Posted on 01/07/2008 6:58:30 AM PST by shrinkermd
My grandmother recently, and reluctantly, asked if I could give her some money.
There's no question my wife, Amy, and I will give her the funds; she raised me and is, by and large, the woman I consider my mom. She has always been kind to Amy. If we have the discretionary cash that can make my grandmother's life happy, shouldn't we hand it over?
Yet the request has caused us a lot of angst.
Part of our concern is where this will lead. Although my grandmother isn't asking for a lot of money -- just a few hundred dollars -- when you open your wallet to family members, the first time is rarely the last. We don't want to get in the position of becoming my grandmother's ATM.
But it's more than that. Amy and I have worked hard to earn this money, and it's frustrating to have somebody want to tap into our account. What's more, my grandmother will no doubt use the money for things that we'd never buy ourselves. We don't want to feel like suckers for funding a lifestyle that we might consider indulgent.
So that leads us to the question we've been grappling with: When providing financial assistance to a family member, is it fair to say the money comes with constraints on how it is spent? Or, is financial assistance an exercise in unconditional love?
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Mr. Opdyke probably knows a great deal about money; however, he knows virtually nothing about people.
I guess he can’t put her on the welfare rolls as Bob Dole did with his grandparents when he was a county official in KS.
Maybe he and his wife can employ her as their housekeeper or something. Sheesh.
Real Happiness is affording your lifestyle. I would say - "Grandma - no problems helping you out. First, let us get an independent analysis of the situation from an out side source..."
And, yes, the trips to AC, cable and the AARP membership would be the first things on the "can live without" list.
“Let me say it at the outset: I don’t believe children bear an obligation to their parents as a cost of having been raised by those parents. Bringing a child into the world is a parent’s choice, not the child’s. Thus, the obligations that do exist run from parent to child, not in reverse.” Is there anything else to say but WOW. If he hadn’t written it, I would have never believed anyone would be so deranged as to say that.
Grandma has given the author fodder for an article which brings him income. She has given him a public platform for his public agonizings over whether to fork over the dough, but because he’s a good guy he will. If it had went the other way and he sent grandma to the rest home because she’s fiscally irresponsible, would he have publicized that?
How comfortable are we with that? How much control do we get to exert over old people? Shouldn't we try to come up with a better system?
Shame on him for not honoring his grandmother and by causing her public shame. He could have pondered these thoughts without revealing personal matters.
Sorry, Grandma. My answer would be "No." I fully support these expenditures, if she can afford it - but expecting grandchildren to subsidize these expenditures is ludicrous.
Granny's illiterate then? Not to mention all of your other relations and her friends? How does Granny feel about grandson airing his angst about her in public??
I have some distant relatives who had this problem with their mother. They suspected she may have been gambling it away so they checked up on her a little more closely.
She had been cleaned out by several phone scams. Seems these people would call and sell stuff and they seemed so nice on the phone....
This is a parody, right?
This doesn't make any sense. He's worried that his grandmother is going to spend a few hundred dollars on something he and his wife would never spend it on. I wonder how many fancy NYC restaurants he and his wife have attended and spent at least that in one evening.
“She also has always been careful with money — in terms of both spending and saving. “
So the woman who raised you,(which is never cheap), and is a person who has always been careful with money (by your own admission)...probably had to do without a few things to raise you. So to show your gratitude or lack thereof...you publicly trot her out and air her request, and make money doing so.
HMMMMM...if I were your Grandma, I would cut YOU off.
Your #7...........Amen!
Author must be a first-class POS to write this in the WSJ about the woman who “raised me and is, by and large, the woman I consider my mom.”
Mr. Opdyke sounds like a poor excuse for a human being.
It would be one thing for me to spend my own money to take my girlfriend to a fancy restaurant. It's quite another for someone else to ask for my money to do that.
The Liberal thing to do would be sue his azz off for making her life public and then she would have the money she wants. Not that i support that. I’m just saying . .
Kind of the opposite of the Amish, huh?
She's no winner either, if she's asking for money after spending it on parties and brunch for her friends.
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