Parents Are Financially Stressed and Their Kids Growing Up Won’t Fix It

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On paper, parents seem to be doing quite well financially. Compared to the average U.S. adult, they are more likely to have a college degree, high household income, investments, and less likely to be unemployed. But those traditional markers of financial security don’t tell the whole story. Parents’ budgets are being pressured by the rising costs of everyday essentials, like groceries, housing and childcare, leading to a bleak view of their finances.

A majority of parents say having kids has put pressure on their budgets

Financial stress after having kids is common for parents. About 7 in 10 (67%) parents say having a child/ren has put financial strain on their budgets, with 26% of parents saying it has added “a lot” of financial strain. 

Notably, earning more doesn’t seem to assuage this feeling. Higher earners (68%) are just as likely as lower earners (67%) to say having a child/ren has put financial strain on their budgets. Larger incomes can also come with larger expenses, from car payments, mortgages, kids’ extracurricular activities, vacations and more. 

Parents have a poor view of their finances, especially compared to their childless peers

Parents' pessimistic view of their finances is not limited to one moment in time; in fact their perspective has long been worse than those without children. Morning Consult’s Financial Well-Being Scale, a measure of respondents’ personal financial situations, consistently shows parents scoring below the general population, and even further below those without children in their household.  

The widest gap (4.97 points) between parents and non-parents was recorded in July 2022, just after topline inflation hit a 40-year record high of 9.1%. And while parents looked to be gaining a more rosy perspective on their finances recently, even marking the smallest gap compared with non-parents on our scale in February 2025, scores have fallen lower once again. 

Financial stress is unlikely to end anytime soon as parents prepare to help their children into adulthood and beyond

One thing that could lessen the financial pressure parents are feeling is simply time. The earliest years of a child’s life typically require the greatest financial investment due to high fixed costs from childcare and baby essentials like cribs, car seats, diapers, and formula. But today’s parents are readying to help their children financially past the legal age of adulthood, which could keep their budgets pinched. 

A majority of parents say they expect to help their adult children with typical expenses like college tuition, rent, utilities or their phone bill, and some even say they imagine doing so for more than 10 years after their child/ren turn 18. 

What’s the most common support parents expect to provide their grown children? A place to live. Just 14% of parents said they do not expect to help their adult children by allowing them to live at home, and a sizable 24% say they expect to provide this support for over 10 years. While this may not require parents to set aside money each month, it will still have a financial impact. Having grown children at home means no empty nest. Hence downsizing and benefiting from the lower costs of maintaining a smaller home and freeing up equity from the sale of a larger family home is unlikely.