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On Sunday, 10/26 I read a great post over at Wide Open Wallet about our parents, their finances and if we should care how they spend it.
This is a very touchy subject to the elderly; I’m not sure why exactly, other than they have a deep-rooted fear of being broke with no place to go. These feelings can stem from a great many things, and in the case of my elder, it’s because a younger sibling of mine told my elder (at least according to my elder), “When you run out of money, you’re out of here.”
My Mom (while she was alive), and my Dad purchased a home that my brother and sister-in-law were renting but were soon to be evicted from. They lived in NM and my parents lived in SoCal. Mom & Dad sold the ‘family home,’ moved to NM, bought the house that my brother was being evicted from, and allegedly, then paid my brother rent to live there.
About 3 years later, Mom got sick and passed away. This was allegedly when my brother made the statement about Dad running out of money. Now Dad is so paranoid about not having any money that he contributes nothing to the household at all and he never has. He contributes absolutely no financial support, even though he likes certain cereals, certain fruits, drinks a certain milk, etc. These items add to the grocery bill, but that doesn’t matter to him at all.
Conversely, he does pay his own way in that he pays his own auto insurance (I paid it for about 6 mos.), he buys his own clothes when he replaces anything and has his own spending money. He buys his own medications, pays his own medical bills, etc., but I do think that at some point, his financial upkeep will become my responsibility, so I feel it’s my “right” to know where he stands financially.
I will never kick him out or put him in a home simply because he has no money. I believe that it’s wrong for any child to do that to a parent, yet I hear and read of family putting family ‘out on the street’ when their money runs out. What kind of child, or parent for that matter, can do that to their own family? That’s certainly not the way I was raised, yet my brother actually allegedly said that very thing to our Dad. My brother is a rare breed of selfish, know-it-all, ungrateful, hateful, lying, vengeful people, so while a part of me was stunned he would say something like that, deep down I guess I wasn’t really surprised.
The fear that he has also stems, no doubt, from having lived through the great depression, remembering what it was like to earn $1 a week, having a $90 house payment in 1959 that he worried about being able to make and looking around today to $4 for gas, paying $25,000 for a car (which he did, by the way), his $90 house payment “then” not even buying groceries “now,” and I understand to a point how and where his fear comes from. What I don’t understand, and find very hard to accept, is that he can listen to me lament the this and that of my finances, and not offer a dime in help.
This past week alone, I’ve had to dig into my reserves and pay out in excess of $1,400 to keep my Big Rig on the road, yet Dad doesn’t say a word nor offer up money. Maybe he doesn’t understand that if I’m on the street, so is he!
So how do you handle situations like this, or have you been able to get your elders to openly discuss and divulge where they stand financially, and what, if any, impact their passing might have on you and your family?
This is a very touchy subject to the elderly; I’m not sure why exactly, other than they have a deep-rooted fear of being broke with no place to go. These feelings can stem from a great many things, and in the case of my elder, it’s because a younger sibling of mine told my elder (at least according to my elder), “When you run out of money, you’re out of here.”
My Mom (while she was alive), and my Dad purchased a home that my brother and sister-in-law were renting but were soon to be evicted from. They lived in NM and my parents lived in SoCal. Mom & Dad sold the ‘family home,’ moved to NM, bought the house that my brother was being evicted from, and allegedly, then paid my brother rent to live there.
About 3 years later, Mom got sick and passed away. This was allegedly when my brother made the statement about Dad running out of money. Now Dad is so paranoid about not having any money that he contributes nothing to the household at all and he never has. He contributes absolutely no financial support, even though he likes certain cereals, certain fruits, drinks a certain milk, etc. These items add to the grocery bill, but that doesn’t matter to him at all.
Conversely, he does pay his own way in that he pays his own auto insurance (I paid it for about 6 mos.), he buys his own clothes when he replaces anything and has his own spending money. He buys his own medications, pays his own medical bills, etc., but I do think that at some point, his financial upkeep will become my responsibility, so I feel it’s my “right” to know where he stands financially.
I will never kick him out or put him in a home simply because he has no money. I believe that it’s wrong for any child to do that to a parent, yet I hear and read of family putting family ‘out on the street’ when their money runs out. What kind of child, or parent for that matter, can do that to their own family? That’s certainly not the way I was raised, yet my brother actually allegedly said that very thing to our Dad. My brother is a rare breed of selfish, know-it-all, ungrateful, hateful, lying, vengeful people, so while a part of me was stunned he would say something like that, deep down I guess I wasn’t really surprised.
The fear that he has also stems, no doubt, from having lived through the great depression, remembering what it was like to earn $1 a week, having a $90 house payment in 1959 that he worried about being able to make and looking around today to $4 for gas, paying $25,000 for a car (which he did, by the way), his $90 house payment “then” not even buying groceries “now,” and I understand to a point how and where his fear comes from. What I don’t understand, and find very hard to accept, is that he can listen to me lament the this and that of my finances, and not offer a dime in help.
This past week alone, I’ve had to dig into my reserves and pay out in excess of $1,400 to keep my Big Rig on the road, yet Dad doesn’t say a word nor offer up money. Maybe he doesn’t understand that if I’m on the street, so is he!
So how do you handle situations like this, or have you been able to get your elders to openly discuss and divulge where they stand financially, and what, if any, impact their passing might have on you and your family?
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