[Andropov]

As a child, I loved to save my money into a savings account. I put all my birthday and Christmas money into this account for years instead of spending my money on frivolous things like toys and candy. I ended up having a decent chunk of savings for being a 10-year old boy. I was so happy and excited about it.

One day my mom decided to borrow all the kids' personal savings to pay the bills. She forbade us to tell our dad about it. My mom told me that if I said something my dad, he would be furious and probably would divorce or, perhaps, even kill her. This was, of course, a terrifying prospect for me so I kept my mouth silent. It took her five years to pay me back the money, with some interest, by giving me some portions of the money each month (mount small enough not to be noticed by my dad).

I'm still upset about it 30 years later. I resent her for emptying my savings account which was my big pride and joy as a kid. I'm also upset about her terrifying me into silence. My dad, while hot-tempered, have to my knowledge never abused or physically hit my mom or any of of us kids.

Am I petty or "not normal" for still being angry about this? I'm getting upset just thinking about it right now. I have told my wife many times that we will NEVER borrow a single dime from our children even if its just for a very short time.

[Agentfyre]

Well, I have to say your anger is definitely normal, and that anger needs to be expressed, but the injustice that your mom made against you also needs to be forgiven. Until it is, it will continue to hold power over you.

Forgiveness isn't saying that a person was right to hurt you, but instead it's not allowing that hurt to control your life any further. Getting to a point where you can let go of what she did to you won't change her, but it will set you free.

Also, it seems to have lead to a childhood vow, and these can often become great tripping points for us later in life. Here the vow seems to be "I will never borrow a single dime from my children." And yet, some day you may come to a point in life where it would be healthy to utilize that kind of support from your children. But that doesn't mean you would have to manipulate money out of them and use scare-tactics to keep them quiet. Essentially, the hurt you went through is pushing you to the other extreme, which can also be unhealthy.

[Bluesday]

This sparked a bad memory for me as well. My parents raided my lifetime savings in the 8th grade to help fix one of their cars. They promised to put it back, but never gave me so much as 1 dime. They were not poor either. In fact, that was the only used car they ever had. The main car was always brand new, usually replaced every year or two. They just never truly cared about my life or my future.

If the circumstances were such that your mom truly needed the money to pay bills for electricity, gas, or telephone ( genuine necessities) I can understand how desperate she must have felt when she borrowed the money from you. I think that her paying you back, and with interest, is to her credit. I would ask you to compromise a bit, and understand that parents are only people...people who make mistakes, people who are sometimes desperate, and so on.

What stand out to me as abusive is that your mom frightened you the way she did. That is not okay.

Forgiveness, however, is something you might consider for your own peace of mind. The incident was thirty years ago. Life is too short to spend any more of your time stewing over this. As for ever borrowing money from your children, well, no one wants to do that. I sure don't - but I have. And I'd say that part of being "family" is being flexible enough to place relationship over money. Yes, money sometimes represents other things (like pride about accomplishment), but when all is said and done, money is money. It comes and it goes.

I'm curious...what is your relationship with your mom like now?

When I was a kid my mother decided to 'borrow' my birthday money despite me telling her not to. She never did get around t paying me back either.

I'm still mad at her. Possibly because I still find myself having to support her (and in a position where she continues to take money from me) and I resent that because I know things are supposed to be the other way around.

What exactly is it about what happened that makes you angry?

Is it necessarily the money or more related to how she forced your silence?

Why did she need to borrow the money in the first place? Why didn't she have any?

Do you think she was weak for having to borrow from her child?

[possum220]

Is your Mum still alive? Can you talk to her about it now. If you could talk to her about the way it made you feel then maybe some healing could start with the wound that is still very toxic and doing you so much damage.

If she is not around anymore maybe you could write her a letter expressing all the emotions you felt then and now. You could then tear the letter up or burn it as a means of letting it go. You need relief from this anger that must be very draining on your emotions.

[Andropov]

Originally Posted by Sister Rags

I'm curious...what is your relationship with your mom like now?

