childfree

For me, it wasn't trauma in the standard sense, but my mother was horrible with money. Like she took out against her retirement, spent it all, never saved a dime in her life. We grew up in poverty because of it. The kicker is that while we were tight for money, she was honestly just really bad with it. We could have done fine, she had a decent paying corporate job for most of my childhood, but she's just buy things that nobody needs. "I found these random things at a garage sale, only $200!" "But we don't need those at all, what are we going to do with them?" "I don't know they just looked great!" She emptied her retirement to do a home improvement project that was 100% cosmetic. She constantly borrowed money from family, and she had my siblings and I call family to ask them to borrow money.

So, I'm doing fairly well now, and it's looking like I'll have to carry her financial burden going forward. We're talking probably thousands a month for her.

None of that stopped her from starting to casually drop that she wants grandkids. None of this clicks for her. I think the (US) national average cost for a kid just passed 800 thousand. For each kid. I'm sure it goes down a bit, handmedowns and what not, but that's also the average cost.

Ffs, she knows I'll need to already spend thousands a month just on her, and then has the audacity to be upset that I don't want kids? It's just. A lot. It's annoying and it's a lot.