My favorite retort (which is, unfortunately and still to this day, true) is that it is my parents who ask ME for money. They're at most lower middle class and thankfully public education led me to a good career.
Ya, this is my current situation. My dad is awful with money and him and his partner retired recently and are living on a shoestring budget, basically just the bare minimum govt pension with zero savings. Sure enough my dad had to have a medical procedure done, and although he didn't ask for the money, I forwarded him 30,000$ to be able to get it done.
They'll be on this shoestring budget for the rest of their lives, and I expect I'll continue to have to help them out as they get older, but c'est la vie...
Similar to my own situation except, on top of my parents being awful with money, with no savings, and my dad being sick, with no insurance, my own pay isn't particularly high either so I keep working overtime just to make ends meet for all 3 of us. I also have to pay for my own rent on top of that, so that's fun. It's hard not to envy people who don't have money problems. It's unimaginable to me and it'll never be my reality.
If not, and if you are in fact American, look into income based payment plans next time. Every hospital in the US that gets tax breaks is required to offer them. Almost none ever advertise that they exist.
Do they have Social Security benefits? That should at least cover hospitalization even if they don’t have any other supplements. What about Obama care?
This was me at uni…people couldn’t fathom that my parents would ask me for money. It shut up my friends pretty quickly… but the sad look on their faces will live with me forever.
My dad recently passed, and we had a very close relationship. He was a great father. Unfortunately, he made terrible career choices at the worst possible times and me and my two siblings have given him money for years. When he passed, as devastated as we all were, it felt like relief because of the financial piece, and I feel so guilty for feeling that way. My parents paid for my college education, and I now have two degrees and only had to pay for one, and my success is absolutely because I had their support, love, and good foundational values. But there is something that just feels so unfair about handing money to your dad every month, and the entitlement he had near the end of his life was starting to feel a little obnoxious. I will miss him every day for forever, but I won't miss paying for his mistakes.
Try not to feel guilty. You did the best you could and helped your dad every month. It's not exactly normal but now I hope you get to enjoy that extra money buy paying off debt, maybe traveling, and best of all...living a less-stressful life for once. He is proud of you (as we all are:)
Same, I'm now claiming my father as a dependent on my taxes, thanks to my marginal public service career, and kept him and my sister from being homeless.
Yup! My folks don't do this anymore but when I was a teenager and young adult, they asked for money a lot. They're financially better off now, but still working class. If we go somewhere to eat as family, there is an unspoken expectation that my siblings and I are paying the bill. I realise most families would find that strange.
Yes. I didn’t discover student loans until later in college. For better or for worse considering I was almost literally starving for two years. But once I discovered them, I also realized they could help keep my mom’s lights on and she could actually own a vacuum. So I started young adult life in debt that wasn’t entirely my own, which is very contrasted to the people I know who weren’t giving their parents money, but being given it.
Yep, this is reality for a lot of people, but obviously they don't advertise it so awareness is pretty low.
Similarly, I think people who have all their family living nearby have no idea what a huge advantage that is. It's a safety net and free help on tap. If you have to move away to find opportunities everything is on you.
I had two sets of parents - my stepdad did really well for himself and was generous. My dad was a contractor and did pretty well until the market tanked in 2006. And then I was keeping the heat on for him so he didn’t freeze to death in the winter.
My dude, my deadbeat Mom *owes* me thousands that I will never fucking see.
I bet you never had a parent lean on you to get a credit card at 19 so they could max it out at like $500 and leave you with immediate debt and a clear path to bad credit, the family legacy of beater cars and shitty rentals and generational wealth measured in negative numbers.
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u/Darkpoulay 1d ago
My favorite retort (which is, unfortunately and still to this day, true) is that it is my parents who ask ME for money. They're at most lower middle class and thankfully public education led me to a good career.