Transcript | Ask Unladylike: Financially Responsible for Your Mom?
[00:00:00] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: There’s a saying, you can't pour from an empty cup. And in order to protect yourself financially, you have to set boundaries with those folks, and it may be painful. You know, you may feel guilty because it's your parents. Or, you know, in other cases, maybe it's a child, but those boundaries are so critical to protect your own self and your own well being.
[UNLADYLIKE THEME SONG]
[00:00:30] CRISTEN: This is Unladylike. I'm Cristen, and it's true. You can't pour from an empty cup, which is why I am thrilled to let y'all know that as I am recording this, it is raining outside, and I am sitting next to a half full mason jar of water.
I'm hoping that these are both tangible symbols of all of the moisture–no, no, I'm so sorry, y'all. I've already broken two cardinal rules of podcasting: I'm talking about weather, and I said the word moist, and now I've done it again.
All I'm saying is that this is an Ask Unladylike, and I always want to bring, really bring my fullest self to the podcasting table because Ask Unladylike is where I tackle listeners and unladies’ questions that Google, well, we would rather not.
First up, though, we've got to button up last Ask Unladylike title, Butch Girlfriends and Child-Free Stepmoms. An unlady named Zahara wrote in:
I've been listening to Unladylike since before it was Unladylike.
Okay, Unladylike hipster, love it.
And I usually feel refreshed by the well thought out feminist and intersectional perspective. However, as a queer woman, I was really unsettled by your Ask Unladylike episode regarding butch girlfriends. Emma talks about how because the writer is in a queer relationship, its masc-femme gender roles inherently can't be problematic.
While it's fine if both women are okay with those roles, the writer clearly was not. It was troubling to hear you and Emma discount the discomfort femmes can feel when dating a woman who likes to embody masculinity in a way that patronizes her partner.
There is a huge problem in the queer community with femme women being patronized, objectified, and silenced by masc women in both queer spaces and relationships.Masc women often excuse their behavior by saying, we're both women, so it can't be misogyny.
This is not okay. Please consider reading about how masculine and feminine roles affect queer issues in the LGBTQIA community. I know there was a “Butch, Please: Butch with a Side of Misogyny” piece in Autostraddle that may be a good place to start.
Still love the podcast and hope you keep making amazing content for as long as possible.
Zahara, I really, really appreciate you taking the time to write in and articulate that for me. I'm sure that there were other unladies listening who felt the same way that you did. And I can understand how the answer to that question, the conversation that Emma and I had came across as patronizing.
And also just on a personal note, it shows me limitations of my own lived experience, obviously. And also, my short sightedness in not including a femme woman in that conversation as well, at the very least.
And Zahara, you know what? I need to reach out to the young lady who wrote in and check in with her. Because I certainly would not want her to come away feeling patronized and diminished.
So, thank you. I appreciate it so very much. And I will be reading that Autostraddle piece. Oh my goodness, when y'all send me sources, you really know how to light up my life.
Okay, so last episode, I also read the question from an unlady named Missy who is child-free but also now essentially a stepmom and is suddenly being expected to play hostess for the holidays.
Christine wrote in: I'm also in a similar situation. I was shocked to discover that I have fallen in love with a dad of three. He's 43, and I'm 32, and his kids are 10, 11, and 13. I've always been on the fence about having kids, but I've really enjoyed getting to know his kiddos. We've been together for about a year and a half and talk seriously about the future and marriage.
The thing that struck me the most in Missy's letter was she said that most resources she seeks out about step parenting is in the context of you also having your own kids. There is very little information or groups about childless step parents. I feel like I'm wandering around in the dark and am making it all up as I go along. I also learned being in your 30s makes it harder, too, as most step parents are in their 40s plus.
Holidays can be especially hard and complicated with shared time, and especially when you're bringing your family into it, it can be tough. Just know that as long as you put care and thought into your decisions, everything will turn out okay. There's no right answer, but there are definitely wrong ones.
Thanks for everything. I've been a longtime listener and love everything you do.
