True story – today is officially National Pay Back Your Parents Day :)
Which the good folks at NationalToday.com alerted me to, who did a fantastic job of keeping my attention throughout their press release, haha…
Here’s a snippet of it:
November 20 is National Pay Back Your Parents Day, a chance — now that their kids are grown — to give parents what they really want (besides maybe grandkids): Cold. Hard. Cash.
Consider this: According to one study, Americans spend more than $233,000 just to raise a child from birth to 18 years of age. That’s an incredible amount of moolah that parents gladly shelled out to keep their kiddos in the lifestyle to which they’ve grown accustomed. Isn’t it time those children thought about paying their parents back?
Haha… they only speak the truth!
And honestly, I’ve always thought *birthdays* should be celebrated as such. Not necessarily in the cash department, but in the thanking our parents for actually MAKING US realm!!! Since we didn’t do a damn thing to be born! Haha… Why should we get all the gifts and love when it was our parents who are the real heroes?
But since I don’t see that tradition turning around any time soon, I can get behind this new day instead…
And here are a few ways you can celebrate Pay Back Your Parents Day today, with some help from that same press release as well as my own two cents… Gotta make sure they know just how much you love them! It was a lot of work raising you guys into the fine citizens you’ve become! ;)
- Take them out to lunch/dinner tonight! And cover the tab!! The true mark of adult’hood, lol…
- Create a coupon book a la 3rd grade. Offer deals like “one free ride to the airport” or “6 hours of free yard work” and watch your dad faint. (But then force them to actually *use them* one day, which they never tend to do!)
- Take yourself off their insurance/cell phone plans. The one thing all parents dream of, haha…
- Declutter your old room once and for all. You’re now living on your own, get your old stuff outta there and let your mom finally have her craft room!! ;)
- Start paying off your loans from The Bank of Mom and Dad. Yeah it’s awesome they fronted you some cash and said you can pay them back whenever, but why not get started sooner and show some good faith? Even $20 makes a dent in it!
- Add *interest* to your loans from Bank of Mom and Dad! Hitting them with a double surprise when they see an extra few pennies tacked onto that Jackson ;)
- Just literally call them up and tell them you love ’em. A) for making you, which we’ve established was pretty important, and B) for then keeping you alive all those early years. You’ve done a good job from that point forward, but the real work was in that first half of your existence… Remind them why they wanted to have kids in the first place!! :)
So happy National Pay Back Your Parents Day!
I’m off to print this out and stash for when my own kids turn 18…
I hope this holiday will still be around then!
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This is a nice sentiment but both of ours are still in college so not there yet! Maybe next year at this time since they’ll both be done. They do appreciate us and that is priceless.
I think you should send them this post just to make sure they don’t forget ;)
Two hundred and thirty grand! Jeez, Maybe I made the right choice after all just getting a cat.
Lol…
Awh, I only ask for the phone call. I appreciate that they appreciate what I have done for them and always will let me know. I raised my kids for 9 years alone after divorcing their Dad and getting remarried (happily …. going on 16 years). The best gifts I have ever gotten from my kids were verbal…..my daughter told me “I was her North Star” and my son told me that he knows and appreciated everything I have done for him.
You are right ….. the grandkids are the icing on the cake for raising your own children.
I’m glad they recognize!!
No way we can do it all without you Moms! :)
We bought the in-laws’ house off them when they went broke this year (for them to live in) so I think that counts…
My parents are still trying to give us money via spoiling the hell out of grandkids so not sure how trying to give them money back would go. I think they’d be insulted! But I do let them know that I know they set me up to be successful.
Helluva gift you’ve already given them with that house call! That’s a major move!
Hmmm, I don’t think our three grown kids owe us any money. They all earned their college with scholarships and I never noticed them costing very much. They always had jobs from a pretty early age and all got off our support as soon as they got their four year degrees, all of them in just four years. They all paid their own grad school tabs themselves. Mostly we gave them room and board at home and a lot of love and a little advice. And most of that was by trying to live good lives in front of them, they were way too smart to listen to anything we said that we didn’t back up with our actions. By turning into good adults they’ve more than settled the bill.
Well aren’t you guys Parents of The Year! Haha… Well done, sir!
Last Christmas we actually added my in-laws to our cell phone plan…
Nice! Easier to manage for them? I know it gets hard with all the technology and phone plan changes constantly going on…
My dad won’t even let me pay for breakfast at Cracker Barrel when we visit. I literally had to track the waitress down (who he had ALREADY told to bring him the bill) and pre-pay it without him realizing…and he was annoyed. My mom will similarly pay for lunch and stuff…and I’m 43 and doing quite well. I guess they get enjoyment out of it. My mom always says when I tell her she buys too much for the grandkids or us “Well, I want to do it while I can.” My parents are the opposite of FIRE. I was trying to think of a quippy way to say “Work until you drop” but couldn’t come up with one.
oh jeez, haha…
I do agree that it gives parents/grandparents joy helping out their kids/grandkids so at least that’s something for whenever we cave in :) And I’m sure we’ll be the same way when we’re older and trying to pay for things too – hah!