DC), to about 80th percentile when I was in college due to Dad's promotion, but non-college spending didn't increase.

I don't expect anything from them, and unlike my sister, I haven't even placed dibs on anything like the old living room sofa which is extremely comfortable to nap on. But given that neither wants prolonged, painful medical treatment if they come down w/cancer or something, I do think it's highly probable that I'll end up inheriting at least $50-75k.

[feuervogel]

We were about half the median household income for Frederick in 1993 (scroll down a ways). Lots of scraping by and getting gifts/loans from grandparents to keep the lights on, day-old bread, and dented cans.

We never took vacations, either, but for completely different reasons. My vacation growing up was Dad picking me up in his truck when he was in the area, riding with him while he worked, and him dropping me off the next time he was in the area. I don't think my mom's ever really taken a vacation. We took short trips to the beach (Chincoteague, I think) when I was too little to remember, and once my mom's whole family rented a house on the Outer Banks for a week, but that was like 15 people splitting one house. And possibly slightly off-season. But that's it. Her vacations were mostly what we now call staycations, where she'd just not go to work, maybe spend the day in the garden, or, later, spending a day or two with me when I got back from college.

I have no idea what sort of measures my mom wants. I don't feel comfortable asking her, because she has the maturity of a child when discussing death. At Thanksgiving, when my grandparents were explaining that they wanted to donate their bodies to science and what that would mean for funeral arrangements, etc, Mom suddenly said that when she got old/sick, I'd stand over her bedside and chant "pull the plug!" So fucking inappropriate, holy fuck.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I'm not clear on what's actively bothering (or just confusing?) you about the conversation you've described (which I'll readily admit may be due to all kinds of privilege of my own, and also to not actually being part of that discussion). Are you saying that people who expect to inherit money should avoid discussing it out of politeness to those who aren't so fortunate? Or are you simply surprised that people who've grown up in those fortunate families are aware of the planning that the elder generation(s) are doing?

If the concern is politeness, I can see your point, and I think wealthy(-ier) people in general need to be careful about casually commenting on their circumstances. But if you're surprised that the idea would come to mind at all, don't be: my impression is that most families that (successfully) plan to leave a significant inheritance to the next generation make a point of talking with their kids about how to do it. In part that's because the kids may be active participants in the plan (they might start getting money before their parents or grandparents die, for instance). But also, families with a tradition of passing on money often see "looking out for future generations" as one of their family's important values, so they make an effort to ensure that their kids can and will do the same.

I won't talk too much about my own family here, since (as noted above!) it seems a bit inappropriate. But as far back as my great-grandfather (at least), my mother's family has put a lot of effort into saving money to pass on to the kids. That began when he was an immigrant shopkeeper, and the upshot is that I expect to inherit some of that "family money" down the line. (It's been made pretty clear, too, that they expect me to do the same for my kids when the time comes: you're not supposed to spend "family money" on yourself, at least not permanently.)

Oh, and relevant to some other comments: quite often, much of one's "inheritance" comes from selling a house that's (mostly?) paid off. That may not be what the original conversation was about, but I think it's pretty common for a paid-off house to cover end-of-life medical expenses and then some.

[feuervogel]

I'm surprised that it's normal among people I know (though as tiurin said, there are a shocking lot of trust fund babies in our (DaP/Mudd/CTY) circle) to blithely assume that there'll be money to inherit when their parents die, even beyond sale of a home. That the money their parents are spending today (to buy them fancy dinner, say) is "just" paying down the inheritance. I edited out a few lines about the parents spending the money now for tax purposes so the child will have less of a tax hit later. (You went to college with the originator of the comment I pasted. She has a 5-yr-old baby now. She and I are not friends.)

I can honestly say that I've never been a part of discussions of saving money for future generations or receiving money from past generations. When Grandpa's brother died, then his widow died 5 or so years later, they left their money to their niece and nephews (my mom and her brothers). That's all been distributed now (Grandpa parcelled it out into tax-free bits), probably over 5-6 years. No idea where they got their money; they never had kids, so that's one bit. Jack was in the Navy during the Korean War, don't know what he did after that. He died when I was in high school. I don't think Amy ever worked; her English wasn't very good. (She was from Japan.)

When my grandparents moved into their retirement village, they had to shuffle their assets and savings to pay the entry fee, and they have rent on their apartment, too. I have no idea what they'll leave. I vaguely recall them saying they basically entrusted the Village with their money, but this was a long time ago--before I met Ben, even.

The only thing I've ever heard about Grandpa's dad was that he specified in his will that his (gorgeous, based on pictures) house in Pennsylvania overlooking the Susquehanna not go to the family, because he didn't want to cause strife over who got the house and who didn't.

The planning of and for inheritances is as alien to my experience as living on Mars.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I may be reading you wrong, you still sound upset here and I still don't understand why. (Unless my original guess was right: do you just mean that it's rude for better-off people to talk about their good fortune around others?) You've said, "blithely assume that there'll be money" (and earlier, "blatant displays of privileged ignorance"), but it's not clear why such negative language is warranted. If I expect to inherit some money when my parents die, I wouldn't call that a "blithe assumption": the odds are very good that it's true (and I know enough about their finances to have a basis for that belief).

I have no idea what the context of that original comment was, of course, so I can't really comment on how rude or out of place it would have seemed to me. The "spend/give money now to reduce later tax burden" idea is pretty much standard fare, in any case: it was certainly one of the first things discussed (and done) in my family when my grandparents approached the end of their lives. I'm very lucky to have grown up in a family that both had money to pass down and talked about how to preserve it for the next generation, and I think it's generally a good thing for anyone with a positive net worth to learn the basics (whether they plan to pass that money on to kids or cousins or charity or whatever else). So I'm a little uncomfortable with making the topic a complete taboo.

(Finally, I'm sorry to hear that you don't get along with that particular DaP/Mudd/CTY person. Assuming I'm not thinking of the wrong person, she's a good friend of mine.)

[feuervogel]

The issue I have is that there seems to be an underlying assumption that everybody gets these inheritances, that everybody has these discussions with their parents. That it's normal and expected. (Which may not have been the intent in the context of the discussion, though most of the comments there were ... displaying some sort of economic privilege.)

So the answer to my original question would seem to be, yes, it absolutely is related to my working poor upbringing that I've never had these discussions that all the middle/upper-middle/upper class people I know have had. "Positive net worth" has never applied to my family.

I have nothing against her in specific. She apparently has a strong dislike of me, for reasons I don't know. I replied to a comment of hers once in someone else's journal, and she completely brushed me off. Some time before that, I added her to my flist, and she never added me back, so I dropped her. I subscribe to "they got nothing to say to me, I got nothing to say to them."

[kirin]

I think this exactly is what's causing Stu's bafflement at your bafflement... Having actually read the original thread I really don't see anyone intentionally implying that these things apply to everyone, or implying anything at all about what's "normal" *in general*; they're just giving individual experiences in response to a request for data-points.