Reply to Write a check this week for 10k to help your parents?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]
If I were you OP and had the money, then I would gladly hand it over so my parents could get a new car. Everything my parents have done for me in my lifetime adds up well more than $10,000. I am surprised with the reactions too. Sad to think there arent more out there who would help their parents.  
  [/quote]

Said by someone who clearly has never actually faced the issue of parents with ongoing financial problems.

Face it, unless you are truly wealthy - to the point where dropping $10K here and there doesn't make any different to you - this is about choices.  The $10K you spend on your parents' new car is $10K you are not spending on summer camp for your kids, etc.

My parents have been in a precarious financial situation on and off since I was in high school.  As soon as I had my own income, my parents have asked me for help.  For about a decade, I did help - a few thousand here, a few thousand there.  My parents did not do a good job of self-help.  They continued many of the behaviors that led to the precarious financial situation in the first place.  After the birth of my older daughter, this situation came to a head.  My parents had continued their living-on-the-edge ways, and called to ask me to give them money so that they could travel to an out-of-town family wedding and buy a wedding present.  They really pulled on the heart strings - they had saved some money to pay for my mother's knee replacement and told me that unless I gave them the money, my mother would have to put off her surgery another year because they would use that money to go to the family wedding.  With some prompting/pushing from DH, I drew the line.  I did not give the money.  They didn't speak to me for ages.

In the intervening years, they have grown up somewhat with their finances.  They still live very close to the financial edge and I know there will be a day when I face a choice of helping them financially again, likely in a major $$$ way.  I am glad though that I cut off the money spigot.  Sometimes parents need tough love too.

BTW, I have a sibling.  When my parents were in really bad shape as he was in college, just graduating, I helped him out with money too.  He has never contributed one cent to my parents financially, nor has he helped with sweat equity.  I don't count on him ever contributing, either.  My parents have never asked him for anything.  He earns a lot less than I do, but has no children.

I think people out there who have never dealt with this situation are really quick to judge.  You're not cold-hearted just because you're not prepared to hand over 10K on demand to your parents.[/quote]

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