atat, rr — yep, I totally agree as well.

It felt a bit like Blondie and I see this so incredibly differently that I suddenly had this total “knowing” sort of realization yesterday — she’ll never understand this stuff and unfortunately for me, it seems to be one of my core issues.

I completely get that my family’s manipulative and obviously I need to be more careful and aware in dealing with them but she actually said that even if that wasn’t the case (as in, if they were totally emotionally fine and were in genuine financial distress), I still shouldn’t be giving them money.

I also kinda felt like an idiot trying to give her examples of when parents might need help (not my case but I know folks who grew up dirt poor, basically subsistence living and then the kids made it big and bailed the whole family out) — Blondie said the parents should then just become wards of the state and threw in a “I don’t know if in your country it’s possible for social welfare to kick in”. Uhhh yeah, nothing like that exists.

It’s just......I am not sure how to continue to talk to her about it.

Thanks for the sanity checks