My mom, Linda (62F), recently told me and my two sisters — Rachel (34F) and Emily (31F) — that she expects each of us to send her $300 every single month for the rest of her retirement because “that’s what children are supposed to do.”
The problem is… my mom is not struggling financially.
She owns multiple rental properties that bring in more money every month than most of us make working full-time. Meanwhile, all three of us have our own families, bills, rent, and kids to take care of.
I’m 36M, married with two children, trying to stay afloat in an economy where everything keeps getting more expensive every year. Rachel and Emily are both stay-at-home moms, so realistically their husbands would be the ones paying my mom this monthly allowance too.
When she first brought it up, I honestly thought she was joking.
I asked her, “Did you send your parents money every month when they got older?”
She said no. She’s helped them financially before, but they never demanded a fixed monthly payment from her.
I told her things are hard right now for everyone. Childcare, groceries, rent, school expenses — it all adds up fast. Her response was basically, “It’s only $300.”
For context, the average person where we live makes around $1,000 a month.
Then I told her something that clearly upset her: “I would never expect my own kids to financially support me while they’re trying to build their lives and raise families.”
She immediately said that’s because “Western thinking has poisoned people” and that as Asian children it’s our duty to take care of our parents financially no matter what.
Now to be fair to her, my parents did spend a lot of money sending all of us to private schools growing up, and I know I’ve benefited from that. I have a stable job now partly because of the opportunities they gave me.
But this doesn’t feel like helping family in an emergency.
This feels like my mom looking at her adult children and deciding we should become another source of monthly income — despite the fact that she already has more financial security than we do.
What also bothers me is that between me, my wife, and my sisters’ husbands, we technically have four aging parents/in-laws altogether. My dad isn’t asking us for money. Neither of my in-laws have ever asked. My mom is the only parent demanding a mandatory monthly payment like this.
And honestly, if every parent expected $300 a month from each adult child, I don’t know how younger families would survive.
Now she’s acting hurt and saying we’re ungrateful children who don’t respect our culture.
AITA for refusing?