<prompt> Human: I think financial education is a great thing at any age, but I can appreciate talking about finances - especially family details - can be a sticky, tricky topic. We are often taught that money isnt an appropriate subject, and that may be true in many cases. However, I see multiple posts on reddit about people asking for advice on how to deal with their parents situation and Ive learned from what happened to us as well ...My dad died suddenly at age 66. He was always good with money and we lived comfortably and somewhat frugally. As my parents got older, I tried gently prodding financial insights from them - did they have life insurance, are all the bills covered, does my mom get dads pension if he goes first. My dad was never comfortable discussing any of these things. When he died, my mom was clueless, and everything was left to me to figure out. Clearly my dad should have talked to her, if not to me, but I was in a much better position to deal with everything even though I had to figure out the information with nothing to go on.This morning my husbands single mom calls us in tears saying that she cant travel to visit us this year because she is broke. My husband grew up relatively poor, but she had married a few times in her 50s and was actually given a 250K settlement from her ex-husband, about 3 years ago. Somehow she has blown through this and doesnt earn enough from SS to cover her basic bills. If she had only talked to us when she got that settlement I could have helped her plan a way to make it last - we had no idea she received this money nor that she was living so close to the edge.Too little, too late in both these situations and yet, my husband and I are being called in to help. Death is inevitable, money is necessary, I wish my family had not felt these were taboo topics until it was too late.Edit: Well this blew up ... as many have realized, yes, I was talking about ADULT children in particular based on the experiences of myself, friends and colleagues being unpleasantly surprised by parental circumstances and then not being in a position to do anything about it. Of course, as a parent, use your discretion on kids of any age - still lessons to be learned, just not in the ways many have described below.  <response>: I think its important to educate your kids about finances in general such as the value of saving money. However, as a rule, I NEVER burden children with adult problems. If Im having trouble keeping the electricity on, my son need not know this. 