Gifts I Can Make for My Adult Daughters
SPECIAL FROM Next Avenue
Instead of clothes or gadgets, give your kids a present that will save them money, ease their daily grind or brighten their futurity
In the annals of family unit gift-giving, I recently hit a home run: I gave my tenure-track professor girl -- who already has one husband, one child, one dog, i highly competitive chore and ane small business firm -- the souvenir of some other "1": a once-a-fortnight visit past a professional person house cleaning service.
My takeaway: If you lot don't know what to requite your grown children for their birthday, ceremony or any special occasion, there's something to be said for presents that help smooth out life'southward daily grind, provide joy or burnish their futures. (I'll get to some specific suggestions in a second.)
What I Asked My Daughter
Not that I barged in with my gift about wrapped in cheery paper. I was wary of presenting my daughter with a service that she might take as criticism of her (and her spouse's) housekeeping skills. And so I asked earlier I gave and framed the idea this fashion: Given all the demands on her time, why should she employ precious energy vacuuming, dusting and scouring her house when help was available -- help that I could make happen?
(More than: Why I Bought My Son a Roth IRA)
Reader, my daughter did not accept umbrage. She was thrilled. Seems she had been contemplating hiring a firm cleaner and trying to effigy out a way to stretch her tight upkeep to comprehend the price.
7 More Great Gift Ideas for Your Adult Kids
Here are seven other souvenir ideas for grown children that friends and acquaintances take told me about. Each ane can help and please your kid, whether he or she is struggling financially or could merely use the lift of a little indulgence.
Car payments Co-ordinate to a recent Pew Research study, about a 3rd of adults nether 35 owe coin on vehicles. If your kid is ane of them, why not help shrink or eliminate that debt past paying off all or some of that loan?
You could either take over the payments or write a check for the outstanding amount.
Every bit a college graduation gift, a California couple I know made their girl's car payments for a yr.
Tickets With their tight budgets, many of our adult children don't spend money exposing themselves to theater, ballet or concerts at symphony hall. That'south a shame, but it'southward likewise a problem you could remedy.
A Maryland couple, whose recently married daughter lives in Brooklyn, gave the newlyweds tickets to a Broadway show to gloat their first anniversary, splurging on center-aisle orchestra seats. "I wanted to give them something they would never indulge in for themselves," the mom says.
Similarly, a mother-grandmother in Washington, D.C., likes to give her daughter and son-in-law tickets to concerts at area theaters; she also throws in her gratis services every bit babe-sitter.
Domicile cooking When her son and girl-in-law had their 3rd child, one Maryland mom didn't rush out to buy a layette or cuddly teddy bear for her latest grandson. Instead, she cooked a month's worth of dinners and transferred them, a week's worth at a time, to the couple'southward freezer.
"When I came by, my now-empty plastic containers from the previous calendar week would be in a shopping bag," this mom says. "They'd leave a notation in in that location that said, 'Here they are, fill up 'em upwardly.'" The note made her feel appreciated and a welcome part of her son'south family.
Baby-sitting chits Making a vague offering to baby-sit is kind. But you'll score more points giving the parents of young children baby-sitting chits for your services: written notes promising annihilation from a weekend guard and so the couple can get abroad to a dozen evenings of sitting in the coming year.
If y'all alive far from your adult child, substitute cash for the chits -- say, $100 to cover local sitters for several "date nights" or a few afternoons out for a stay-at-abode parent who could apply a intermission.
Don't remember of this as just a baby-sitting gift; it's a present that will assistance keep your grown child'southward marriage fresh.
(MORE: Avoid the Grandparent Trap)
Day intendance Your grandkids are a joy, only they're too an expense for working parents. Some of my friends say their adult children were extremely grateful when their parents paid for all or role of their 24-hour interval care costs for a yr. One friend offered to pay one-half so her girl wouldn't experience she had to scrimp on the treat her twins.
A retirement business relationship I know: The last matter our recent college grads are thinking about is retirement. But as another Next Avenue story pointed out, opening and financing a Roth IRA for your grown kid is a souvenir that will concluding a lifetime.
A fashion to help your child aid others If you have an developed child with a big center, prepare and finance an account in his or her name on a website, similar Kiva, that makes micro loans to small-business concern entrepreneurs in third world countries who want to aggrandize their fledgling enterprises.
As the recipients of those loans repay them to your child, your kid can choose to keep the money. Alternatively, he or she can instead leave the cash in the Kiva fund, reinvest it to help other entrepreneurs and, in the true spirit of gift-giving, pay information technology forwards.
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Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gift-ideas-adult-children_n_3070220
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