How boomers’ money secrets are a ticking time bomb for their kids

“Dad, you have to tell us where the money is. How much is the mortgage? Car payments and insurance? What’s up with the 20 acres of Utah desert land you bought off CheapDirt.com? How much are you really spending on groceries?” 

In a little shared Zoom box, my parents squirmed, eyeing each other. It was the first time my sister, 36, brother, 32, and I, 34, had sat down with them (albeit virtually) to talk about something that mattered most, yet had been continually swept under the rug: money. 

“Guys, we might lose the house this year,” my dad said. 

The news was shocking and seemed to come out of nowhere, but the unraveling of my family’s finances was anything but sudden; it was just never discussed. My dad, 63, had been unemployed and struggling to find work at an age when he should have been thinking about retirement. My mom, 61, had been ignorant of our family’s money situation until it became impossible to ignore. 

Now, on the cusp of losing our family home, the illusion of financial security crumbled as my siblings and I, for the first time, learned that our parents had taken out a second mortgage and were considering a reverse mortgage while still owing hundreds of thousands of dollars. We learned they’d been the victim of two Ponzi schemes and had lost much of their retirement money in soured investments. 

I felt the rug pulled out from under me as I did the mental math to calculate the hidden cost of their money secrets — a price my siblings and I might ultimately pay. 

I worried for my parents, who I foresaw working well past retirement age to keep afloat. My siblings and I went into overdrive with a “Brady Bunch”-esque scheme to save the house. But fear for my parents soon turned into frustration as I considered the cost of their secrets.

While attitudes around money transparency are progressing with each generation, the disparity between baby boomers (folks born between 1946 and ’64) and their millennial children (born between 1981 and ’96) holds particular weight as millennials are of age to have children, buy houses, and consider their parents’ retirement plans — or lack thereof. 

Millennials are now being directly affected by their parents’ money secrets  

The shock of potentially losing the house meant my siblings and I lost the safety net of having a landing pad should we experience financial emergencies ourselves. Getting financial help to put a down payment on a starter home was out of the question. While the very notion seems privileged, a whopping 36% of Gen Z and millennials plan on buying a home with a cash gift from a family member, a 2024 Redfin survey found. In today’s increasingly unaffordable housing market, intergenerational wealth feels necessary for anyone to get off the ground. 

Mostly, I worried about my parents aging and what would happen if they needed nurses or an assisted-living facility, as many inevitably do. On average, assisted living in the US costs $4,500 a month or $54,000 a year, and my parents would not be making much from the sale of their house to support that future cost, which isn’t fully covered by programs like Medicaid, if at all.

I wasn’t upset by the idea of taking care of my parents, but rather that this crisis could have been avoided with transparency and communication. My siblings and I could have worked together to improve my parents’ financial literacy and budgeting, regularly checked in to ensure they were making sound investments, and helped protect them from scams. If nothing else, open communication could have better prepared us for potentially losing the house. 

Talking about it now felt like too little, too late, and I knew I wasn’t alone. 

“My parents are pretty closed off when it comes to talking about their finances,” a friend named Andrew, 36, told me. Andrew, and everyone else I spoke with, requested anonymity because of the delicate nature of the subject. “My sisters and I don’t have a clear picture of where they stand, as the most my parents will reveal is that they are ‘tight on money’ and ‘don’t want to talk about it.’ I’ve ultimately avoided pressing them on it because it feels awkward. Still, I worry about how they are going to have comfortable retirements and what ‘tight on money’ really means. I’m trying to figure out how and when to have that money talk.”  

Why are so many boomers so resistant to talking about money? 

When it comes to money, broaching the subject with baby boomers is easier said than done.

A 2023 Forbes Advisor survey said boomers struggle to discuss finances with their children because of lingering taboos around money that have shifted over time. The survey said 57% of boomers said they avoid money talks because they consider finances a personal matter. In contrast, 48% of millennials cited insecurity about their financial situation as the main reason for avoiding such conversations.

Younger boomers, born in the mid- to late 1950s might also hide their financial realities because of a perceived pressure to keep up with the Joneses. A paper by Neil Howe titled “Generations in Pursuit of the American Dream” suggested that dream was more achievable for older, early-wave boomers born primarily in the mid-1940s than for late-wave boomers like my parents. 

In my family, traditional gender roles played a part. Typical of the boomer generation, my father was the sole breadwinner, shouldering the burden of supporting a family of five alone. Like her mother before her, my mom stayed out of the accounts, trusted in my dad’s optimism, and waited for his investments to yield success. It wasn’t until about 30 years into their marriage that money issues bubbling to the surface boiled over and she started to ask the hard questions. My dad’s inability to admit there were problems seemed rooted in his pride, but also in the shame that he hadn’t fulfilled his paternal duty.  