Yeah, y'all, I left in the compliment. Thank you so much, Christine.
Let's get into this week's Ask Unladylike. Now, I have to make a podcaster's confession, y'all. Pull back the curtain a little bit. When I invite guests and experts on to Ask Unladylike to help me answer questions, I will send them the question ahead of time. But then when we have the interview, I will read the listener's advice request at the beginning and we will unpack it from there.
And for whatever reason, friends, I didn't do that. In this instance, I was so excited to talk to our expert that I just bulldozed right ahead. So just between me and y'all, I'm going to read our letter in question:
I'm 32, and ever since my father passed away when I was 13, my mom has relied on me, i.e. the money my dad left just to me and my current nonprofit salary, for all financial support.
She struggles with undiagnosed mental illness and is incapable of supporting herself and refuses to get any kind of help. She is completely estranged from family, and no one is willing to help her. I personally haven't been on good terms with my mom in years but I continue to pay her bills because I'm all she has.
I love my mom with all my heart and I am devastated because I just don't know what else to do to help her. The situation feels hopeless, and the financial strain is really taking a toll. I would be super grateful for any advice!!! Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.
And I'm pretty sure that we found the perfect unlady to help.
[AUDIO STINGER]
[00:08:30] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: My personal background in this area includes my own experience with financial abuse within my own family. My identity was stolen when I was 11 years old. Um, unfortunately I didn't learn that my identity was stolen until I was 19.
And at the age of 31, I identified the offender, and the offender was my mother. And unfortunately, I didn't identify her as the offender until 13 days after she passed away.
My name is Axton Betts Hamilton, and I'm an assistant professor of consumer affairs at South Dakota State University, and in that role, I teach courses in financial counseling and planning and I conduct research in the area of financial abuse within families.
[00:09:25] CRISTEN: How do you think about it in terms of taboo? I feel like it's something that probably more people experience than maybe we hear about or talk about.
[00:09:40] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: I think that's very true. Unfortunately, there's a lot of underreporting of financial abuse within families. I published a book on my personal experience with identity theft victimization back in 2019, and once that book came out, I started receiving emails from all over the world from people who had similar experiences as mine but felt very alone and that no one else was having their same experience.
And so this is a problem that is, it's very much out there, but it's kind of in the shadows still. And it's something that we do need to shed light on.
[AD BREAK]
[00:10:23] CRISTEN: So zeroing in a little bit more on the issue that's coming up in this letter, are there any kinds of bright lines at least between helping out family members who need it and financial abuse? Like when do those scales tip?
[00:10:44] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: It really comes down to the wellbeing, I think, of the person who submitted the question, and it sounds like their wellbeing is being negatively affected by supporting their mom financially.
And when I was reading over the question, there were several terms that are common in the financial therapy world that really jumped out at me as, you know, possibly applicable to this situation. And one is financial enmeshment. And with financial enmeshment, parents will involve children and adult financial matters before the children are cognitively or emotionally ready to cope with that information.
In this particular family dynamic, it sounds like the mom was involving the daughter at a very early age with financial matters and putting a lot of financial responsibility on the daughter when she was 13, which could be indicative of a pattern of financial enmeshment.
To some degree, the number one thing to do in a situation where there's financial enmeshment between a parent and a child is for that child as an adult to set boundaries. And I think in this situation, the daughter's feeling financial strain, she's feeling some financial anxieties and financial stress but still feels compelled to financially support her mother to her own detriment.
You have to protect yourself. They're just saying you can't pour from an empty cup. And in order to protect yourself financially, you have to set boundaries with those folks. And it may be painful. You know, you may feel guilty because, you know, it's your parents or, you know, in other cases, maybe it's a child, but those boundaries are so critical to protect your own self and your own wellbeing.
Another term that popped out at me from the financial therapy world is financial enabling, which may also be going on here. And those, those who engage in financial enabling have a really hard time saying no to someone who asks for money. And I think that may be happening here, but again, it's tied back to that financial enmeshment where there just isn't a good boundary between mom and daughter on financial support.
