There was a story in a recent edition of USA Today that said the current (youngest) generation isn't too worried about retirement funds as they're pretty sure they'll have an inheritance waiting for them.

This is in contrast to a poll said the parents of this generation had nothing saved up and didn't plan on leaving anything behind, figuring whatever they had would get eaten up by late in life medical bills.

I sense a disconnect here.

Inheritance has always been an abstract thought in my head. Probably because I grew up in a world where you said, "Hey, we got all the bills paid! We got $37 to live on until the next paycheck, so let's be careful when we're out."

And two things assured me I wouldn't have to worry about leaving anything behind. One, I made the decision to not have kids, and two, it quickly became obvious my income would never get very far above the low five figure income range.

You can't leave behind what you don't have.

But what about these modern day kids, age 13-22, who think they'll never have to worry about getting medicine and where their next meal will come from when they get old? According to the story, 40 percent of them think money will never be a problem, whether they're young or old.

Are they spoiled brats? Forty percent is a huge number. They can't all be the children of one percenters.

Some seem to believe mommy and daddy have large life insurance policies because they want to make their precious ones can stop working at 42.

A psychiatrist interviewed for the story said a lot of it undoubtedly has to do with their young age. They either are children of one percenters, and will get a huge inheritance, or mommy and daddy sacrificed everything and the kids never noticed their "irritating" parents wore the same clothes for seven years straight.

I could buy that. When I was a kid, living in a paycheck-to-paycheck type world, I wouldn't have known what an inheritance was. But I did know kids who truly and honestly believed not only would they get mom's car when they turned 16, but one day the house they lived in would be theirs. They planned to sell it, of course, and buy something on the lake.

I doubt I'll be around to see it, but starting in about 40-45 years, there are going to some disappointed young'uns running around. Mom and dad are increasingly the only support some of these kids have when they become adults. And that's usually after they've spent $100,000 of their parents money getting a college degree that doesn't help out the way they expect.

And if mom and dad aren't even out of their forties yet, they've got a lot of self supporting left to do. You might have a combined $100,000 a year household income, but if it takes $97,000 a year to live your life, it would take a hundred years to save up the kind of money kids are expecting to inherit.

This is nothing new. Twenty years ago, I knew someone younger (and I was only 25) who thought there was no reason you shouldn't be making $75,000 a year by the time you were 22. Those jobs were out there. She just knew it. You just had to look.

I haven't seen that person in many years, so I don't know if she ever found that job, though a couple of years after that, she had moved back in with her parents.

Many, many years ago, families never really separated and people would spend their lives in the houses, or on the properties, where they were born. It was just considered a family thing and led to the saying, "You can always go home."

That doesn't really exist any more. Just like an inheritance. Maybe this new generation should learn a trade.

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat.com | 442-4575