A new survey conducted by Talker Research on behalf of Beyond Finance has examined how some parents fund their children’s return to school, revealing distressing findings.
Parents Are Gambling to Buy New Things for Their Children’s Return to School
For one, parents are often going to what appears to be extreme lengths to fund their children’s return to school, from pawning possessions to taking out loans to even gambling.
“When parents feel caught between protecting their child’s emotional well-being and protecting their family’s financial future, it’s easy to make decisions that provide short-term relief but create long-term financial stress,” explained Beyond Finance chief financial wellness advisor Erika Rasure.
The survey covered a sample of 2,000 parents of school-aged children, with nearly one in 10, or 8%, gambling in order to try and secure money for their children’s return to school.
But this does not exhaust the type of financially questionable behavior that parents engage in, with 12% admitting to pawning their belongings and 15% saying that they have taken personal or payday loans.
Another 16% sold possessions, whereas 20% were open to accumulating extra credit card debt to see this through, and another 23% chose pay-later options. Many of the parents admitted that they felt pressure to spend more on their children’s return to school, describing it as a “back-to-school parent trap.”
The phenomenon is described as parents feeling pressure to spend more on their children’s return to school and procure new clothes, tech, and supplies so that they do not feel left out compared ot their peers.
Many parents, in fact, 54% of respondents, also say that some of the spending is driven by their own fears that their children will be judged by peers for reusing things from the previous year.
Seven in 10 parents, or 70%, admit that shopping for their children’s return to school is their most stressful financial event of the year – more so than their holiday shopping for a large cohort of respondents (58%).
Based on the survey, 61% of respondents have bought something that their child may not necessarily need but did so that the child won’t be judged, while 42% admitted that they ended up regretting pressure-driven purchases.