Opinion

Anita Robinson: Parents don't put a price on love

"Only years later may they realise and appreciate what we did for them – and that is time enough"
"Only years later may they realise and appreciate what we did for them – and that is time enough" "Only years later may they realise and appreciate what we did for them – and that is time enough"

The newest acronym in jargon’s handbook is the SKI-ing parent. It describes middle-aged couples whooping it up in high-class resorts Spending the Kids Inheritance.

They’ve decided to enjoy the fruits of their lifelong labours themselves, leaving their children without a legacy. How unnatural.

And how I’ve revised my opinion of the generously endowed Nigella Lawson since she’s revealed that young Cosima and Bruno won’t get a penny of her fingerlickin’ fortune. What’s the point of rich parents if their children can’t harbour great expectations?

An American tycoon suggests children allowed to coast on the coat-tails of parental riches lack moral fibre. They ought to be left sufficient to be comfortable, but not enough for them not to need to work. That’s more reasonable.

Never mind the Domestic Goddess, let’s bring this down to the level of the Ordinary Punter. Most of us have little to spare and less to leave, but in the current economic climate, it’s perfectly obvious that, without help, the young (including those in full employment) simply can’t manage to get on even the lowest rung of the property ladder. They finish their education with the millstone of student debt around their necks, doomed to play financial catch-up for the forseeable future.

To be young, cash-strapped and struggling is no fun. Nothing blights the bloom of youth quicker than poverty. Money, or lack of it, colours relationships all through our lives.

I went to college in the sixties on a miserly grant, frittered away within weeks. I’d ring Daddy and weep down the phone. Next day came a brown envelope containing a couple of big white fivers. I’d been teaching seven years when he died and I still owed him money.

Like many another couple, our first marital row was about money. I went out to buy curtains and came home with a dress. Here was the first serious clash between one who espoused the wise but joyless tenet, “if you can’t afford it, do without” and one whose tactics have always been “find a way to afford it”. The battle went on unabated for thirty-seven years.

Unlike us, our children have grown up in a climate of indulgence, a culture of instant gratification, a system parents find hard not to subscribe to, because now it’s the norm. We were taught the value of money and pride in earning it, to use it wisely and to live beyond our income was immoral.

These are counsels of perfection in a society where advertising inoculates people with the acquisitive gene and offers instant credit to those without means. Thus we’re hogtied into permanent debt. Like the lottery winner, we discover soon that things have no value if they’re immediately accessible. What children see and hear belie what their parents teach them. Daughter Dear is a child of her time. I recall explaining to her at the age of five the principles of modern banking – that you had to deposit money in order to draw it out. “No mummy,” she said, “you can sneak round the side and get it out of the hole in the wall.”

A traditional part of the parental role is sacrifice for the benefit of their children. Our parents did without so we could have. Now it’s our turn to do the same for our children. Maybe they’ll do it for theirs, though the cynical might have their doubts. It’s part of the ongoing parental responsibility that doesn’t end with the end of childhood.

Parents don’t put a price on love. Our children discover soon enough that the world’s a hard place. We ought to cushion them from it if and when we can. Only years later may they realise and appreciate what we did for them – and that is time enough. There’s a difference between foolish indulgence and a judicious bit of financial help when necessary. Why make them wait till we’re dead, when it’s now they need it?

I’m reminded of Dolly Levi’s retort to skinflint Horace Vandergelder in ‘Hello Dolly’. “Money’s like manure,” she said. “It should be spread around, helping young things to grow.”