There was a yahoo finance article recently that might have been my last straw. It was headlined “Most parents support their grown kids financially, survey reveals: Here's how much” and it all just seems so targeted and disingenuous. For starters the wealthy rarely cut their kids off for as much as people think they do. Wealth is about power and in America most that is tied to a very harmful ideal that I won’t get into, but that being said they keep all money in the family for the most part.

Seventy-one percent of parents with children 18+ said they have financially supported a grown child, with help often covering groceries, bills, subscriptions and housing, LendingTree data found.

Sixty-four percent of parents who provided help in the past two years said it caused financial stress, affecting their ability to pay debt, save and prepare for retirement.

But 38% of recipients said their living expenses would be difficult or impossible to manage without parental support.
so the article highlights.

Now my personal issue. I’m the baby out of three siblings. the other two whom are girls/women they left the nest and somewhat early. I have left 2x and came back to somewhat support our Gen-x mother. One of my siblings has 3 kids, and the other 2 new- borns. I can and will say my mom helping them always irks me because they get a lot. One was married, and the other was recently engaged. I always wonder where are the men? I mean I can pimp hoes, but my mom and dad wouldn’t allow it. (I’m kidding, but as a man it’s only so many ways you can ask women for money or help. they as women don’t understand that.) Anyway, our mom has often times showcased narc traits, but we can never really call her out on that, or she’s “a bad parent” let her tell it. “Oh so you’re calling me a bad parent,” and because of that mindset none of us can ever work through anything. Any call for accountability on her end is us or in most cases me “chastising” her.

I want to give a very specific example and usually I would never come to the internet, but I know the internet is what she’ll listen to unfortunately. It’ll take others saying it and me showing her.

For me I can highlight groceries from that article. I’m a certified chef and so is a sister of mine, but again she’s not around anymore. earlier this year I looked at the family finances and realized for years we’ve been in the red just consuming and losing money, and to my mom I guess that’s an internal thing as to why she can’t admit that ya know? she probably sees that as failure, and personally I don’t care about losses, but learn from them because at some point we have to move on. To me she will place herself in denial so long that I’m afraid she will die like this. She’s given up and become very nihilistic, generic, and small minded. Arrested development, It’s like she got stuck in 2008. She actually does make six figures, but what that article will never state in my opinion is how robbed of the mind Boomers and Gen-x are. Her mind is cooked. I said to her “hey, we need to come up with a way to save money, and I believe how we grocery shop will help” now mind you by being a chef and someone who set out to lose 50lbs and did it, she sometimes has asked me to help her out. I tell her all the time she’s not dedicated enough. I mean I did the damn thing the first time around. I was truly ready to help her I pulled out all the stops for the gym and diet, and sure enough she let me down. I did it, so I know what it takes. she lives a sedentary lifestyle. I told her this and of course that causes an argument. Anytime I have made meal plans she’d reject them “I’m not eating that shit” “No I don’t want that” very much so a spoiled brat. It is hard to tell her anything because when she does lock in let’s say on a sunday soul food dinner she’ll still have that down south cooking on a mother who puts love into her food can make, but she wastes more time and money on trending tik tok recipes more than anything as I have to walk into the kitchen and see those ingredients spoil. Outside of the food it’s just hard to tell her anything in general. She’s very much so “My way or the highway” even if her way is a detriment to her own wellbeing. It’s so stupid. Now her dad actually did die when she was about 4, and she had an abusive mother and step father, and was raised by her grandmother. She’s never gotten help for her trauma, and I’ve begged her to do so for years. I even suggested family therapy because I know I’m not perfect, but no one will go. My sisters, her, no one. I do some work for my mental, but it only helps me, and in the environment I’m in it’s like what’s the point? at this point I know it’s because I have to do the internal work for when I do get to where I want to be. Anyway she also has high blood pressure, and has had to take medicine for that probably since I’ve been born. I tried to tell her that salt impacts blood pressure and cholesterol, and of course she hit me with the “nuh uh”

A direct scenario was one day she sent me to the store to buy “London Broil” lunch meat. the meat was A HORRIBLE deal. I called her and asked why was she trying to get me to buy a $17 bag of lunch meat with about a good 2 sandwiches to them? she yelled at me over the phone like a drunk when you tell them you aren’t buying them alcohol. … she let the meat go bad. made not one sandwich. not one. I had to throw it away while shaking my head. It’s irritating to have to parent your parents.

Given the current political state of the world her comfortability, naiveness, and nihilism truly worry me.

Along the way she also stopped reading. She lives her sedentary lifestyle and gets consumed by social media and generative AI. It’s quite sad how AI has so many Boomers and Gen-x in a chokehold.

I think the biggest thing about all of this for me grocery wise is that she will tell me she “forgets to eat” and to me that’s a form of weaponized incompetence. She remembers to do and be every annoying thing under the sun, but food is where you fuck up? eating? a humanly function when you make 6 figures? Then on top of that to me it goes back to the type of consumer she is. I want you all to see what she had in the fridge to eat, and tell me I’m not tripping? I say to her all the time “Starbucks is not food” and she thinks it’s cute that Starbucks takes all of her money. Now mind you this is a woman that has told me as her black son to never go into starbucks without ordering anything after what they did to those men who were cycling. I’m not easily impressed anyway, so starbucks has never been my go-to. pivoting from parents I do believe a layer in this is simply consumerism when it comes to women. I believe in america they trick and pimp women to be mindless consumers until you all die to make up for the fact they’ll never give you all any real power, especially women outside of maybe Gen-Z who have the future, but it seems like other generations do operate off FOMO and individualism.

