We happen to be visiting our kids in CA and just passed a large tent community. It also happens to be 90+ degrees out. DH went running this morning and ran by a long row of cars parked by the water with people living in them. I guess that’s more upscale? I do always think that they are someone’s kids.
This can be really tricky. First, who said you could take the kids? Second, no matter how crappy the parent, kids can be incredibly loyal to said parent(s). Lots of outside support needed–love, however strong, is not usually enough. Kids will often test their new caregivers to see if they will love them/keep them no matter what, and their new caregivers are often not prepared for that kind of testing. Especially difficult and complicated for the original children of the caregivers.
As I said, very, very tricky.
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Who’s going to deal with the parents when they need help? Is it your wife?
Every family has its own stories/difficulties.
My father was a very tough parent growing up. I have 2 brothers and they were the younger ones. My father didn’t quite approve of my youngest brother and he took a lot of abuse from our dad. The older one took on more of a protecter of the younger brother through out their lives even though they were only 2 years apart.
The older one have always done well financially, even when he was just right out of college. He was very generous with the younger one. He gave a CC and a phone card to the younger brother while he was in college because the younger brother said he was very lonely. Well, B2 charged couple of hundred $$ on the phone card and charged up to the CC limit. B1 was so upset, he took away the cards and called B2 all kinds of names. But soon B1 sent more money to B2 because he felt bad. B2 got mad at B1 because B1 didn’t treat him with respect.
This whole cycle repeated itself their whole adult lives. I have told B2 that he wanted respect then he shouldn’t take B1’s money. I have told B1 to stop giving B2 money because he was just an enabler.
B2 and I have a very good/respectful relationship because I have never lent any money to him. I also do not tell him what to do or ask him how he spends his money. When he is low on money and can’t come on some family vacations, I just say, “That’s too bad, maybe next time you can plan ahead so we could see you.”
Now B2’s situation is very different than what most people are posting here. He makes good money in tech. It’s just he is a bad money manager and he spends more than he makes sometimes. He is much better now that B1 has “cut him off” financially. They also get along better now.
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They are financially secure and take care of themselves. They both have health issues and pay for their own care. Outside of occasional email updates, they are essentially estranged from all of their children. That may sound rough but these are not good people and they are the ones who burned all of the bridges.
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My friend and her H have had many requests for all sorts of financial help from the H’s family. They decided to resolve this by having his accounts, hr accounts and their accounts. Their household expenses came from the joint accounts. Whatever they wanted to spend/donate/lend or whatever came from their separate accounts. This helped their marriage a lot so that the H has to decide what he wants to spend his account on and my friend doesn’t have to deal with whatever choices her H makes in donating to his family.
We are totally supporting D, because she has chronic health conditions and has never and can never hold a full time job, unless there are better treatments someday. D is good and careful with the funds and assets we give her.
None of the other sibs have ever asked for any $$$ and we are considered the “poor relations,” but we are comfortable and earn more than we spend.
My H’s relative has one kid that has trouble with impulse control, sometimes drugs/alcohol and managing finances. This “kid” is in his 30s and I’m not sure how his dad will setup his estate plan to help him but not let the assets be squandered. It’s something that keeps being kicked down the road.
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The SIL I spoke about earlier in this thread informed us yesterday that yesterday there was a house fire at their home. Caused by sheer negligence and stupidity on their part. They had unprotected, ungrounded live electrical wiring exposed to the elements on the outside wall of their 1950s-era house. It rained there yesterday, which sparked a fire. They’re lucky that their neighbor saw it and called the fire department right away. They’d probably not have a home left if it had happened in the middle of the night.
This particular piece of wiring had been exposed to the outside for YEARS, but prior to a month ago, had always been protected from the rain by an illegal roof overhang/extension, which the city required them to take down because it did not conform to city building codes/ordinances (i.e., the roof overhang/extension was extended to the fence). As to why they didn’t do anything about the exposed wiring? “Oh, we just never got around to it.”
DH & I already decided that we will not be providing them financial assistance.
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