Reply to Do you feel obligated to financially support your parent(s)?

Forum Index » Eldercare

Reply to "Do you feel obligated to financially support your parent(s)? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Specifically if 1. They were not the parent you lived with (think parents not together since birth)

2. They didn’t actually support you growing up in any way-never helped with school stuff, health insurance, general well being etc…

My father tried his best but was just not an involved father. I only saw him a couple times a year growing up and I love him but i’m struggling because he is in poor health and I am being pressured to help financially.

For some background-my father is married and has been since I was young and has stepkids-and they all live locally to him. I do not.

I worked my butt off when I was young to get myself out of the life of poverty I was born into. I went into a lot of debt in college as although I got the maximum allowed free money for being poor-it wasn’t enough and then I also went to grad school which was pretty much 100% a loan. I became a fairly successful adult and now feel like i’m being made to feel obligated to help a person that watched me struggle and offered no assistance. Let me add that although my father was and is very poor-He seemed to still have money for the latest tvs, vacations etc…just no money for books I needed in college etc…

So what do you do? Do you help them even though you feel resentful and are expected to support someone who didn’t provide you the same? Or hold your ground and let it be?[/quote]

I would hold my ground and let it be.  It's a super complex situation with a stepmom, stepkids, and a dad who didn't actually support you growing up.  If you give them money, it will probably create a long-term dependency, which will probably leave you to sit in your resentment more than you already do.  I'd just say no and tell them it's because you're behind financially and took out so much student loan debt that you don't have extra money to share with them. [/quote]
+1
I usually don’t advise lying, because these type of people can and will find a way around it, but this is an easy way to shut it down and keep it easy for op.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics