A Sense of Entitlement
Do you find yourself suffering from a sense of entitlement? Are entitlement issues making you poor, to the point where you feel you must live with your parents? What does it mean to be an adult from your point of view? What are the behavioral characteristics of a true adult? Do you know how to be an adult, living your life as an independent and responsible grownup, as opposed to being a financial burden to your parents? Do you feel that your parents are controlling your adult life, money and decisions while you are living in their house?
I don’t get the opportunity to watch Judge Judy very often, but I do try to keep up by reading as much as possible about recent guests on the show. I still remember a show from last year where a mother was petitioning the court to get $4000.00 from her 24-year-old son, who had borrowed the money (which mom put on her credit card) to buy a car.
This was the third loan given to the young man, and the mother forgave the previous two loans, despite having to take the money from her life savings. This third loan to her son resulted in the credit card company pursuing mom for repayment of the loan money. The son’s response to Judge Judy: “I shouldn’t have to pay her back because the last car she bought me was a piece of (bleep)!” The dangers of entitlement rears its ugly head.
The Entitlement Generation
Entitlement is defined as “a guarantee of access to benefits because of rights, or by agreement through law. It also refers, in a more casual sense to someone’s belief that he/she is deserving of some particular reward or benefit. It is often used as a negative term in popular parlance (i.e. a sense of entitlement). The legal term, however, carries no value judgment: it simply denotes a right granted. In clinical psychology and psychiatry, an unrealistic, exaggerated, or rigidly held sense of entitlement may be considered a symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”
Signs and Symptoms of Entitlement include:
- Teens feel entitled to a new car when they turn 16
- Kids and teens who “must have” the latest fads and fashions
- People entering the workforce feel entitled to start at the top
- Workers who just don’t like their jobs feel entitled to quit and collect unemployment
- People who feel they should be given handouts until they find jobs that “suit” them
- Expecting a certain standard of living without work or effort
- Feeling entitled to move back home with parents because being an adult is “too hard”
- Feeling justified in supporting their lifestyle on credit, and expecting parents to “help” pay their bills
Would you like a little cheese with that whine? In order to understand how to be an adult that is financially responsible, independent and self-sufficient, it’s necessary for grown children to evaluate their expectations of being an adult vs. society’s “instant gratification”, entitlement epidemic so prominent in America. Entitlement breeds laziness and the best way to deal with someone who has a sense of entitlement is to make them work for what they need and want! Need creates motivation, and “if anyone does not want to work, neither let him eat”.
Have your parents or grandparents become your personal ATM machine, where parents are treated like The National Bank of Mom and Dad in order to pay your bills, while you spend your own money on other things? Do your “needs” for food, clothing and shelter get paid for by someone else while your “wants” for fun, entertainment and other luxuries get first priority in your life? If so, you have a sense of entitlement that is causing you to make excuses for your poor choices as an adult, and is burdensome to your parents and/or grandparents.
Characteristics and Qualities of a Responsible Adult
- Self-control – Control of one’s emotions, desires or actions by one’s own will.
- Stability – stable personality, strength, reliability, dependability.
- Independence – ability to self-regulate, not relying on others for support, care or funds; self-supporting.
- Seriousness – ability to deal with life in a serious manner.
- Responsibility – accountability, commitment and reliability.
- Method/Tact – ability to think ahead and plan for the future, patience.
- Endurance – ability and willingness to cope with difficulties that present themselves.
- Experience – breadth of mind, understanding, accumulated knowledge, especially of practical matters
- Objectivity – the ability to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and to draw sound conclusions
- Decision making capability – as all of the above correspond to making proper decisions.
- Priorities – Ability to determine what is the most important thing that must be dealt with first, providing for the “needs” vs. the “wants” first and foremost.
How to Be an Adult
Take responsibility for yourself and the personal choices you make. Learn how to manage your money and stop asking or expecting your parents to rescue you from your repeated money mistakes. Parents need to stop enabling your poor choices; they are your choices and subsequent consequences, and you have to figure out how to clean up your own financial mess.
Make a budget and stick to it. Find and maintain a job. Learn how to live within your means by telling yourself NO! when you want to buy something you want instead of paying your bills. Even though it’s easier to sit back and let others provide for you financially and in other ways (especially by parents/grandparents), while you get accustomed to being catered to like a toddler, the sense of entitlement will have detrimental and long lasting effects if you don’t stop spending your money frivolously.