So, you know, you asked about, you know, when is that line blurred? And I, I mentioned when it, when it harms someone's wellbeing, and that's taking place here.
Um, I would encourage the person who submitted the question to go to financialtherapyassociation.org, and you can search for a financial therapist on that website, and financial therapists are professionals who have training in financial matters as well as training in mental health counseling.
So it's kind of the best of both worlds when we're dealing with emotions and financial issues and explore why they're in these patterns and how those patterns have either a negative or positive influence on their life and help them safely change those patterns to optimize individual wellbeing.
[00:14:14] CRISTEN: Is that idea of I am all that she has, is that unhelpful framing maybe for this situation? The idea that like, I'm it. If it's not me, then this person will waste away.
[00:14:33] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: I think that is unhelpful framing. And when I read the question and I saw that line, my immediate thought was, well, perhaps the reason that the daughter is all the mom has is because maybe other family members did set those boundaries that I'm talking about and have said no.
So there could be a dynamic of this is the only person in the family that mom can turn to just because that boundary is not there. And so perhaps other family members do have those healthy boundaries and the daughter just may, may need a little more support in establishing those.
[00:15:08] CRISTEN: Is there something as well about the mother-daughter dynamic that might also be contributing to situations like this?
[00:15:23] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: So I think women in general are socialized to be caretakers, and, you know, as a daughter, you're often socialized that, oh, well, you know, you're going to take care of your parents when they get older. And that could be part of the dynamic going on here as well.
You know, unfortunately, sometimes that caregiving expectation really can turn, uh, into exploitation or otherwise being detrimental to the caregiver. You know, it can be exhausting physically, emotionally, and it sounds like in this case financially as well.
[00:16:05] CRISTEN: I mean, cause another thing that jumps out is the daughter is feeling like she's the only person her mom has. But I'm also not hearing–I mean, granted, this is like one very brief email–but I'm also not hearing what support system the daughter has. Like who's, who's helping her?
[00:16:26] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: Absolutely. And it could be no one.
And you know, as I said earlier, you can't pour from an empty cup and you have to take care of yourself financially. And you know, unfortunately like in my family, my mom was the one who took care of all the family finances, and my dad was not very involved in that and didn't really know the finer details of what was going on.
He's not in a financially secure position for someone who is approaching 70. And it sounds like this person is much younger than that. And you don't want to be in a situation where you have given and given financially to the point where you're not financially secure.
[00:17:12] CRISTEN: This might be an entirely different conversation, but I was curious if you have any insight into cultural dynamics. Like, I'm thinking especially of like first-generation kids, children of immigrant families who it is expected that you will send, you will send money back to family or you will support parents as part of kind of just the baked in expectation of being a good child.
[00:17:46] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: In different cultures, that dynamic does exist where the children take care of the parents no matter what. And, you know, in some cultures there, there isn't a sense of, you know, what about me for the child in terms of making sure the child is financially secure because that, you know, that cultural influence and the family influences, you need to support us. You need to support us. You need to support us. And it may be we helped you get to where you are. So now you need to give back.
But the problem occurs when the child gives back too much to where that child as an adult is no longer financially secure.
[00:18:30] CRISTEN: Is it something as well that you almost could budget in a way of like seeing, well, this is what I can afford and can budgeting be part of the boundary setting process?
[00:18:45] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: Absolutely. Budgeting and setting aside a specific amount to give, that's fine. But you'll want to stick to that amount.
And what often happens in these situations is that the person asking for money will ask for more, and they might try and lay a guilt trip on you or otherwise manipulate you. And you have to stick to that amount. Which is hard, but over time, by sticking to that allotted amount, holding firm to that boundary, I believe that the person who has been doing the asking will eventually understand, you know, this is the amount and that's it.
But you have to be consistent with that boundary over time.
[00:19:36] CRISTEN: Is there a world in which this can work out okay for both the daughter and the mother?
