Helping family is a great thing to do, especially if you are able to set them up to help themselves in the future.

What would you do if you knew that one of your relatives was mooching off of your mother while maintaining an entitled attitude?

That is the situation in this story, but the aunt who was living off of her sister’s money got an attitude, everything came crashing down.

Check it out.

Entitled aunt unknowingly ended her own financial support

My older sister, let’s call her Ria, and our mom have always had a very difficult relationship ever since I could remember.

Ria has always been headstrong and not afraid to ask questions.

My mom was a very traditional devout Christian who put family above everything first.

Bit of a background – my mom was the second eldest of 9 children and moved from the Philippines to the US.

She grew up dirt poor in a small province and experienced first-hand the hardship that comes with taking care of a big family.

What a great accomplishment.

She was the first of her family to graduate college and has always valued education as a means to get out of poverty.

She has paid for 4 of her siblings to go to college (only 2 actually completed and went on to find jobs) and has also paid for several of her sibling’s children to go to good schools in the Philippines.

Ria had more exposure to the extended family than I did (she was born in the Philippines, I was born in US – 7 years apart).

As she got older, she was very outspoken about how she did not agree with my mom financially supporting some of her family because Ria felt as though they were abusing my mom’s generosity, especially since mom was frugal with our expenditures here in the US.

When Ria was in her last year of high school, she had a bad falling out with my mom and moved out.

They did not speak for 5 years (although my dad & I kept in touch with Ria).

In that time, Ria worked full-time and paid her way thru college without any help from my parents at all.

Fast forward a few years at my high school graduation, I invited Ria, she attended, and ended up reconciling with my mom.

Things were still rocky but they had a much better relationship.

Two years ago, my mom passed away.

Unknown to me at the time, Ria had quietly taken over the continued financial support for my mom’s youngest sister’s (“Jana”) cost of living and maintaining the college fund for Jana’s daughter.

That was nice of her.

She also took care of the funeral arrangements and handling the estate (dad was a mess at the time).

Last year, Ria and I decided to spend the holidays in the Philippines.

One of our visits was to Jana’s place.

Little did I know that trouble was brewing when we sat down for dinner.

After small talk, the topic of my mom came up and this was how that conversation went – details may be lost in translation so just writing the gist. (R: Ria, J: Jana)

J: “Such a shame <your mom> passed away. We will miss her.”

R: “Yes.”

J: “Ria, why did you stopped talking to her? Why did you leave her? You should be ashamed – that’s not how you treat family. Now, your mom could’ve raised you better – you always were too headstrong you know, that’s not ladylike – you shouldn’t be so aggressive. You need to be softer. How are you going to get a man otherwise? [… she goes on to say more stuff along these lines]”

R: “. . .”

J: – turns to me – “Don’t be like your sister ok? Be a good daughter. Do you have a boyfriend yet? You don’t want to get too old like Ria and not have your own family. That’s not following God’s plan!”

Before I could speak, Ria asked her own questions.

Ouch!

R: “Why did you drop out and decide to get pregnant when mom was paying for your college? Did you really think that that businessman would leave his wife to take care of you? If you wanted to be a trophy wife, you should’ve just said so instead of wasting my mom’s hard-earned money.”

At this point, I just decided to watch because Jana was starting to make me mad and Ria has been known to do epic take-downs.

J: – enraged- “How dare you come into MY house, eat MY food, and disrespect ME!”

R: -calmly- “Technically it’s my mom’s house, you have food because my mom has been supporting you for the better part of 15 years and you disrespected her by wasting all the opportunities she worked hard to give to you”

J: “I don’t NEED your attitude, I don’t NEED anything from you – you disrespectful brat. Get out of my house […more rant]!”

R: -gets up and smiles- “You sure you don’t need ANYTHING from me. You don’t want ANYTHING from me. I want to confirm that I heard you correctly”

J: “I don’t need squat from you, I can take care of myself and MY family and how DARE you imply otherwise! Get out of my house and your father will hear about this!!”

R: -looks at me- “You heard her, let’s go.”

Now, I was surprised by how calmly Ria was taking the diatribe because I’ve seen her and my mom get into massive shouting matches.

More confused than anything, I followed her to the car.

R: “You heard her right, she doesn’t need ANYTHING from me”

Me: -it begins to dawn on me what my sister is about to do- “Yeaahhh…”

R: “Ok.”

We get back to the hotel and my sister promptly stops the auto-transfer of funds for Jana’s account.

We then spend the rest of the week lounging by the beach and hanging out with other cousins.

It must have been a harsh lesson to learn.

Yesterday, I was talking to one of my cousins and heard that Jana is just now realizing what actually happens when you run out of money.

I called up Ria shortly after to give her an update.

R: “What? She ran out of money that quick? There was enough in there to last her the year.”

Me: “Oh. Did you tell her that?”

R: “Eh, basic math.”

Me: “Will she lose the house?”

R: “Nah. It’s paid for. As long as she doesn’t do something stupid, she should have a roof over her head.”

Me: “Did you also close her kid’s college fund?”

This is the right thing to do.

R: “Nope. Not gonna punish the kid for her mom’s stupidity. But that’s all she gets so if she messes it up, she messes it up.”

So yeah, will definitely be interesting how this plays out in the next few months.

I have a feeling my sister probably won’t care one way or the other though.

People who are living off of the generosity of family should watch their words.

Let’s see what the people in the comments think about this.

Jana must have thought the father was handling it.

I’m surprised the Aunt was so clueless.

Here is a good suggestion.

Ria did the right thing.

It can be worse than no family at all.

Never bite the hand that is feeding you.

Or just be a decent person to everyone who deserves it.

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