Huh, I've never got an allowance. I got a paper route at age 11 and I've been employed ever since.

aw! just had a vision of pre-teen!sparky on her bike, pedaling furiously two dollars!

I complained to my mother about things like that, but just to vent. My mom and I like to talk to each other. She would never have tried to be my fixer, as far as tests or anything. People really do that? Cause I sit here all gimped out and everything, crying out for rescue in the eyes of the world, and yet? Excessive much?

It's a trend known as "helicopter parents." I just read some article that was talking about how it was leeching into these kids in the workplace as well. t shudder

Not only did I get no allowance in college, including I paid for my own books, I had to contribute to my tuition annually (I think it was $1500 a year, in those halcyon days of $20K private college tuitions) and when I went home for vacations, I had to buy my own train ticket.

That is what my $700 was for (books, flights, etc.). It wasn't random spending money--that's what work study was for. And I took out the max amount in student loans, at the time $2500/year (which is nothing compared to the debt I have from my PhD). Of course, I'm still bitter that my parents "stupidly" saved enough to send us to college, when we would have qualified for pretty decent financial aid.

I just read some article that was talking about how it was leeching into these kids in the workplace as well.

yep. They never have to deal with problems because their parents always fix them, so when they get out into the world, they have no coping skills.

Okay, despite my "never had an allowance" statement, I have to come clean. While I never got any allowance, they did pay for my books and my tickets home. I was given a Visa card for this purpose and WOE if I ever dared to use it for anything else. Except... except... at some point, my father must have accepted that books also meant a trip to the regular bookstore every couple of weeks where I could pick up my pleasure reading. I have no memory of this actually ever being discussed.

When I was in library school (this is after law school) my father had a heart attack and subsequent quadruple bypass. My mother paid the bills while he was recovering and found the Visa statement with my trips to the U. bookstore and swears she never knew he was paying it all those years, and we all get a good laugh out of how my father and I assumed that a novel or two a month was a necessity of life.

aww... I would agree, of course.

I never got any sort of an allowance. I'm not even sure how I had money to spend in college; I think a lot of it was money I saved by not spending my stipend when I did research in the summers. I think I made several hundred dollars the first summer at Rice because I stayed rent-free at the Masters' house but still got the full living stipend. And the following summers, I also came out ahead a little. I think I bought my own books and stuff too, but my parents paid tuition/room and board. And they always gave me money when I visited, like a hundred bucks or something. I didn't really keep track of my money, I guess, since I didn't spend it that often.

Oh, they paid for all my plane/bus tickets home, though.

I just read some article that was talking about how it was leeching into these kids in the workplace as well.

How would this, um... work? Wouldn't the kids' workplace just tell the parents, "This doesn't concern you" and leave it at that?

the guys at High Hat *love* my Rescue Me/ World Trade Center article.

Awesome! But they'd be nuts not to. It's a kickass piece. Just be sure to ping Tim Goodman about it when the issue goes live. I mean it. ::stern face::

I got an allowance all through high school - something on the order of $5 a week, with extra money for big PITA tasks. In college, I was on the cafeteria meal plan and I could use my student ID to buy books (um, and candy -- it's where I acquired my shameful marzipan habit) and charge them to an account that my father paid off, but actual walking-around money came from me and me alone. Which wasn't bad; I spent a lot of time shelving books in this library, and then I switched to the more lucrative late-night campus patrol, where I got to walk around the Shakespeare Gardens with Greg Rucka, quite possibly the coolest thing I ever did at college (okay, actually the only cool thing I ever did at college).

Phone calls once or twice a week, from the payphone at the end of our hall. Letters or postcards several times a week from both parents, once a week from me (but much more often to friends). No cells, no email. And I don't remember anyone getting frequent calls or visits from parents.

Holy shit, that was going on twenty years ago. t is old