Pay Your Dues When Your Parents Age

There are too many grown folks all too willing to ask for money from their parents. A new survey, "Preparing for Their Future: A Look at the Financial State of Gen X and Gen Y," conducted for the American Savings Education Council and AARP, found that 25 percent of respondents age 28 to 39 received financial support from friends or family in the past year.

"We are such a selfish culture that we are so worried about taking care of our stuff that we don't even make plans to put something away for Mama and Daddy," Jenkins said.

I had to stop a bit and consider what Jenkins was proposing. So many people are struggling, living paycheck to paycheck, that putting aside even $50 a month for their parents' care is unimaginable.

I was raised by my grandmother, Big Mama, and I vowed that I would take care of her until the day she died. In fact, while in college I would send money home to help my grandmother with some of her bills.

After I graduated, I paid my grandmother's property taxes every year (she had paid off her home). I regularly gave her money for groceries.

Big Mama never asked for a penny. She was too proud. But I built a cushion in my monthly budget to take care of the woman who raised me from the time I was 4 years old.

I never took a dollar from her after I began working full time. How could I? Big Mama, who died in 1997, sacrificed so much to prevent me from growing up in foster care.

However, I will say this: If you want your adult kids to have the financial muscle to care for you as you age, then teach them when they are young how to handle their money. Surveys continue to show graduating high school seniors struggle with financial literacy basics.

In the Jump$tart Coalition's biennial survey, high school seniors correctly answered only 48.3 percent of basic financial questions. That's a failing grade. This mean score was down from the responses from seniors in 2006, who correctly answered 52.4 percent of the questions.

I may joke with my kids about helping take care of my husband and me in our old age, but we are very serious about making sure they can if they have to.

· On the air: Michelle Singletary discusses personal finance Tuesdays on NPR's "Day to Day" program and online athttp://www.npr.org.

· By mail: Readers can write to her at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.

· By e-mail:singletarym@washpost.com.

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