My Mother
My mother called me at work (again) like she usually does every week or so to express worries about the stock market: when it goes up, she asks if she should have gotten in, but when it goes down it scares her more. This from a 66 year old woman who has never planned a day beyond the next Saks 5th Avenue run, and not saved enough for retirement, and shouldn't be in the market at all because she can't answer the basic questions: 1. when do you want to retire? 2. what lifestyle do you want to live? 3. what would you do for income if your husband and his pension died tomorrow?
Hard questions, no doubt, but necessary if one is going to plan for retirement, which I've desperately tried to help her do. Dodging these questions has become somewhat of an art for my mother, and her brain is quickly spirited off to an undisclosed location a la Dick Cheney every time I press her.
So tonight, I finally confronted her. How long do you want to work? What would you do if Bob died tomorrow. Have you thought about nursing homes, future illnesses, etc. It's the same conversation I've had with her 20 times, although this time, I cornered her.
Like a child, she refuses to think about anything mildly unpleasant, and quickly pretended like she expected to die any moment and needed no planning.... No matter the fact every relative I had on her side of the family died at 199 years old. No, because she doesn't want to have a conversation about retirement, my Mom is certain she will die sometime during the next three week 5 star vacation to Maui. No need to plan. Why was I so worried about her future, did "I want an inheritance??"
I shouldn't have been surprised she would say something like that. It always comes down to this: money. My mother thinks she is some kind of Robber Baron despite the fact she was too cheap to ever stock any Band Aids in a house with 6 kids and a basement of power tools. She has adeptly played both sides of the money coin. When people try to make her feel poor, she plays rich. She won't "nickle and dime" by tax planning.
Of course, when people make her feel rich, she pretends she is some lady hocking coal in the streets. I grew up thinking I was dirt poor, because my mother constantly complained about everything. Little did I know, it was because she was a spendthrift and was financially retarded.
I must want my Mother's money. Why else would I deprive her of 3 week vacations in Maui every January? She's lived so long, she deserves to pamper herself.... I must want her money. It's not that I care whether she have enough for retirement or whether I am worried she will become a burden on her family from gross negligence to save the large sums of money that pour out of the sky onto her.
After pressing her very "unpleasantly" on questions normal people confront, my Mom had enough and hung up. She simply wasn't going to confront any reality today. Off to Saks, off to the next fairy tale.
There is the ant, and the grasshopper. The ant works all summer to save for winter. The grasshopper sings and dances all summer long. Amie's family are ants. My mother is one very very stupid grasshopper, and winter is coming soon. And I'm not going to feed her.
Hard questions, no doubt, but necessary if one is going to plan for retirement, which I've desperately tried to help her do. Dodging these questions has become somewhat of an art for my mother, and her brain is quickly spirited off to an undisclosed location a la Dick Cheney every time I press her.
So tonight, I finally confronted her. How long do you want to work? What would you do if Bob died tomorrow. Have you thought about nursing homes, future illnesses, etc. It's the same conversation I've had with her 20 times, although this time, I cornered her.
Like a child, she refuses to think about anything mildly unpleasant, and quickly pretended like she expected to die any moment and needed no planning.... No matter the fact every relative I had on her side of the family died at 199 years old. No, because she doesn't want to have a conversation about retirement, my Mom is certain she will die sometime during the next three week 5 star vacation to Maui. No need to plan. Why was I so worried about her future, did "I want an inheritance??"
I shouldn't have been surprised she would say something like that. It always comes down to this: money. My mother thinks she is some kind of Robber Baron despite the fact she was too cheap to ever stock any Band Aids in a house with 6 kids and a basement of power tools. She has adeptly played both sides of the money coin. When people try to make her feel poor, she plays rich. She won't "nickle and dime" by tax planning.
Of course, when people make her feel rich, she pretends she is some lady hocking coal in the streets. I grew up thinking I was dirt poor, because my mother constantly complained about everything. Little did I know, it was because she was a spendthrift and was financially retarded.
I must want my Mother's money. Why else would I deprive her of 3 week vacations in Maui every January? She's lived so long, she deserves to pamper herself.... I must want her money. It's not that I care whether she have enough for retirement or whether I am worried she will become a burden on her family from gross negligence to save the large sums of money that pour out of the sky onto her.
After pressing her very "unpleasantly" on questions normal people confront, my Mom had enough and hung up. She simply wasn't going to confront any reality today. Off to Saks, off to the next fairy tale.
There is the ant, and the grasshopper. The ant works all summer to save for winter. The grasshopper sings and dances all summer long. Amie's family are ants. My mother is one very very stupid grasshopper, and winter is coming soon. And I'm not going to feed her.