Last year my mother had to take her car off the road because of outstanding parking tickets and the breaks giving way. She borrowed money from me and her mom to pay off the parking tickets and asked if I could take out a loan through school to help pay to get her car fixed. It was a tough decision because I already increased my loans to cover my tuition. Not to mention I looked at my mother's financial decisions over the past year. She bought clothes and shoes as inspiration to lose weight which never did come off. She also purchased health products and exercise gear but eventually went back to eating out and getting junk food on a weekly basis. She commuted to Syracuse to carry on a dead end "romantic" involvement. I remember her asking me to go to Western Union to send her some money to get back to Rochester. And of course earlier that year, my mother helped bail my brother out of jail though he had a history of stealing, lying, and blaming our mother for his dysfunction.
My mother's a nurse so she makes a fair salary, but she's bad at handling money. At the time that she asked me about the $1000-1500 loan she stopped working one of her jobs. I'll give her that she's a hard worker. She said she planned to start a private case in the next few months so she'd pay me back then. But I knew nothing was definite. I continued to weigh the cons and pros. I do care about the welfare of my mother and her having necessities, I needed someone with a car to help bring my stuff to and from campus, and the winter was coming up. Her credit was too bad for her to get a loan from the bank and her mom was done loaning her kids money. On the other hand, I wasn't sure I could afford it and I wanted to make sure I'd be able to register for spring semester. Letting my mom deal with it on her own would also help her to become resourceful and get more exercise by having to walk to work.
I understood my mother's mistakes because I'm like her many ways. But somehow our decisions were becoming more and more different from each other's. It all felt so backwards, me as her daughter making it my job to help her handle her finances especially when I'm trying to get my own in order. Yet I felt obligated because she's my mother and she did provide for me for the most part. Student Accounts wouldn't care about the circumstance when it came time to register and my mother's mechanic wouldn't give her a second glance if he wasn't paid in full. Our situation mattered to no one but ourselves...I did go to my Nana for advice. She said "If you can't afford to give the money without expecting to be paid back, don't do it." And I knew I couldn't afford to. Luckily the decision wasn't even mine to make in the end, I couldn't take out more money because I maxed out my loans for the year and I still needed to take out a private loan to cover the rest of Fall 2013 tuition. O the privileges of adulthood.
I feel that I helped a little without really helping at all. This situation made me think about the dynamics of my relationship with my mother, not just in the year 2013 but in throughout memory of her. Similarly at the end of Never Let Me Go, Kathy's being a carer for Ruth and Tommy didn't help any of their lives. It may have provided some comfort to be with someone they knew, but it didn't change their fates and Kathy didn't feel accomplished about anything. All she wanted in the end was to reflect on the good times at Halisham in her childhood with Ruth and Tommy. I wanted to have the best outlook I could of what I knew was the inevitable result, but I wouldn't be surprised if my mother soon needs help again. For Kathy the inevitable would be her becoming a donor and suffering the same fate as her friends.
I think you made an important observation here... sometimes not providing the person with the help they are asking for is helping them even more. It is easy to indulge our dear friends and loved ones because we care for their well-being and happiness. It is sometimes hard to recognize when we should say no to them. In your case it seems that saying no was more beneficial to your mother than saying yes. If Kathy had said no to caring for her friends, it may have changed things a lot for all of them. Imagine if they rebelled against the cause. There would be a very different ending to the novel, and it may or may not be better for all of them. You never know until you try.
ReplyDeleteDo you believe that this helped your mother overall? Has she improved with her finances? Your situation reminded me of my own. My mother asked me to take out a loan for her, and she promised that she would pay the payments on time, and that I wouldn't have to worry. My heart was telling me to do it, but my mind was telling me not to. My mother took care of me my whole life, yes my father was around, but he went to jail for seven years of my life she was left with the financial burden of taking care of two kids. Also being responsible for all the bills. So I wanted to be a help to her, but after looking at the situation I thought me helping her would put my credit in a bad place if she didn't pay the loan back on time. I ended up telling her no, because once you have bad credit it's hard to get back to good credit. She had to find a way to get it on her own. She's very hardworking and dedicated, and also a go getter , and she ended up getting the money. Sometimes it's okay to help our parents especially if they've helped us their whole lives, but sometimes it's okay to say no. You can't take on their responsibility you can help as much as possible, but you also have responsibility. The novel shows us that it's okay to care for people especially the people that matter the most, but we also have to care for ourselves, you can't please everyone.
ReplyDelete