[00:19:45] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: Well, so, the thing I struggle with with this listener's question is that the mom does have a mental health disorder that she's not receiving treatment for and doesn't want to receive treatment for, and with that dynamic going on, I don't know that there's a happily ever after. I don't think that's likely in this situation, just based on the little paragraph that we have in the question, but I think there can be a positive relationship with boundaries.
[00:20:20] CRISTEN: I did want to also ask about mental illness and how common factors like that are in these parent child financial strains?
[00:20:36] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: Oh, they are so common. In my research, both in familial identity theft and financial exploitation of older adults by family members, in looking at offenders, mental health issues are at the center of this that are so common across cases, and they can be undiagnosed where the victim sees that there are behaviors that are indicative of a mental health problem, but the offender hasn't been diagnosed.
And then there are some cases where the offender has been diagnosed, usually with a personality disorder, but that diagnosis hasn't had a positive impact on their offending. But there is a pattern of mental health issues, whether they're diagnosed or undiagnosed in these types of family dynamics.
[00:21:39] CRISTEN: At the end of the letter, our listener writes that the, you know, the situation feels hopeless. The strain is taking a toll. I completely understand the feeling of hopelessness. As an expert and someone who also has been there, um, is it hopeless?
[00:22:02] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: So that hopeless feeling that is very normal, and you feel like you're never going to climb out of it. This is never going to end, but that no one understands. And the best advice I have for that is control what you can control.
This listener cannot control what her mom does or doesn't do but the listener can control what she does. Again, going back to setting those boundaries, budgeting and setting a specific dollar amount to give to her mother and really taking care of herself financially. So, you know, taking the focus off of the mom and really focusing on herself and making sure that she is financially secure.
You know, the listener can control that, but again, cannot control what her mom does or doesn't do.
[AD BREAK]
[00:23:12] CRISTEN: We are back. And keeping on the theme of boundary setting, let's close out with a question from an unlady named Kristen. No relation.
Kristen emailed Unladylike, subject line “control freak or patriarchy or both, question mark, question mark.” Ah, love it already.
Kristen asks. How do I know if the reason I bear all the mental load in my family is because of the patriarchy or because I have control issues? Or, does the patriarchy trick me into believing I have control issues so that I become so concerned with my own faults that I don't realize it is the patriarchy? Does this make any sense?
It's something I've been wrestling with for several months. My husband, who at least acknowledges that there is such a thing as the mental load and that I bear it in the family, thinks I bear the brunt of the mental load because I can't let, slash, trust anyone else to do it.
I call bullshit and counter that I take the mental load because no one else will, and everything will fall to shit if I don't.
Now, Kristen is right. The mental load is a thing. It is an academic term sometimes referred to as cognitive load or invisible labor, all of the mental anxiety and anticipation and concern that goes into maintaining a household.
And a lot of times we’re talking about mental load in the context of your cishet couples with kids. Now in terms of the visible labor, the housework of it all, and the childcare of it all. The good news is that the gender gap there is definitely shrinking, but the mental load, the gender gap in mental load, is more persistent.
So Kristen, what you were experiencing, as you know, it is real. It is valid. It is good that your husband recognizes that this is a thing.
And to answer your question, does this make any sense? Yes, it does make sense. That said, this is not going to be any kind of one or the other, black and white answer.
Patriarchy is certainly playing a role in this, but not all of it can be blamed on patriarchy. And also, blaming patriarchy and recognizing that is, unfortunately, regardless of who your partner is, it's not gonna fix and, and course correct the kinds of day to day communication and collaboration that needs to be happening to ease your mental load.
You need to outsource. You need to outsource some of your mental load. And yes. Yes, you can. So let's get into a little bit of science. There was a paper published by Allison Daminger in 2019 titled “The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor.” And what Daminger did is really break down the components of this mental load, this exact kind of mental load that you're talking about, Kristen, and she identified four parts: anticipating, identifying, decision making, and monitoring.
