In my family there is no such thing as “borrowing from my mother” or “borrowing from my son”. We have a family, and there is mutual support and understanding between us. For example, when my mother and I meet to sit somewhere, we take turns paying. Someone paid for the fare, someone paid for some shopping, and then the bill at the cafe. It’s not even a discussion, unless of course it’s the same birthday party, when the birthday boy takes care of both the organization and the payment. But in general, I think it’s perfectly normal for me to call my father or sister and ask for a small sum of money to be urgently transferred to me, because I don’t have enough money on my card. And my mom can ask me to buy her new headphones or a book, and so on. And no one asks for a refund afterwards.
It’s different with my wife. I didn’t know that until a while ago. I lived in sweet ignorance, thinking that my mother-in-law and father-in-law had given us the perfect gift of money to repair our apartment. To be fair, my parents had also invested, but not as much as Rebecca’s parents. And I lived with the certainty that we didn’t need to pay anything back, until my mother-in-law called me and made a scandal over the phone.
Rebecca tried to keep it a secret from me, paying her mother back bit by bit, but the amount was large, her parents wanted everything as soon as possible. And I was confronted with a tantrum over the phone on a subject I was not swimming in. Getting lost in thought and confused with words, I promised to pay it all back, and in the evening Rebecca and I had an unpleasant conversation waiting for us.
Her parents had only lent us the money for repairs, not given it to us as a gift. They were already raising Rebecca until her eighteenth birthday, and hoped that she would still be helping them financially, not them. So they need an urgent reimbursement of all the money, and they even have a receipt for how much we took.
Isn’t that how it is in many families? Parents are being punished for the money they invested in their children? Then why have a child at all? This is the most unpleasant situation possible, I feel like I have to pay back every penny so we don’t have a fight, but I feel kind of bad about asking my parents for help. Why should they be the only ones who have to pay, and Rebecca’s family will save every penny?
