Do we owe our parents money for raising us or is that crazy?

I saw my sister Venmo my mom $200 last week and called it 'rent' even though my mom owns the house outright. My sister says it's about respect and paying your dues, but I think setting limits means not letting family guilt you into giving them cash you don't actually owe them. My dad chimed in and said it's just how their generation was raised, with my aunt in Phoenix sending her mom $150 every month for 15 years now. What's the line between helping out and being taken advantage of here?

2 comments

2 Comments

hill.barbara2d ago

My brother Venmos my mom $75 every single month and calls it "back rent" too. He's been doing it for eight years now and she doesn't even need it, she's got a pension and a paid off house. Meanwhile I've never sent her a dime and she still buys me lunch every time I visit. The whole thing feels like a weird guilt tax some people just accept without questioning it. My aunt sends her son $50 a month for his phone bill and nobody calls that a teaching moment. It's wild how these family money habits just get passed down without anyone asking if they actually make sense.

xena_allen1d ago

Honestly I had a friend who sent his dad $100 every month for like six years because his dad helped him buy his first car back in high school. The car was long gone, totaled in an accident three years later, but that monthly payment just kept going until his girlfriend finally asked him why he still did it. He said he never even thought to stop, it was just this automatic thing his dad set up and he felt weird about cutting it off. Tbh I think a lot of these setups are just habits that people never question because the money isn't huge and nobody wants to be the one to kill the tradition.