I suspect a primary reason boomer parents don’t talk to their adult children about money is that they feel part of their responsibility as a parent is to protect their kids from harsh realities, including in financial matters. But instead of shielding their kids, parents may instead leave their children to face even bigger financial challenges down the road.

How are millennials coping?  

Money secrets are a ticking time bomb, and for many millennials addressing the issue is fraught with charged emotions, to the point that many don’t feel comfortable bringing up the matter with their parents. Instead, some millennials cope by becoming hypervigilant about their own financial health. 

Suzi, 35, talked about how her father’s caginess around money affected her psychologically growing up, and how she made career choices accordingly. “Had my dad been more open with us about money, or more responsible with his finances, I wouldn’t have had debilitating anxiety over money, and would have gone for the career I loved instead of compromising, thinking it would earn me more. In my youth and 20s, money was the main driving factor. It felt like my survival was etched in that green piece of paper.”

Maya, 38, expressed fears about her parents’ lack of retirement plans and what it could mean to care for them alongside her young children. “I’m worried about my parents losing their home and maybe having to come live with us,” she said. “I’m worried about needing to take care of them and my two kids at the same time. It makes me really anxious to think about it. And my parents are super defensive when I gently try to bring it up, so I’m worried money won’t actually be discussed until things are dire.” 

My own parents wouldn’t have shared their financial struggles if they hadn’t reached a breaking point. 

How can millennials talk about money with their parents before it’s too late?

To learn how to open the conversation before a situation becomes a crisis, I spoke with financial therapist Amanda Clayman, a licensed clinical social worker. Clayman suggested that millennials can begin changing their family’s money culture over time if they lead by example. If one member is in control of the finances and the rest of the family is taught to respect that person’s sovereignty, it can be difficult to even ask basic questions. Adult children can normalize talking about money by discussing their own finances openly and honestly, and inviting their parents into the conversation. 

Clayman said, “We can pierce the veil of noncommunication by offering more information about our situation. You might consider saying something like, ‘Here’s how I’m doing my budget,’ or ‘Here’s some decisions I’m making about credit. What do you think, Mom and Dad?’ Saying something as simple as that can be a way of changing the norms around money. It’s also a low-stakes way to get your parents to begin communicating with you.”  

In essence, you can learn more about your parents’ money situation by soliciting advice from them about your own. Clayman also suggested bringing up financial resources, articles, or other pieces of helpful content that might spark a conversation about money. Simply telling your parents that you read an interesting article about investing or budgeting could initiate some talk around the issue. 

While I personally still wrestle with the reasons behind my parents’ secrecy, I’m grateful the truth came out so we could start changing our family’s attitude and approach to money. 

What worked for this millennial

After the initial shock of discovering our parents’ financial troubles, my siblings and I formalized Zoom money meetings with them. Each week my siblings and I took turns leading and mediating honest conversations about budgeting, retirement, and how we might save the house. Getting my parents to open up wasn’t easy, and we had to ease into these talks with icebreakers before tackling the tougher subjects.  

There was no playbook for how to organize such talks with my parents, so we created the agenda ourselves. It looked like this: whoever was moderating led with an original icebreaker question, then we each shared a highlight and lowlight from our week. After that, we did “appreciations,” where we each called out a family member who did something nice that week. After that, we talked about money. We went over budgeting, looked at reasonable ways to make supplemental income, talked about investing, and got real about what happened to my parents’ retirement funds. We discussed their Social Security and what they might do if they had medical emergencies, plus how and if they could use Medicaid. Sometimes we asked our parents to come prepared to meetings with a previous monthly budget so that we could go over it together. 

Clayman commended the way my family set up our Zoom meetings. “It’s so important to start by strengthening and building — starting with the relational container, if you will,” Clayman said. “It’s great to begin with something like, ‘Hey, we love each other, we’re talking to each other, we value each other as whole human beings. OK, now that that is established, let’s focus on the work, and then let’s come back to a place of being able to transition out of this.’” 

While my family did more than most to get my parents to open up about money, even after two years of Zoom meetings, my parents still haven’t completely embraced transparency. That’s because shame and societal pressure around money run deep, and those long-held beliefs still linger. But our money talks are a meaningful start. In these Zooms, we came up with some side hustles for supplemental income, worked out a budget, helped my dad with his resume and LinkedIn, and more. 

We ended each Zoom call with a round-robin-style mental-health check-in, recognizing that the weight of financial insecurity was taking a toll on all of us. Personally, I found myself leaning hard into a scarcity mindset, unable to find any sort of balance.  

These meetings reminded us that we were in this together, though my siblings and I were sure to tell our parents that, at the end of the day, our desire to help wasn’t purely altruistic. We knew their financial problems could one day become ours if we didn’t do something now. 

Helping them was a way of safeguarding our own futures.

Sarah Barness is a personal finance writer and former credit cards editor for Finder.com, and received an MFA in nonfiction writing from The New School.