You may feel safe when you don’t attempt to change, but you are sabotaging yourself and your future. You are selling out your happiness and putting up with something you don’t want. Require more of yourself. Stop expecting regular and continuous “help” from parents or other relatives, but learn how to live within your means
Develop a plan to get on your own and out of your parents house, but you must stick to it. Taking advantage of well-meaning parents as they try to help get you back on your feet and on your own is not a sign of maturity but of pure selfishness. Start living where you can get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, “I’m a grown person; I’m living on my own and I’m proud of that”, and that doesn’t mean living at home with your parents. And finally, hanging onto your entitlement issues just might find you face-to-face with Judge Judy, if your parents decide to take you to court to get their money back.
For women dealing with money issues and problems: Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny
Related Posts:
Closing the Bank of Mom and Dad
Helping and Enabling – Is There a Difference?
Raising Independent Children Not Moochers
How to Stop Enabling – When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
Similar Posts:
- Are Parents Helping Or Enabling Their Adult Children?
- Support Groups for Parents with Grown Adult Children Living at Home with Parents
- How To Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us
- ~Raising Independent Children-Not Moochers~
- Closing The Bank Of Mom and Dad
I start off believing most people are good, but this sense of entitlement is rampant today.
I’ve been guilty of this attitude in the past, and when I see it in others, it’s disgusting.
Hi Elliott, I see entitlement issues every single day amongst young people, teens and even grown adults who behave like whiny toddlers expecting their parents to “help” them over and over, going so far as to get angry at their parents when they say no to their kids or choose not to “help”, because the parents know full-well that these “kids” are very capable to taking care of their own financial problems they’ve brought on themselves. They just choose to spend their own money on fun and entertainment, vacations, spa treatments, expensive cell phones, computers and laptops, etc because they have the expectation and belief that parents are “supposed to help” their kids. Makes my blood boil.
This is an awesome post, thanks Lin. I can’t help but agreeing to every single point. I was raised by hands-off parents and they were my personal ATM. Not because I want to, but it’s what they want. They want to control my life somehow by doing so. I didn’t learn the hard lessons in life until I moved out to California and started over at the ripe ol’ age of 29. I could have used this advise much earlier in my life.
Rudy, you do make an interesting point. There really ARE some parents who feel entitled themselves to dictate and control what their grown kids do in their lives, and that’s not right either. But much more often the problems of entitlement come from unrealistic expectations and poor (lousy) money management. Not lack of knowledge of how to manage money, but a lack of willingness and desire to be responsible for themselves. As long as mom and dad are opening their wallet or checkbook, why would these kids (ie adults) even consider being financially responsible and independent?
Hi Lin, I agree there is an entitlement epidemic. You do a very nice job of pointing out the symtoms, as well as the enabling behaviour of “well intentioned” parents. I just hope the people that should be reading this article do, and that they take some of your advice! ~ Steve (aka Mr. Display Booths)
I just picked up a book that talks about the power of just saying “No”. I took an “enlightenment” course 3 years back that taught the power of “just saying no”. Things will suck sometimes when you do, but you’ll also be rid of something you’ve been avoiding saying NO to for ages. After you get tthrough THATm then so much more time will free up for self-enlightenment.
I am currently setting myself on that path since returning from Europe. I released all my work contacts except one. The rest of my time goes to art and writing once again–something I’ve cut out of my life for too long because I felt like I NEEDED to make more money.
Reality check: People don’t need as much money as they think to achieve happiness. End of story.
AND I wish he could see that he really isn’t helping them, but retarding their own personal growth and independence.
Man my first post disappeared! What I said was me and my mom both think it’s an excellent article for EVERY parent to read and pass to any adult kids that are leeching from them. I passed it along to my BF and have gotten no response, which doesn’t surprise me. I am sure he sees a lot of those symptoms in his 2 adult kids. I hope he sees the light soon and stops letting them, at their whim, intrude on our lives, cause us tension and stress, and not carry their weight.
He should pass the article along to his ex-wife too, one of those kids is sponging off of her! She lived with us for a while too before heading up to mom’s to continue being a big overgrown kid.
notthemom, I can’t figure out what happened to your first comment. I really DID disappear into thin air! Sorry!
