Give a little get a little?

My mom just asked me to work overnight for her on Monday since she will (finally!) be taking her certification test on Tuesday. I was silent for a long while as I thought of a way of saying 'no' without looking like an absolutely horrible person. I finally settled on saying that I have never worked overnight. Which is true. She said that it was fine and the person she usually works with could work by herself and the she just offered it to me because "we need the money." Although she then went on to say that I could keep the money for myself. And so that ended. And to be honest, I'm moving in with my husband soon and as yet don't have a job and I have financial obligations that will continue into the foreseeable future. And yet I said no. I'm realizing that at this point in my life I'm just not willing to inconvenience myself for anyone even if it will help me in some way. And I especially feel this way towards my mom.  I am annoyed when she asks me to do anything for her. There is a part of me that wants to feel bad for feeling this way but another part thinks of all of the inconveniences I have had to endure because of her. For example, giving her the small savings I had managed to scrape together in college because she didn't have enough money to support herself and my younger brother. And why didn't she have enough money? Because she quit her job because it was too stressful! And she did this without getting another job first. And she had no savings because even though she's educated, she works in a field that doesn't  have anything to do with her education and doesn't pay sh*t. Eventually she got another job that paid even less and now my brother and I have to help support the family. The vast majority of the little we make goes to help pay family bills. We also had to buy an almost new car on credit because our old one broke down and we didn't even have enough savings to buy a cheap used car.

I'm crying as I write this.

I know my family is not the worst out there. I have never experienced any kind of abuse from any of them (unless you count my father's complete and utter abandonment of my brother and I) and we always had enough to eat, etc.

I just wish I had more. I think what scares me is that I obviously come from a family of LOSERS and I'm afraid that I'm on the path to continuing that tradition. I honestly think the only thing keeping me from it is my husband whose family is on the exact opposite side of the poverty spectrum.

I can't help but think of this article. Here's a quote:

"In a paper published last month, he argues that middle and upper-income black families don’t accumulate wealth as quickly because rather than investing their money, they give more of it to poor friends and relatives."

It's so scary because if I wasn't actively pushing against it, I could see that happening to me. I was still in college when my mom asked for the money. Can you imagine? I was already being impoverished by my mom before I even left school!!! And I have little hope of ever seeing that money again.

 And mom always speaks so fondly of the daughter of one of her friends. This daughter is a little older than me. Many times during her college career she took out extra student loans to help her mom pay the mortgage. All this did, of course, was postpone the inevitable. Because the daughter graduated and her mom still can't pay the mortgage. SMH. What a dead-end reason to take out extra debt. And my mom thinks this is a positive thing! What kind of f*cked up family am I from?

It's not enough that I'm from a family that can't help me pay for school, I'm also from a family that thinks it's a good idea to take money from a kid that's still in school.

I can't help but think of my other recently graduated friends who also have poor, immigrant parents. Their parents don't borrow money from them. Many of them live with their parents now and don't pay rent. While I must contribute to family bills or the whole operation goes under.

Why did I have to come from a deadbeat dad and irrational mother? I honestly would rather have never existed if this was my only option to come into this world.

So much for being positive but I had to get that out.

Until next time.