No Cash 2-1-26

It’s amazing to see what can happen during financial duress. With my family I want to help, but I won’t because 54 years ago we began marriage financially strapped.How strapped? Well, let’s just say when we bought our first house, we borrowed money for the down payment before we signed the loan for the mortgage. Daily life included homemade popcorn for snacks and eating out only on our anniversary. We did not have a phone for a short while and no TV for decades. (Like my parents, we had better ways to spend our time such as reading, remodeling an old house, keeping a garden and playing.) Those meager years color my perception when children and grandchildren ask for significant financial help – as happened recently. The individual needed a large amount of cash. Just as my youngest did at the start of the second semester of college. The first semester she relished her personal independence. It was great! Until the bill came at the beginning of the second semester. Feeling financially pinched, she called for help. I already knew the decisions that preceded the crisis. I silently assessed the request, “is this a real necessity? A life or death situation? Or a lesson to be learned?” I landed on “a lesson to be learned.”I began talking to her with brutal honesty. I refused to send a check. Instead I outlined how she could manage without as much fun as the previous semester. Without my help, she continued to work increasing hours in the tutoring lab and accepted a privately funded scholarship that was offered for her second semester.Although that was not my first “No,” it has provided a template for other requests. Sometimes I give a response as I did to a grandchild in college. “Sorry, but I told another family member in college ‘no’’ who was in the same situation.”My first hard nosed message went to the son who said he wanted to drop out of school. Hubby and I had seen it coming. We prepared an answer. “If you do drop out, your part of the household expenses will be …” I was so infuriated at the idea that I doubled the amount we had discussed.“What if I can’t pay that?”“Then you will have to get a job.”He went to school and never mentioned dropping out of school again.When another son with college degrees returned home after a serious illness, I said. “You will have to get a job and pay room and board.”“Can I get better first?”“Okay, you have a month.”He got a job. I guess we should have told those stories to our grandchildren before they reached adulthood. Perhaps then the one who wanted funds after a summer of fun would not have asked. Nor would the one who liked her luxuries and wanted help to get a first apartment would already have known, “Grandma won’t give me anything.”No I won’t. Not with six children and 18 grandchildren, 11 who are out of high school. No way I can give all of them the big checks they desire.I write that this week, because recently another adult grandchild asked for financial help. Having observed my loved one’s ongoing decisions, I sent my love, my prayers and the name of a financial counselor.I am and I will pray. I pray that this loved one takes a deep look within and the decisions that have brought them to this point. It is not easy standing by and not rushing to help during difficult times. I also have seen petitioners later figure out how to survive without our financial intervention and become resourceful, independent adults, which has been my exact goal for each of them from the beginning.