I'm emotionally disconnected to both my parents. I have closer relationships with random acquaintances on Facebook than I have with my parents.

When I was in my early 20s, I bought a one-way ticket on a westbound plane and moved to a foreign country six time zones away, just so I could get away from them and start a new life on my own. I haven't seen my parents in five years time and I talk to them for 5-10 minutes over the phone once or twice a year.

I would be okay visiting and hanging out with them for a few days, but its not very high up on my priority list. Maybe I will get around to it in a few years.

Originally Posted by BeteNoire

What exactly is it about what happened that makes you angry?

Is it necessarily the money or more related to how she forced your silence?

I'm more upset about the emotional manipulation. Her forcing my silence was pretty much the start of me bottling up all my feelings and not being able to talk about things that bothers me. I have never been able to talk with my parents about my own emotional needs. I also came into adulthood completely unprepared on how to interact with other people outside the immediate family.

Originally Posted by BeteNoire

Why did she need to borrow the money in the first place? Why didn't she have any?

She was responsible for paying the bills and never kept my dad informed about their finances. He was often spending more money than they had because he didn't have clear picture of their financial situation. Instead of telling him the truth she raided the kids' savings accounts and manipulated us into silence.

Originally Posted by BeteNoire

Do you think she was weak for having to borrow from her child?

I don't think she was weak for borrowing the money. My issue is how she went about doing it.

Originally Posted by possum220

Is your Mum still alive? Can you talk to her about it now. If you could talk to her about the way it made you feel then maybe some healing could start with the wound that is still very toxic and doing you so much damage.

She's alive and well. I just don't want to talk with her ... about .... hmm ... anything.

[nicoleflynn]

You could write a letter of "restorative justice"----this says.....this is what you did, this is how it made me feel.

So, you have a choice....remain angry, try and forgive. My mother used to take my babysitting money, but we were verrrry poor.....it would probably be only a couple of dollars............we grew up with no phone, car, refrigerator, tub or shower in a 120-year old tenement house where snow came in thru a crack in the wall and no father around (div orce).....many other ugly things went on. It has taken my mom 50 years, but she has managed to save $9,000.00 (on 600 dollars a month social security), because she wants to give it to my sister and I.

[eskielover]

Sounds like your mother was afraid to talk to your dad about the finances of the family for her own fears of him or she would have shared the information so that he wouldn't have been doing the overspending.......your parents relationship was obviously dysfunctional....& it's that dysfunctional behavior that you learned from, not just that one isolated situation.

We do learn from the dysfunction & swear that we will NOT make the same mistakes that our parents made. However by virtue of swearing that, we end up making just as fatal other mistakes because we are only human & basically try to do only the best that we can given the circumstances that we are living with.

I grew up with totally dysfunctional parents & swore that I would never be like them or EVER get married to ANYONE like my father figured I was better off alone than living a life like theirs so I was going to get MY education. I did end up getting married, but fighting to NOT be anything like my parents.....& made a whole set of other bad choices & bad ways of handling things trying hard NOT to be like them.....but I also ended up with a totally dysfunctional H......I have now learned why, but it made the 33 years I was with him like hell & the fights were never ending......& our daughter ended up growing up in that environment.....which was just as bad if not worse than what I grew up in....but she had parents who both had their careers while trying hard to continually be there for her when she needed me.

Sometimes we look back & see all the horrible things that our parents did to us & how bad their life was......but the sad thing is that they were just trying to survive & get by the best they could also.....& most times they didn't have the therapy that we have had to be able to analyze & make the changes necessary to fix the problems.

The fact that your mother paid you back with interest says a lot for her character IMO......yes, she scared you into not saying anything....but honestly, that may have been exactly how she felt about your father & she might have been afraid to say anything....for what he might do. When we really don't know a person (& yes, we don't always know our spouses that well), we don't always know just how they will react & the fact that she didn't EVER say anything to him about the finances was probably because something happened at one point that either made her afraid to say anything or he was incapable of truly understanding the financial end of the family.

