Bank of Mom and Dad
The “Bank of Mom and Dad” is a humorous expression for a parent lending (or giving) money to a child. The Bank of Mom and Dad is often a necessary place to go for a young person with no credit history (or a bad credit history). In 2004, there was a BBC show titled Bank of Mum & Dad.
The term “Bank of Mom and Dad” has been cited in print since at least 1987.
Urban Dictionary
Bank of Mum and Dad
The Bank of Mum and Dad:
n. Money acquired from one’s parents that doesn’t have to be repaid… or the borrower doesn’t intend to repay even if they are supposed to.
Said in a smug way by the people who use the ‘bank’, as they think they’ve got free money from their parents.
However, the parents know it exists and use the phrase in an annoyed kind of way… Like they know that the BoMaD exists and that it isn’t right, but they can’t do anything about it.
The BBC programme of the same name showed that the BoMaD can last well into a person’s 40s, provided their parents are still alive.
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by gratedraindrop Feb 22, 2007
15 November 1987, Cleveland (OH) Plain Dealer, pg. 5G, col. 2:
Although he works 16 ot 20 hours a week, he still would have come up short for homecoming without a loan from the Bank of Mom and Dad.
Google Books
San Diego Magazine
Volume 40
1988
Pg. 184:
For first-time home buyers, one financial institution still beats all others for a down payment — the Bank of Mom and Dad.
Google Books
Any Day Now
By Elizabeth Quinn
New York, NY: Pocket Books
1989
Pg. 255:
He thought about asking the folks or even his brother, but he couldn’t bring himself to make the call. A couple of years of high inflation had pretty much finished the bank of Mom and Dad, and Dante really didn’t have money to spare.
Goolge News Archive
4 January 1990, Ridgefield (CT) Press, “Teach Children about Credit,” pg. 7B, col. 1:
“If a child knows he can always come to the Bank of Mom and Dad for extra money he wont learn to make do with what he has.”
Google News Archive
17 October 1990, Moscow-Pullman (ID) Daily News, “Student makes good with mobile music business” by Tanya Madison, pg. 2B, col. 1:
Williams borrowed the startup money from the First Bank of Mom and Dad and Digital Audio was born.
New York (NY) Times
The Bank of Mom and Dad
By ANNA BAHNEY
Published: April 20, 2006
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“Everybody I know is supporting their children in some way,” said Gail Horowitz, Mr. McGuinness’s mother, a vice president of the Zlokower Company, a public relations firm in Manhattan. Unlike young adults who “boomerang” back home to live with their parents — the subject of the recent comedy “Failure to Launch” — these young people live independently. But they need help to make ends meet, or put another way, to maintain a middle-class way of life.
The bottom line is that the assumption that financial obligations to children ended after graduation from high school or college is going the way of the pay phone. Today, parents are finding that they are on the hook for more, sometimes much more — contributions of thousands of dollars a year to help young men and women get on their feet economically, often into their 30’s.
Smart Money
JANUARY 5, 2009
The Bank of Mom and Dad
ByJANET PASKIN
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As the economy gets worse, more people will need loans, but thanks to the credit crisis, banks aren t exactly eager to help out. Mom and Dad, on the other hand, just might be: Baby boomers and their parents are sitting on assets worth an estimated $40 trillion. And next to the stock market, a friend in need doesn t look like such a bad bet.
MSN Money
Is the Bank of Mom and Dad still open?
A reader’s parents maintain a revolving loan account for the grown kids—just in case they need some extra money.
By MSN Money partner on Tue, Jun 21, 2011 9:37 AM
This guest post comes from J. Money at Budgets are Sexy.
Oh yeah, good ol’ Bank of Mom and Dad! Love that place. A commenter recently reminded me that I’ve been wanting to blog about this again, and what she shared about her parents sounded pretty cool. I think I’ll even do the same one day.