I was in a conversation with a very close friend yesterday in which we looked over the past twelve months with brutal honesty. There were hugs and tears and realizations, but one of the tough realizations we both had was that as adults, we never thought either of us would ever be in a situation where we had to ask our parents to help us out of a financial bind. Even working and earning money, there would sometimes be an emergency that came up. Without a savings account, a 401K or an investment portfolio to turn to, who were we going to call? We each expressed a deep sense of embarrassment at having both been in that position or even having to ask, but knew that if either of us hadn’t we would have been in serious trouble.

Just when I was ready to start bitching about how my life was, how I wished I had never taken time away from doing the things I loved in service of trying my hand at something different, she told me that the only thing I missed out on was being stuck and having to ask for financial help. We began talking about parents helping out their adult children in their time of need and I confessed that I, too, had been forced to ask for help from my own on more than one occasion. There is a certain amount of shame that I associate with it, and it seems that she felt the same way.

However, we both quickly realized that the shame we thought of came from frequently seeing people we both knew who unnecessarily take advantage of their parents generosity versus really needing help and asking for it. You know what I mean: people who go on shopping sprees and then ask for money or people who just can’t stop doing drugs and then ask their parents for money. I’m sure some of you know people to whom this applies and, who knows, it’s likely to even be true for some of you reading this.

It seems like asking your parents for financial help is a subject that is taboo, something you don’t talk about because of how you think it will look to other people or how it would make you look if people actually knew that you were getting a helping hand from mom or dad. The truth, I think, is that a lot more people are in the same position that she and I have been in where you were caught between a rock and a hard place with nowhere else to turn.

I talked about the changes I had been going through and she told me about her very private bout with ovarian cysts and how the hospital bills nearly crippled her. The reality of the situations we both faced at the time that we were stuck necessitated reaching out for help.

So I put the question to all of you: have you ever been in a position where you’ve had to ask your parents to help you out? How did you handle it? Does it bother you when you’re struggling to earn a dollar and you see people who constantly sponge off of their parents and refuse to work? How old is too old to be asking your parents for help?