I just read an article on the NY Magazine site about boomers not helping their millennial kids out financially and the kids resenting their parents for it. I'm not a boomer or a millennial (Gen X all day, baby), so I can't speak for those groups, but I can speak about my own situation with my parents and money.
I was raised without receiving financial support from my parents for college. My mother (who died while I was in graduate school) wasn't in a position to help me financially and my father really wasn't either (although he was certainly better off financially than my mother after they divorced in the 1980s). So I paid my own way. I worked for the university where I received my undergraduate degree so I could receive tuition assistance and I took loans out for graduate school (that I finally paid off probably 20 years ago). I also didn't get any funds from my dad when I bought my current co-op. I used my own money that I'd saved for the down payment. Considering the fact that I was in my 40s when I bought the place, I wouldn't have even imagined asking my father for money. He was retired by then and living on a fixed income.
While I'm not against financially helping family members, I don't feel any parent is obligated to give their grown children money, but I also don't have any children, so I'm speaking as someone who's never been in this situation personally. Some kids do need financial help with bills, down payments, college loans, whatever and some parents are in a financial position to help their children, but if the parents choose not to help, are they evil for refusing to give their kids money? I don't think so.
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