I'm a older(ish) millennial whose youngish boomer parents stocked away money in an RESP for me to use for school. They never told me how much this was, and I was expected to get a job throughout highschool. I also maintained fantastic grades and participated in 18 million extra curricular to get ALL THE SCHOLARSHIPS. Looking back, my parents had more than enough money to cover my full education, but "saving money for school" was always placed as partially/mostly my responsibility.
After 2 years of scholarship money, I started working paid co-op terms that covered the rest of my university. Other than a small portion of RESP money in 2nd year, I didn't actually use the rest of the RESP and my parents transferred it to my brother. One of my coop terms I lived at home for free with my parents. After university I graduated +20k in the bank, no debt, and landed a good job. I moved to a new city and never asked my parents to lend me any money...and was paying my own cell phone bill the whole time. (This seems to be a common thing parents help their kids out with into their late 20s!)
Once in a while, (ie when my brand new car- insert face punch here) was in a minor fender bender, $500 showed up in my account from my parents. I never asked for it, I never expected it and could have paid it myself.
Later, I did receive an inheritance when my grandfather passed (it was left to my parents, but they split it up because they had "no use for the money"), which as timed with when then SO and I were buying a house..we used it for half the down payment, but the rest was on us, including all the closing fees, and qualifying for a mortgage. Important to note if we hadn't have received that money, we would have just waited a year to buy a house! We saved our half by living on one income, and working part time jobs. (Oh btw, this is all in Toronto, a city where you definitely can't afford a house under the age of 30 :P)
The next year my mom and dad graciously paid for our wedding because a great uncle had paid for their wedding and they were passing it along. Again, if they had not paid we would have never expected them to do so and had been saving diligently for the wedding. We also tried to keep it relatively frugal for a 100 person event. Our fancy car was our own 2009 honda fit. Sooo glamorous (want to know how we had a house and saved enough for a wedding...we have a 2009 honda fit.)
Parents still retired at 55 with 0 mortgage, a small summer cottage, and money for their retirement to travel/the lifestyle the want. And now we get to treat them to dinner, because they are "on a pension".
Moral of the story is, I received money from my parents, but I know they were financially in a place to "help me" and I would have never expected their help. I still feel guilty in a way about the house down payment, because that house gave me and Mr.HH a significant ROI, and I want to do something to pay back my parents, but they would never accept it.
(Aside- the one time I asked to borrow money from my parents was when we were privately selling our first car that we had stupidly bought new and had an underwater loan, I had a bunch of money in TFSAs and RRSPs but was missing ~1000 in cash...I asked to borrow it for 1 week (we didn't have a LOC at the time, and I didn't want the cash withdrawal on a credit card interest fees), and my parents said "no you are adult, figure it out..but if you need money for groceries let us know"....but yet paid off our wedding when I didn't ask for that. I have never asked for money again :P)
As a millennial it bothers me to see my peers expecting/needing their parents financial support. Fair enough if boomers can afford to give back to their kids, great, but deferring their own retirement to help their 30 year old pay rent seems a bit extreme.
I hope I can convince my future children that we have no money..and make them think they have to work for their post education...it served me well :D.