We've bought Life Memberships for each of our kids. We can remember when we were younger, the budget could only stretch so far, so just the annual dues were challenge enough to keep up with. Now, with the kids grown and gone I'm at "Benefactor" level, so we decided that we'd "pop" for each of the kids. They're also told that we expect them to do it for THEIR kids down the road.
So....there are now 4 generations of our family that are/have been Life members - and that's a GOOD thing in my book.