He claims that Mom is witholding money because it is “impacting her lifestyle” yet at the same time she is continuing to pay for her grandkids’ private education and gave his brother a million to buy a house. Now surely you can’t fault her for wanting to maintain the kids’ standard of living if possible – they’re innocent but i don’t care where in the world you live – a million dollars is going to buy you a NICE house. While certainly many parents play favourites, it’s hard to imagine that she would give one kid 1 mil for a house and another kid “nothing” just to support her lifestyle. Especially given the obvious affection she has for Rolf.

a million dollars? for a house? really? either he paid cash for that house or that’s one heck of a downpayment. either way – there’s more to this story.

people respond to incentives – that is the number one rule of economics. and remember – economics is not the study of money, it’s the study of decision making in the face of scarcity. which is exactly what is happening here.

Perhaps mom feels like Jr sat on his haunches for 6 years and would like to see a return on her “investment.” Maybe she doesn’t feel like he is working hard enough at his writing and she is just enabling him to stagnate. like i said – the desire to earn money is a part of what incentivises most of us to work had and be successful, if he is getting that money for nothing then that particular incentive is gone. the sad reality is when you take money from someone else, they tend to feel they have a say in how you spend it. this is true from the smallest interpersonal relationships all the way up to big government.

if she gave one kid 1mil for a house i can’t even imagine what she was paying this guy to quit his job and write…

when i was first starting out my parents gave us 5k, my inlaws gave us 5k and we scraped together another 10k for a 20k down payment on a $200,000 house.

why would you need $1 million for a home? Did he buy it outright? Is that a down payment? that seems like an incredible amount of money to just give away and if she really is that rich then “maintaining her lifestyle” can not possibly be the reason Jr. is cut off.
If she’s no longer that rich or the house was bought during or prior to Jr being cut off – then the money given to brother is completely irrelevant. if the house was bought AFTER Rolf was cut off then again- it’s unlikely that “preserving her lifestyle” was the real reason she started witholding money.

I have not been in that situation myself. I doubt I will, knowing the financial state of my parents. If I were to find myself in that situation, though, I would try to find some way of earning money myself, especially before my parents “cut me off”.

Thanks for sharing!