what does a parent 'owe' to it's child?
is it love? is it food, protection, and shelter? or perhaps the best health care plan or the ability to play for an elite club sport team?
this is the question i do not know the answer to, and this is the question that has left me alone in my room. door locked. fighting back tears of frustration and confusion. i am very flustered at the moment because i have so much to say but no way to guide my thoughts...how can i best express the touchy and always-changing interchange that occurs between boomeranger and parent when it comes to the subject of...(can you guess it?) MONEY. what started as an enjoyable evening watching the newest episode of house turned into harsh words and wounded parties. i am constantly feeling like i have to pick my battles with my providers. for instance, do i ask for a small handout to cover gas expenses or for money to cover a meal instead? i'm always trying to calculate which request will yield the best outcome, not to mention, whether it should be mom or dad that i ask.
what is really at the crux of this issue is: when do the parents stop supporting the children? and how do we define "support"?
because i am too emotional and tired to get into this any further right now, i will have to postpone my ranting until tomorrow perhaps. i've been avoiding the topic of finances for too long now and it is time i address it on this blog.
goodnight.
a boomeranger is defined as a child who returns home after college to live with his/her baby-boomer parents. add one year and 3,000 miles and you have me: one such child trying not to return to the nest. can i do it?
I admire you for your ability to post what urban individuals would refer to as "real talk" on this blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry things are tough, but at the end of the day I'm pretty sure that your parents love you and want to see you succeed in life. Where the problem starts is that you may have differing ideas about how that success will be achieved/defined -- working towards lining up your perspectives on this matter up will go a long way.
I'd advise having a serious sit-down talk about money and how it factors into your future with them. Show them how much you think you need to live and ask them how much they have/feel comfortable giving.
To try to get the numbers to line up propose a list of things you can do around the house/in their lives that will add compensatory value for them. Leverage your own skills (and remember just because it doesn't seem special to you doesn't mean it isn't a skill). For example showing a clueless adult how to use an iPod, download a podcast, get a Facebook account, etc. -- anything they can't do as well as you can that they might be interested in adds a little value to their life.
Alternatively, you can always start stripping. Or better yet, pretend to start stripping - "accidentally" leave a stiletto or two in a public living space, start coming home at odd hours reeking of chicken wings and cigarettes, randomly pull 1 dollar bills out of your hair at breakfast...
With understanding,
-BigBlog
BigBlog,
ReplyDeletejust when i thought that you were only going to feed me with honest, sound advice today you hit me with the stripper suggestion. do you know that i have actually contemplated becoming a stripper/"dance for money girl" in recent months? not in a serious way, but in a slightly-scary "i would be making soooo much more money if i did this for just a couple nights a week" way. everytime i cash my measly paycheck i think of all those women who are scantily-clad but have money to blow at the end of the night.
i remember one such occasion last fall when i found an intriguing add in the newspaper: a request for egg donors. thousands of dollars for something i already have?? "this is an option for me," i told my parents, half-jokingly but half serious if they were to remarkably rejoice in the idea. as it turns out, my dad is disgusted by the idea of having what he called "half-me's" walking around...conversation over. guess my eggs are staying in the basket.
all jokes aside, i do agree with your approach about sitting down and having a serious financial discussion with the rents; however, i hate to admit that this is exactly the approach i have followed in the past and it has yielded me poor results. i feel that i am not taken as seriously as i'd like to.
at the end of the day, my parents do love me and want me to succeed...we just have our different opinions on how that can be achieved.
always a pleasure receiving your thoughts,