Last week, I overheard two thirty-somethings at a coffee shop discussing their parents’ retirement anxieties.
“They think we have no idea what they’re going through,” one said, “meanwhile, we’ve been talking about their situation for years.”
It struck me because I’ve been on both sides of this divide.
At 64, I catch myself assuming my adult children don’t grasp certain financial realities.
But when we actually talk, really talk, I discover they’ve not only thought about these things but have dissected them in ways that would surprise most of my generation.
The disconnect is about what each generation assumes the other doesn’t understand.
We boomers often mistake our children’s different approach to money for ignorance.
They see things we miss because they’re watching from the outside, without the emotional weight we carry.
After countless conversations with both peers and adult children, including my own, I’ve identified seven financial realities that we think are our secret burdens but are actually dinner table discussions in our children’s homes.
1) How much the house is really worth versus what you need to retire
We think we’re protecting our children by not discussing the house value and our retirement math.
We drop hints about “downsizing someday” or “the house being worth something,” but we imagine they don’t connect the dots.
Here’s what I learned when my daughter casually mentioned she’d looked up our property value on Zillow: Our kids know exactly what the house is worth.
They’ve done the math on property taxes, maintenance costs, how much equity we’re sitting on, and had detailed conversations about whether we can actually afford to stay there.
The revelation came during a family dinner when my son mentioned, unprompted, that he and his sister had discussed whether we should consider a reverse mortgage.
They’d researched the pros and cons, understood the implications, and were waiting for us to bring it up.
We thought we were shielding them from worry.
They thought we were being stubborn about accepting reality.
2) The actual state of your retirement savings
Most boomers guard their 401(k) balance like a state secret, maybe mentioning vaguely that “we’re doing fine” or “we’ve saved some.”
We assume our children have no concept of what we have or what we need.
They know; they’ve pieced it together from comments about market downturns affecting dinner plans, from the relief in our voices when Social Security arrives, from the way we react to unexpected expenses.
They understand the difference between “comfortable” and “wealthy” far better than we think.
A friend recently discovered his kids had created a spreadsheet estimating his retirement funds based on his career trajectory, spending patterns, and lifestyle changes.
They were planning how to help if needed.
While he was worrying alone about sequence of returns risk, they were already discussing among themselves how to support him if the market tanked early in his retirement.
3) How much you’re spending to maintain appearances
We think our children don’t notice the mental gymnastics we do to maintain a certain lifestyle.
The club membership we can’t quite afford but won’t give up, the car lease that stretches the budget, and the dinners out that we justify as “we’ve earned this.”
They see it all and, more importantly, they discuss it.
They recognize the social pressure we feel to keep up with our peers, to not appear to be struggling, to maintain the identity we’ve built over decades.
My nephew told me his siblings regularly discuss their parents’ spending on status symbols while simultaneously worrying about healthcare costs.
They understand the psychology behind it better than we do.
They see how much of our self-worth is tied to these external markers, something that became painfully clear to me in retirement when I realized how much of my identity had been wrapped up in professional usefulness.
4) Your health insurance gaps and medical costs
We mention doctor visits casually, downplay procedures, and say Medicare covers everything.
We think we’re being strong and independent.
Our children hear what we’re not saying.
They know about the Medicare gaps, they’ve researched supplemental insurance, they understand that “Medicare covers it” often means “Medicare covers part of it,” and they’ve had long discussions about what happens if one of us needs long-term care.
The conversation that opened my eyes happened when my daughter asked specific questions about our Medicare Advantage plan.
She knew about the coverage limits, the network restrictions, and the out-of-pocket maximums.
While I was trying to project confidence, she and her brother had already researched long-term care insurance and were strategizing how to handle potential costs.
5) The tension between helping them and securing your future
Every time we help with a grandchild’s tuition or offer to assist with a down payment, we think we’re hiding the internal calculation of what we can afford.
We imagine they don’t see the conflict between our desire to help and our need to preserve capital.
They see it, discuss it, then feel guilty about it.
Adult children talk extensively about the financial pressure their parents face when trying to help them while securing their own retirement.
They notice when we’re stretching ourselves, and they discuss among siblings how to decline help without hurting our pride.
The unspoken negotiation around money, the careful dance of offering and accepting help, isn’t as invisible as we think.
They understand we’re navigating between generosity and self-preservation, and they’re having their own conversations about how to protect us from our impulse to give too much.
6) How work or its absence defines your days
We think our children don’t understand what retirement really means financially and emotionally.
The loss of purpose, the identity crisis, the way money represents not just freedom but relevance.
They get it; they watch us struggle to find meaning without a professional identity, and they see how we count money more carefully now because money has become a measure of remaining independence and control.
Moreover, they discuss among themselves how to help us find purpose without making us feel useless, and understand that our relationship with money has shifted from accumulation to preservation (from building to defending).
They see how this defensive posture affects our decisions and our mood.
7) The fear of becoming a burden
This is the big one: We think our fear of becoming a financial burden is our private terror.
We imagine our children don’t think about this, that they’re too busy with their own lives to consider what our declining years might cost them.
They think about it constantly: They discuss scenarios, make contingency plans, and research options.
Because of this, they know about the cost of assisted living, the complexity of Medicaid spend-downs, and the financial implications of cognitive decline.
While we’re lying awake worrying about being a burden, they’re lying awake figuring out how to ensure we’re cared for without destroying their own financial futures.
Closing thoughts
The great irony of the boomer-adult child financial divide is that both generations are having the same conversations separately, each thinking they’re protecting the other from harsh realities.
Our adult children are watching us navigate retirement with the same intensity we once watched our own parents.
The difference is they have the internet, open communication with peers, and less shame about discussing money.
The most powerful thing we can do is recognize that our financial “secrets” aren’t secrets at all.
Our children have already done the math, had the discussions, and made preliminary plans.
Instead of maintaining this fiction of protection, we might find relief in acknowledging what everyone already knows.
The burden you’re trying to spare them from is one they’ve already picked up.
Moreover, the only question is whether you’ll carry it together or separately.