Holiday, especially Christmas, and Birthdays are notorious for those that have entitlement issues. Like:
“Is this all that [insert name] gets?”
Steve, it’s unfortunate but true that the most likely scenario will be the parents of these entitled children realizing what’s been going on and ultimately decide to put a stop to the enabling.
Grown children (or teens even) who have entitlement issues usually have the attitude of, “What have you done for ME lately?” or, “It’s all about ME” type attitudes.
Even when parents have helped their children from time to time, it’s often never enough and these kids expect more and more and more. With no limits or boundaries placed. Unless you consider the “rules” many of these kids decide to put upon their parents/grandparents by guilt trips and whining, or threats the parents won’t be allowed to see their grandchildren etc. It’s very much like blackmail. Either mom and dad continue to give handouts (when the kids decide), anger erupts and suddenly the grandparents are cut off from seeing or talking to their own grandchildren. Blackmail.
Blackmail that affects the children too. But the selfish parents don’t think of (or care about) that, they only care about what they WANT. Sickening, isn’t it?
I’ve noticed that nearly all of the Gen Y crowd at work bears an air of entitlement. These folks show up with their MBAs, Vente Caramel Macciatos, and sloppy polo shirts – because they shouldn’t need to feel pressured to aspire to a more professionl style of dress – and saunter through the door with a palpable attitude of “Well, I’m here. What do you plan on doing for me now?”
For those of us who’ve scrabbled our way up from the position of “Office Flunky, Jr.,” these entitled slackers are especially aggravating since their “paper smarts” net them an entry-level position that’s already 3/4 of the way up the corporate ladder. Yet very often, these are the folks who can’t plan their way out of a paper bag and when they fail at a task or project, they blame the system or pin the mess on the first handy scapegoat.
I’m determined to do whatever I can along the way to foster an old-fashioned work ethic, independance, and some graciousness in my son. It’ll be many, many years before he’ll enter the workforce, but I believe that these are qualities that can bolster his academic life long before then.
[...] more along the lines of a selfish, egotistical, narcissistic, money-grubbing skank with an extreme sense of entitlement that boggles the minds of those with any sense or moral [...]
You’re right Rob, entitlement issues show up in the business world as well. Young people especially have the deep-seated opinion that they should be paid a VP salary as soon as they’ve been hired, or within a very short time, rather than realizing that those with higher incomes have been with the company for many, many years or…have a lot more experience than the younger employees and are being paid according to their skills, experience, knowledge, expertise etc.
This is an interesting way of describing our present generation.
I do agree with your list of what it takes to be an adult. This reminds me of Daniel Goleman’s groundbreaking book on emotional intelligence.
Although this was written about a decade ago, I think the way he expressed his concepts ring true. People who have emotional intelligence are mature — they have patience, endurance, personal drive, optimism, they take responsibility, they think and prepare for the future.
I think our generation needs to be more self-aware and they shouldn’t feel entitled to anything without working for it.
Emotional maturity makes all the difference in the world when it comes to being and acting like an adult.
This generation is overloaded with both men and women who feel the world (or parents) “owe” them whatever their hearts desire, rather than realizing the responsibility they have for working hard like the rest of us to make money and take care of ourselves financially and any other way.
[...] A Sense of Entitlement [...]
[...] A Sense of Entitlement [...]
[...] A Sense of Entitlement [...]
[...] people are extremely negative, miserable, whiny, jealous, inconsiderate, financially irresponsible and entitled, manipulative, narcissistic, selfish, disrespectful, gossip mongers, mentally and emotionally [...]
[...] A Sense of Entitlement Helping vs. Enabling: Is There a Difference? 12 Rules for Raising Delinquent Children What it Means to “Let Go” Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children Are Parents Helping or Enabling Their Adult Children? How to Stop Enabling – When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us Are You An Enabler? Identifying Early Warning Signs of Enabling Behaviors [...]
Hi Lin,
My parents have had kids (of the 20-30 year old variety) in and out of their house several times over the past couple of decades. Thankfully, I wasn’t one of them.
I’m not sure if my brothers and sister ever felt that they were “entitled” to live back in my parents house … but I do believe that my parents always felt/feel an obligation to help their kids .. no matter how old we get.
