**Everything Will Be As I Want It**
Eleanor Whitaker sat in her rocking chair, knitting needles clicking softly in her hands. On the worn-out sofa beside her, her grandson slept peacefully. She gazed at him with quiet satisfaction. “He’s growing up strong—thanks to my efforts,” she thought to herself.
Eleanor had always taken pride in her thriftiness. In her younger years, when she and her late husband had first started their life together, they’d counted every penny. But those days had taught her to find joy in simplicity and appreciate what they had. She knew how to stretch a meal, mend old clothes to last another season, and raise children to be happy without frivolous spending.
Now that her daughter, Emily, had married William, Eleanor couldn’t help but notice how careless William was with money. He earned a decent salary, but to Eleanor, it all went to waste—flashy toys, expensive nappies, designer baby clothes. “We managed just fine without all that in my day!” she’d often say, remembering times when people made do with far less.
She glanced at her grandson, snug in a hand-me-down jumper from a neighbour. “Why waste money on new things when the old ones still serve their purpose?” Eleanor wondered. She could see Emily trying to follow her example, but William clearly found it grating. He was always buying new things, oblivious to the fact that true value lay in knowing how to make the most of what you had.
Eleanor sighed and resumed her knitting. “Young people these days,” she mused. “They want everything to be the latest, the best, the most expensive. Back in my day, we knew how to be content with little—and we were happier for it.” She thought back to raising Emily, teaching her the value of hard work and thrift.
William sat in his home office, staring out the window as dusk settled. Work was usually a distraction, but tonight his mind kept circling back to the same frustration. Emily and her mother, Eleanor, had turned their home into a battleground over money.
There’d been a time when frugality was necessary—when his pay barely covered the bills. But things had changed. He’d worked his way up, earned a proper salary, enough to provide comfortably. Yet Emily and Eleanor still acted as if every pound needed hoarding.
Every kindness he offered was met with resistance. If he bought Emily a dress, she’d hunt for a cheaper version. A new phone? She’d insist her old one was fine. And Eleanor’s lectures never ended—endless tales of how things were “better in her day.”
The real breaking point had been their son’s birth. He’d hoped they’d finally embrace better comforts, but no. Emily refused proper nappies, insisting on old-fashioned cloth ones—”tried and true,” she called them. She pinched pennies on everything, from baby food to clothes.
William had tried reasoning with them. “Money’s meant to improve our lives, not just sit untouched,” he’d argued one evening over tea. He spoke about their son’s wellbeing, how thrift shouldn’t come at the cost of safety. But his words fell on deaf ears. Emily and Eleanor dug in, repeating their mantra: “We got by without it before.”
Frustration simmered in his chest. Arguing was pointless. “I can’t just divorce her over this,” William muttered. But as he sat there, watching the sky darken, resolve hardened in him.
“They won’t win,” he said aloud. “I won’t let them raise him like this. Everything will be as I want it.”