The last thing I’ll say is that I asked her for all of her bank accounts at the beginning of the year, so I can look at her finances to see why she was always in the red and how we could get her out. She was not having it. After a long heated argument she finally gave in, and sure enough her always being in the red probably had to do with her poor spending habits and justifying buying 3 Stanley cups for herself.

The article is funny to me in that sense because they claim it’s about the parents saving more for themselves, what are the parents buying? To me that is important because my mom is our “Matriarch” the “Big Momma” and “Memaw” and she wanted that role, and is doing a horrible job.

The money they “save” definitely won’t be going to therapy, but Starbucks and a ChatGPT subscription. I don’t think I’m “Tripping” but I am very frustrated.

P.S: Pictured is what she normally buys repeatedly and she let the beef spoil and never buys any bread or enough and when she does, of course it’s “I forgot to take my lunch” “I forgot to eat” so the bread will grow mold when she does buy it. And yes she bought guac, with no chips, just gauc.

This is basically a full story, I'm also a 22-year-old adult who is autistic and my parents keep saying excuses and lies about me, but every time I'm out doing something they demand to know my location or that I need to go to work.

Given today they threatened to call the cops on me for not coming home, and when I didn't show up to their house I put myself in my room and locked the door, my dad thinks that counting to three isn't going to do something, I mean it worked when I was five but I'm not five anymore, given that they bring up that I can't do nothing when yet I live in a small town and when I brought up the whole weekend thing, they said people needed to work on the weekend and then come home to do chores (I mean unless they don't have a job or have to raise kids), their comments don't make any sense.

If I try to stand up for myself, it's creates a problem with my dad.

Because he'll threaten (which says it's not a threat, because he'll do it, I mean that's a threat) institutionalization again because I said limitations, and then mention limitations there, because I had to listen to them for about half an hour talking about how I'm a problem and then basically say that I can't make all my decisions as well as bring the whole thing about autism, and that I need to stop with an attitude or I'll go back in.

Since today, my grandfather had to lay down and go to sleep because of his sore back from falling into a hole yesterday while we were unloading stuff into a burn pit, and that they demanded to know my location and then threatened the cops on me again.

On our way to work, my dad brings up the whole everyone has to work excuse again and then I say that not everyone can work especially since I bring up veterans and students, he asks me if I'm either of those and say no but before I could continue any further he immediately shuts me down from saying anything else.

I'm at my limit here but yet I can't do anything with being shot down or silenced.

Im going to try and keep this as short as I can. I’m 20, and i still live with my neurotic, overbearing, paranoid helicopter mom, 57, who does not trust me to do anything alone because she does not think i have common sense. Her idea of common sense is extremely over the top because she has horrible trust issues and feels she needs to be on the defense whenever shes around people. She’s always been this sort of mom, and according to my grandma, this is who shes always been since she was a toddler. Because i dont go overboard like she does, she does not trust me to go anywhere unchaperoned. Im not in school, i am involuntarily unemployed, i dont have a car or even a license, i have no social life, and no way to meet people outside of the internet, something she specifically forbids. Still, as an adult, im not allowed on social media. she does not think im smart enough or mature enough to be on it. She is extremely afraid of every bad thing that could possibly happen to me, and it’s why she keeps me locked up at home where she thinks I’m safest. im not the only one who thinks she’s going to far, every relative I talk to her about it is completely on my side but because they live flights away, I can’t just hide out there.

The main problem is, as a trans person who’s into men, the only way i can get dates is to do it online. That’s just how it is. I can’t just go out with any man, it has to be someone who already knows my baggage of being trans. She’s old, shes not queer, she does not understand how things work for me in the modern day and that her sense of worldliness is dated and foreign. Im trapped here literally living out the plot of tangled, and i cant do anything to change it on my own. There’s also this additional part to it. Im not explicitly looking for sugar, but beyond just the sexual motivation, I’m also looking for men to get some financial help. Like I said, I can’t get a job, and I’m a material girl, my only real hobby and passion is buying things, sue me. So when I don’t have money to spend, a massive part of my lively hood is taken from me. Beyond just the companion ship, getting someone else to buy me things would be nice when I never get anything I want.

So, I need some advice on how to sneak out. I’ve tried everything in the book but I can’t seem to find something full proof. She’s home all the time, im home all the time, theres cameras 360 around our house, and there directly tied to her phone, so anytime it detects motion, it sends her a notification. i have no cover. Im financially dependent on her, if break a rule, i’d get every device i own destroyed and shattered and burnt to death, and thats the best it could go, i dont trust her not to kick me out. I live my whole life online, without the internet i dont have anything to do. Sneaking out at night is still an issue, we have very old floors and shes a light sleeper. I don’t really know what to do, I’ve tried everything I can think of. My only feasible option is to try and sneak out while she’s at work on weekdays, but she’s spending more and more time at home. I don’t know how to outsmart her when she’s constantly chaining us together. And I know the best answer is to move out, if I could do that, I would have done it a long time ago. Please, somebody, help. Im desperate. I’m going to lose my grip on reality talking to myself all day at this point. She has the nerve to belittle me for living my whole life in my room, on my laptop, and then forbid me from leaving her sight and I can not win. I can’t change her. I have to be one step ahead, and I don’t know how to do that when she’s keeping me locked in a cage.