And can you guess the two areas, the two of those four areas, where women bore the brunt, where there was a significant gender gap? It was the bookends. Women were doing the bulk of the anticipating and the monitoring. So before decisions needed to be made and after decisions had been made. And in the middle–identifying, decision making–there was a lot more parity. Those were a lot more collaborative among couples.
But that anticipating and monitoring, this is where patriarchy comes in, Kristen–and now it feels like I'm talking to myself–because this is where sexist stereotypes of women as nags, uptight, controlling, even though anticipating and monitoring are part of the whole thing. It comes across in its invisible and list making and fretting kind of way as women just being worried mothers and wives.
And what Daminger's study also revealed is that, as we know, the men in the study were no less capable of anticipating and monitoring. They were just more accustomed to taking on that kind of mental load outside the home or outside of familial responsibilities and childcare.
So in, to stay in our gender normie box, you know, dad goes off to work and at work, oh yeah, he's anticipating this and he's monitoring that. And of course, he's making lots of decisions. Whereas on the flip side, of course, women are often socialized and accustomed to doing that kind of mental load labor explicitly in relationship contexts and in domestic contexts.
But of course, there's still the question of what do you do about it? Daminger's advice is to clearly identify your mental load from one person to another. The way I'm imagining it is you take those four components that Daminger highlighted in her study and you make a column for each. You're going to take, you're going to take a crayon and some scratch paper and you're going to make a list for anticipating. One for identifying, another for decision making, and then for monitoring.
And that is how you can map out your mental load. Let it pour out every minute little thing that is on your mind. That way, you are identifying it first. And you can use that to then communicate more clearly to your husband what's going on and put it in more concrete terms.
Then, once y'all are kind of on the same page of like, oh okay, so this is all the stuff that's going on. Okay, I got it. I got it. Let me help. Then, you need to bring him into the anticipating and the monitoring as well. Make sure that he's also taking care of like the pre-op and the, and the aftercare, you know?
For instance, if he does the dishes every night, then he also needs to be responsible for making sure that there's dish detergent, making sure that dishes get put away, like from beginning to end, a full-scale, 360 kind of task delegation.
And then what you have to do, Kristen, finally, is you have to let him try. You know, and this is where I would also advise you to not fall prey to weaponized incompetence. You don't have to go overboard listing everything for him. Trust that you married an adult with integrity who does give a fuck but just might need some prompting. And then, you let him do it. Or you let him not do it, and you'll have to reset and refine, but don't intervene until he's fully flopped.
So, you know, I wouldn't start with like a life or death, life or death stakes, but you gotta start outsourcing. You do. And you can blame the patriarchy, to some extent and you can also help yourself. Just try it.
[AUDIO STINGER]
Thank you so much to everyone who has written in, whether it be to correct, inform, ask more questions, seek more advice. I love it. I appreciate it. And thank you so much to our fantastic guest, Axton Betts Hamilton.
You can read all about her own experience in her book, The Less People Know About Us: Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity. And that website she recommended is inancialTherapyAssociation.org. And if any of y'all use it, let me know how it goes. I'm, I really, I could honestly probably use some time with a financial therapist.So, you know, give me the scoop.
For weekly bonus episodes, full length guest interviews, and more, become an Unladylike patron. It's a real lifeline for your old gal, Cristen, and all you have to do is head over to patreon.com/unladylikemedia. There are more than 150, well over 150, bonus episodes, and you get all of them all at once. And, I mean, I don't even have the words to describe what a treasure trove it is. Five dollars a month, that's it. You can also follow unladylikemedia on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. The email address is hello at unladylike.co if you want to send an old school email or if you want to send in a voice memo that way. So get in touch. Please!
Unladylike is a Starburns Audio production created and executive produced by me. Tara Brockwell is our senior producer. Katherine Caligori is our associate producer. Mixing and editing is by Ali Nikou. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen, and Sarah Tudzen.
And til next week…
[00:34:24] AXTON BETZ-HAMILTON: You can't pour from an empty cup.