I know I looked at my parents & their life & honestly if I hadn't been their only child, I would have been gone at the age of 13 when I wanted to get my own apartment because I hated my home & my parents. Honestly it wasn't until my mother was able to open up & express some of the things from both their pasts that I was better able to feel empathy for what & why they were the way they were. It didn't make me like it any better but at least I had some level of understanding for why they were the way they were.

I'm finding that with my own bad marriage that I left 7 years ago after 33 years of fighting & struggles.....only after I left & have done some research on input that others have given me as to why they thought he was the way he was have I come to understand that it does explain 100% why he is the way he is.........I can't live with it.....but at least I understand that some of his actions just are who & what he is & not that it was a specific choice to act that way. It has helped me with my anger toward him.....I say helped because still every time I have to deal with him or see the stupidity that he's doing the anger swells up again & I have to remind myself that his problem is not an excuse, but it does explain why he reacts in the ways that he does.....& the anger does subside to mostly non-existent.

You don't want to take to your mother.....but she might just be able to provide for you some understanding of where & why she was coming from where she was when that happened.......I know that I looked at my parents with a black veil between us & everything they did was covered in a darkness that until I was able to see them in the light that truly existed, I wasn't able to have the understanding or the empathy for why they did things the way they did.

[hvert]

My parents did the same thing to me. They did eventually buy me the bike I had been saving up for, but as a birthday present, so I am not sure if it really counts as repaying me. I forget about it for the most part, but when I remember, I am still angry.

What your mother did sounds pretty bad. Why not bring it up the next time you have both of your parents on the phone at the same time? Maybe your father would be interested in knowing now. That's awful, to steal a little kid's money and then tell them not to tell anyone.

eskielover, wise post.

[Jenni855]

Definitely not petty or abnormal. It wasn't just the act itself that hurt you, it was the feelings that went with it and that doesn't disappear easily.

Originally Posted by Andropov

As a child, I loved to save my money into a savings account. I put all my birthday and Christmas money into this account for years instead of spending my money on frivolous things like toys and candy. I ended up having a decent chunk of savings for being a 10-year old boy. I was so happy and excited about it.

One day my mom decided to borrow all the kids' personal savings to pay the bills. She forbade us to tell our dad about it. My mom told me that if I said something my dad, he would be furious and probably would divorce or, perhaps, even kill her. This was, of course, a terrifying prospect for me so I kept my mouth silent. It took her five years to pay me back the money, with some interest, by giving me some portions of the money each month (mount small enough not to be noticed by my dad).

I'm still upset about it 30 years later. I resent her for emptying my savings account which was my big pride and joy as a kid. I'm also upset about her terrifying me into silence. My dad, while hot-tempered, have to my knowledge never abused or physically hit my mom or any of of us kids.

Am I petty or "not normal" for still being angry about this? I'm getting upset just thinking about it right now. I have told my wife many times that we will NEVER borrow a single dime from our children even if its just for a very short time.

My parents borrowed $50 from me when I was a kid... never got it back... directly. Hadn't thought about it in years until now. At the time, it made me mad. But, looking back, it doesn't matter. There were other much more important things they didn't do, things that changed my life permanently & not for the better... No, I don't think you're petty, especially given the way you were "threatened", so to speak. Hopefully, though, you will soon be able to let the incident go at last.

[Notoriousglo]

Well, my dad bought me a brand new car expecting me to make payments (even though I couldn't hold a job), then took it away and gave it to my brother for free (guess I only deserve something if I pay for it?). I don't know if I will ever get over it.

[Bluesday]

Originally Posted by euphy

Well, my dad bought me a brand new car expecting me to make payments (even though I couldn't hold a job), then took it away and gave it to my brother for free (guess I only deserve something if I pay for it?). I don't know if I will ever get over it.

Wow. That is beyond mean. I don't even know how I'd come up with a good alibi for blowing up that stupid car!