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My mother (RIP) always favored my brother (also RIP) who was on disability for the last 20 years of his life. He never asked for help but my mother knew he was at poverty level. His wife was also on disability. She helped them both frequently. It was HER money so I didn't get involved.
The few times I asked for help from her was met with negativity. I asked for a loan for a down-payment on a condo in the town where we lived. She refused as she did not approve of condos. Ok, fine. Fast-forward 10 years -I moved to the Pacific NW and lived there 12 years. I bought a condo there (much higher income)....and she moved up there to be near ME as my brother was useless in helping or caring for her. What a mess.
I was always the healthy and hearty one, stable career making good money, but with little savings as I was a single parent with little left to save. But she never wanted to help me financially, ever. One time I borrowed money when the government shut down in 1992, she loaned me a few hundred dollars, and I had to produce a post-dated check. Talk about making me feel like a loser - all the while giving cash to my brother.
Had she loaned me the down-payment I would have never moved. I imagine how things, our lives would have been different had she loaned me that money.
Those condos were 40k when I asked for the down-payment, they are now going for 150k.
What would you do if you had a kid who opted out of college for 7 or 8 years, supported themselves for those years, and decided to do college in their mid-20's? Not everybody is ready for college at 18.
Someone in their mid 20's isn't a "kid" anymore. It's an adult.
Someone in their mid 20's isn't a "kid" anymore. It's an adult.
I agree, I went back to college when I was 23 & had direction & motivation & paid my way 90%. At 18, actually 17yo for me, I was drifting & didn't have a clue about what to do as an adult. But the difference as I see it today is that the cost of education has skyrocketed way beyond inflation compared to most other things. I don't know if someone can work & pay their way through university now?
I sort of fall into this category: I left home at 16, with a 9th-grade education & got pregnant.
I also became very poor, very quickly. So at age 18, I decided to go back to school by starting at a community college, establishing a decent GPA & transferring to a university a year later.
As this scenario was all of my own design; I did not ask for a dime. I was poor enough to qualify for a Pell Grant which helped with tuition but the rest was on me. Trust me: They didn't offer & who could blame them!
I can't even begin to tell you how stupid I felt ... I struggled like crazy, as a teenage mom without even a HS education & I did so knowing that it didn't have to be this way:
My parents had purchased a condo a few blocks from the campus of CU when I was 12 years old in anticipation of my future "success" ... And my actions as a teen had thrown that possibility & the college fund that went with it; right into the dumpster! I had nobody to blame except myself.
What my parents DID offer me to help out was worth its weight in gold, though: They said, "We will help you with the baby!" I considered myself very lucky.
I admire and congratulate you. But I can't help but wonder, back in my day it took TWO people to get pregnant. You took on a lot of responsibility willingly at a young age. I hope Karma comes back to you and you have a great life.
Sometimes what looks like mooching or enabling is the family coping with a serious illness that you cannot necessarily see. Unfortunately I have experience with this.
My brother and his wife consider me a moocher. My mother has helped me financially and bought me a used car when I was back home several years ago because mine was repossessed when I lost my job in 2008. I have repeatedly offered to pay my mother back for the money and the car, now that I can, and since this brother is keeper of the money, I have also offered for her to take me out of her will when she dies (can you see the s**tstorm coming then!?!). Her response to me is, "It's my money and I'll do what I damn well please with it."
OK, then, it's sort of annoying to me to not be able to pay her back and of course, my brother has no idea I'm in a position now and have offered to do that and was turned down. I also feel like I'm getting charity from my mother. But as the many decisions my parents made when I was younger are some of the reasons I'm struggling now, I think my mom may simply feel guilty about what I've gone through and this is her way of trying to apologize.
Whatever, I've offered to repay my mom twice now and have been told not to worry about it, so I just need to suck that up and continue to let my brother and his wife call me a moocher.
I'm just reminding you guys that many stories have two sides to them.
I also want to say something about parents paying for college. Yes, there are some jobs that pay well without a college degree. But if you want to earn enough money to actually live on, then most jobs you apply for will ask for some degree of some kind.
My parents didn't want to pay for college for us kids. Fair enough, they didn't have to. My brothers were expected to go into the service and go to college on the GI bill (that's what they did) and I was expected to get married and let my husband take care of me. I decided not to get married (is that the choice people talk about when they talk about how the poor make bad decisions that keep them poor?).
Whatever, guess who ended up working full time to support herself and ended up taking night classes at community college until she couldn't afford to do that any longer?
Then came the day my dad lost his job and he and my mom needed financial help. I don't know if my brothers helped my parents or not but at the time, I was living in my truck working a minimum wage job while attending the local community college. I was still supporting myself and paying off debts. I wasn't able to help my parents out.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still see education as a way out of poverty. It's too late for me, but I think parents who don't at least partially help their kids through college when they need it are not only shortchanging their kids, but they may be shortchanging themselves as well.
Obviously that depends on the kids, the parents, and the family dynamic. But my thought would be to get your kids a college education of some kind as soon as possible any way you can do it.
My brother's daughter used to do this. He was retired and on a limited income. He always kept his pantry full, and everything was well stocked in case he wasn't able to get to the store, or ran low on money, etc. His daughter would pick through his pantry every chance she got. She nearly emptied his bank account when he was in the hospital. He never caught her in the act of stealing from him, and that's what it was--stealing.
I cannot imagine an adult child doing that to their retired parent, but it happens.
I do not have that problem here and never will have. I made it abundantly clear that 30 days after graduating from college they were totally and 100% on their own. As I repeatedly told them "the first 22 years are on me the rest are on thee" and they knew from past history I absolutely meant it.
I agree that it is nice to help adult children go to college. I am talking about the older adult children who are no longer college aged or going to college (18-22). They love to "mooch" off of their parents by not working and living with them instead. Better yet, they live in a separate house owned by the parent and the parents pay the bills for the daughter and her 3 kids. She refuses to work, and the mother enables her but complains about her often. I say, she let them move in with her, rents out that fancy house, and let the chips fall as they may. Maybe when it gets uncomfortable at home is when the daughter will figure out that she needs to get a job and move out on her own.
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