It can be hard when kids grow up and seem to have their lives together more than their parents.

Imagine going to college because your mom got student loans for you. Would you help her pay them off so she could get student loans for your younger brother, or would you tell her to get a job?

The woman in this story thinks her mom needs to get a job, but she’s also wondering if she was wrong for saying that.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for telling my mom to get a job?

I (33F) go up to visit my brother (14m) about twice a year.

He and I are really close, and I’m sad that he lives far away because he’s entering high school this year.

I just went up for the weekend, and got back home last night.

This trip, my mom found out that my husband and I bought a second vehicle so my husband and I didn’t have to share a single vehicle with conflicting work schedules (public transport isn’t reliable here).

Now there’s an issue with student loans.

She messages me as I’m getting ready to walk into work this morning and says that we need to have a conversation about “my student loans.”

She can’t pay her $65/mo parent plus loan and that’s going to affect my brother.

I told her to apply for another forbearance, to call DepEd, to call a senator.

She immediately replied that she has been denied a forbearance extension, DepEd wouldn’t help her, and Senator couldn’t give any advice.

(I’m not sure I believe she actually did any of these things.)

Her mother was pretty rude.

I told her that the reason we have these things is that both adults in my household are working despite both of us being disabled (me with MS & my husband is a veteran), and then sent her a link to Indeed.

I then told her I had to go to work and to have a nice day.

She responded that she had to go to a food line to be able to feed my brother and to have a nice day.

Here’s the reality of the situation.

My brother is old enough that he doesn’t need childcare.

He can stay home alone if she and his dad are both at work.

She would lose her Medicaid benefits and EBT if she got a job, but… if she got a job she wouldn’t need it?

Did she say the wrong thing?

Losing state-funded health insurance is the only con I can see to her getting her job, but with the recent news of Medicaid cuts, she might lose them anyway.

So… AITA for essentially telling her to get a freaking job???

Seems like OP has a point, but you never know someone’s exact circumstances.

How do the comments on Reddit feel about this unemployment dilemma?

This person offers a gentle YTA for misunderstanding the system.

This poster is like, nobody’s wrong but what kind of daughter do you wanna be?

Someone else says, you take the loan, you pay it back.

Someone else says, actually, everybody is wrong.

Another person says, this sucks, but OP doesn’t.

Now hiring: a mother/daughter mediator.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.