37% of U.S. Parents Turn to Family Wealth as Childcare and Living Costs Rise

Nearly two in five U.S. parents with young children expect to receive or seek financial support from their own parents or grandparents over the next year, suggesting part of America’s projected $124 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer is arriving through living expenses, childcare and savings contributions well before formal inheritances.

Thirty-seven percent of parents with young children expect such assistance, according to BMO’s 2026 Real Financial Progress Index. The finding comes as 82% of American parents say the cost of raising children has gotten out of control, while 86% say expenses including daycare, after-school programs, summer camps and school supplies are impairing their ability to save for their children’s future.

The trend has implications for wealth managers, family offices and alternative-asset firms because it changes the timing of intergenerational capital flows. Rather than treating wealth transfer exclusively as an estate-planning event, advisers increasingly face families transferring money while older generations are alive and younger households are dealing with immediate affordability pressures.

Family support is becoming part of household finance

Among parents expecting assistance, 47% anticipate cash for everyday expenses, while 43% rely on grandparents for free childcare or help with associated costs. Another 26% expect relatives to contribute toward a child’s future through a 529 plan or another savings account, according to BMO’s Real Financial Progress Index.

Geography can have a measurable financial impact. About 45% of Americans with young children live close enough to relatives to receive assistance. Those households reported saving an average $1,915 annually on childcare and $1,443 on groceries compared with parents without nearby family support.

The research was conducted by Ipsos between June 8 and July 13 among 2,500 U.S. adults, with quotas and weighting designed to reflect the adult population.

The findings indicate that intergenerational support is not confined to affluent households making large gifts for property purchases or investment portfolios. It increasingly includes recurring expenses that would otherwise be funded from younger households’ income.

$124 trillion wealth transfer may arrive in stages

The longer-term pool of wealth potentially moving between generations is enormous.

Cerulli Associates estimates $124 trillion will transfer through 2048, including about $105 trillion going to heirs and $18 trillion to charities. Nearly $100 trillion is expected to originate with baby boomers and older generations, representing roughly 81% of projected transfers.

Millennials are expected to inherit about $45.6 trillion over the period, while Generation X households could receive approximately $39 trillion, according to Cerulli’s Great Wealth Transfer research.

Those projections describe wealth transferred over decades and should not be interpreted as money evenly distributed across American households. The concentration of assets among wealthier families means the eventual inheritance opportunity will vary substantially by household.

The BMO findings nevertheless point to a related structural change: some families are effectively accelerating transfers through childcare, cash gifts, education savings and other financial support rather than preserving all assets for eventual inheritance.

For wealth advisers, that creates more complicated planning decisions. Older clients providing support must balance children’s immediate needs against retirement spending, longevity risk, healthcare costs, taxes and their intended estates.

Support flows in both directions

Intergenerational finance is also not simply a one-way transfer from baby boomers to their descendants.

Seventy percent of parents receiving nearby family support said they were also responsible for the financial or emotional well-being of aging parents, compared with 45% of parents without family living nearby. Roughly seven in 10 parents living close to relatives who help with childcare identified as part of the “sandwich generation.”

That creates an unusual wealth-planning dynamic: the same household can simultaneously receive childcare or financial assistance from older relatives while providing care back to them.

Parents receiving local family help also reported greater financial stress despite the savings. BMO found 74% regularly felt overwhelmed by financial responsibilities, compared with 57% among parents without the same nearby support.

For wealth managers, the implication is that succession planning increasingly intersects with cash-flow planning across multiple generations rather than occurring as a single transfer after death.

Private markets are preparing for changing wealth ownership

The shift matters to alternative-asset managers because trillions of dollars eventually moving toward Gen X and millennial investors could alter how private-market products are distributed and constructed.

PE NEWSWIRE recently reported that family-office direct investment value jumped 123% to $12.9 billion in 2025, as wealthy families increasingly used direct deals and co-investments alongside conventional private equity funds.

Wealth managers are also creating structures intended to simplify private-market exposure and intergenerational planning. Simon Quick Advisors, for example, launched its first dedicated private equity vehicle this year, with an initial close of about $60 million and a $100 million target. PE NEWSWIRE’s coverage of Simon Quick’s private equity fund noted that its structure can simplify ownership transfers and retitling alongside consolidated capital calls and reporting.

These developments do not mean family financial assistance will automatically flow into private equity or other alternatives. Money used for childcare, housing and daily expenses is fundamentally different from long-duration investment capital.

But the broader shift in who controls family wealth is strategically important for private banks, RIAs, family offices and alternative managers. Firms accustomed to relationships centered on older wealth holders increasingly need to establish relationships with children and grandchildren before assets formally change ownership.

The Great Wealth Transfer is becoming a living transfer

The headline $124 trillion wealth-transfer estimate can obscure how intergenerational capital actually moves.

Some assets will pass through estates. Some will move first between spouses. Some will go to charity. And an increasing amount of family support may be transferred incrementally while older generations are still alive.

Cerulli estimates that Gen X will receive about $14 trillion during the next decade compared with $8 trillion for millennials, even though millennials are projected to receive more over the full period through 2048.

For the investment industry, that makes the timing of generational engagement increasingly important. A wealth manager that waits until an inheritance occurs may encounter beneficiaries whose financial relationships and investment preferences were established years earlier.

For American families, the immediate driver is more basic. Rising costs are making parents turn to grandparents for help now rather than waiting for an eventual inheritance.

The result is a Great Wealth Transfer that may increasingly occur not as one enormous generational handoff, but through millions of smaller transfers supporting housing, childcare, education and household finances along the way.