By the time Jaiden gets here (Ana is due any day now), we’ll have 6 kids between us.
I’d like to think that by the time they’re 18 or 19 the kids will all be able to get out somewhat on their own.
… that being said, if any of them ever show up on my doorstep needing help, I seriously doubt I’d even consider turning them away.
I guess I’m like my mom … entitled or not, I’d feel obligated.
Todd
Todd, there are ways to help kids without being an enabler but it’s difficult for many parents to know when and where to draw the line.
It’s not really about turning kids away when they are in true need of help, but it’s a matter of understanding and dealing with the what, when, where and how questions that often get lost and forgotten when helping grown children.
For example, we helped my step-son this week in getting some school clothes for his daughter during this weekend’s “tax free” shopping here in Texas, but we pick and choose when or if we feel there is really a need to help, or not.
I think a parent would know…?…if their kids really need help or if they are taking advantage of the situation, using their $$ for fun stuff and relying on mommy and/or daddy to take care of the core needs. If the kid can’t seem to keep a job, or pay their bills, why should someone continually bail them out? It’s a pattern that could go on forever. And the kid never learns to be SELF SUFFICIENT. It makes my blood boil too, as I see it happening every day with my BF, his ex-wife and their freeloading kids who EXPECT their family to house and feed them, and they take and take and contribute almost nothing in return such as avoiding daily chores they should gladly pitch on it, since they are living for free. The kid here hasn’t paid his share of the cell phone bill or anything else in the 3 months he has been here. He is expected to do yard work etc., to pay his share if he doesn’t have the $ but he won’t do that either. The father is tired of the conflicts with the kid so pretty much gives up on trying to get him to do anything. I am to the point that I am ready to move out because I can’t stand witnessing it or trying to make my BF see the error of his ways. You can cut the tension with a knife around here!
Unfortunately, from the number of comments and emails I’ve received on my “helping vs. enabling” posts, parents often get caught up in what they think is helping their kids, and ultimately discover their “kids” are spending their own money frivolously and then running to mom and dad for money to pay their bills.
Enabling is rampant in society today, and it’s unfortunate that parents haven’t thought about the need to teach their kids from an early age until they reach adulthood about money management and how to live within their means.
Many kids don’t even know how to balance a checkbook by the time they become adults, let alone understand how their parents may have had to struggle themselves during the early years in order to make ends meet, and many parents have what I believe is a wrong attitude about making things easier for their kids then they had starting out. Doing this creates the sense of entitlement so common today in children, teenagers, and adults of all ages.
[...] meals in shelters or soup kitchens for the homeless, children are less likely to grow up with a serious case of entitlement and will have better appreciation and gratitude for what parents have done for them throughout the [...]
[...] Reading: A Sense of Entitlement How to Stop Enabling: When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us Support Groups for Parents with Grown [...]
Thanks for the link, and excellent article. I think many people in today’s society suffer from entitlement issues.
Glblguy, I was very happy to find your well-written, relevant article that helps expound on the subject of the ever increasing entitlement epidemic.
[...] with a friend or relative, especially those related to the “helping vs. enabling” and “Entitlement Epidemic” articles, so I’m hoping to include an easy way for visitors and subscribed readers to share [...]
[...] It Like It Is” is not a personal finance blog per se, although I have talked at length about the Entitlement Epidemic that has been running rampant in society for many years, and the effect entitlement has had on [...]
I believe it’s all about upbringing. It wouldn’t even come to my head to demand something from my parents, especially in times when they were short of money. They helped me only because of their good hearts (and because I am their son of course). And I’m helping them now.
George, the problem is too many parents (and their grown children) don’t understand the difference between helping their children and enabling/crippling their children, and that is what this article focuses on. The Entitlement Epidemic so prevalent in society today.
Anyone that’s white and responding to this topic need to shut up. All white Americans have that sense of entitlement when comes to black people.
Stop picking on your children, its tough out there today. Everyone needs some help sometimes.
We have a black American president already. Black people can no longer cry unfair treatment.
[...] emails I’ve received, I’d venture to say that there is a strong possibility that you may have a sense of entitlement that makes you want to “have your cake and eat it too”, but you can’t have it both [...]