Most Indian parents fail to recognise that they have little to fall back on after they stop earning.

When Pune-based senior citizen Nandkishore Rameshwar stood as guarantor for his son’s education loan of `7 lakh in 2011, he couldn’t have imagined how badly things could go wrong. His son completed his MBA and got a job, only to lose it two years ago. Now 68, Rameshwar is forced to work as a restaurant manager so that he can pay the EMI of `9,000. His retirement corpus was not big enough to shoulder this added burden.

Rameshwar is hardly alone. According to a recent study by HSBC, 71% of parents in India are ready to go into debt to fund their children’s university education. Of the total number of parents surveyed in India, 41% felt that funding their child’s education was more important than contributing to their own retirement savings.Not surprisingly, 65% of parents said paying for their child’s education made it more difficult to keep up with other financial commitments.

What most of these parents appeared to have ignored is that there is little for them to fall back on when their earning years are over. On the other hand, their children have the option of either taking education loans or working for a few years to save enough for higher studies. Says Sridevi Ganesh, Chief Financial Planner, Chamomile Investment Consultants, “Times have changed. You can’t expect your children to help you with your daily and medical expenses.“

Take the case of Surat-based Bharat Gandhi. The government employee retired in 2015 with `45 lakh in benefits. Instead of planning out how he would make the money work for his retirement years, Gandhi spent `17 lakh to fund his daughter’s education in Australia. Now, he is relying on his 55-year-old wife Sandhya’s income to rebuild the dwindling retirement corpus and save for his daughter’s marriage in five years’ time.

Nearly all (97%) parents surveyed in India by HSBC expected to be the main contributor when it came to funding their child’s university education. Only one in eight (13%) expected their child to contribute to funding their own university costs. However, only 1% of children currently at university helped fund their own education.

Other than higher studies, parents nearing retirement have been known to throw caution to the wind and fund goals of children like a house or a car. “Such parents don’t have clarity about the future. They are not sure whether the children will continue to stay with them or settle elsewhere,“ says Shilpa Wagh, Chief Financial Coach at Wagh Financials. In case the children have plans to move elsewhere, then breaking into your retirement savings to build a physical asset for them is a futile expense. It’s difficult to liquidate real estate when you need money for retirement expenditures.

In 2014, 56-year-old Mumbai-based pharmaceutical wholesaler Mayush Jain repaid a home loan of `40 lakh from his retirement corpus. In 2008-09, he spent `6 lakh for his children’s education and is now gearing for his children’s weddings in two years. This despite the fact that both his children are now working.

It’s only in the last two years that Jain, who plans to retire at 62, has started to save for the future. To build a corpus over the next six years, he is investing `15,000 in recurring deposits and `15,000 in stocks every month. However, given the fact that Jain has only six years to go before he retires, aggressive investing in stocks can backfire if the market sours.

Instead of scrambling to gather funds before you hang up your boots, it may be a better idea to nudge your children towards fending for themselves as far as their funding their goals are concerned. Says Partha Iyengar, Co-Founder of Life & Money, “Never touch your retirement corpus. It’s like an oxygen mask which will help you survive the next 20-25 years.“ Encourage your children to be responsible for themselves and approach banks for education loans. Wagh adds, “First you need to plan for your retirement and then your children’s goals. It’s easy to get loans for education and weddings. Nobody will give you loans to meet retirement needs.“

When taking an education loan, place the onus of repayment on the child. “You can pitch in partially. Let your children earn and repay once they complete their studies,“ adds Iyengar.