Yes, I agree; it’s ridiculous for Mrs. Grasshopper to not be working. She can work at Wal-Mart, McDonalds, the fabric store, a bakery–there are lots of jobs out there for an unskilled person who is willing to show up on time, learn the ropes, and do a good job. There are job-training programs for her to apply to (my MIL just went through one) which will pay her to be trained and then help her get a job.
These people are adults and they should not be hiding behind “not being ready” to sell the house or find work. It is too bad about the real estate market–we’re going through something very similar with family members who should unload their house and would have been much better off doing it last year–but that’s the reality of the situation.
With the information you’ve given, if it was me, I would say that I’m not giving any more financial assistance until Mrs. G. gets a job–any job–and they face up the reality of their situation and start acting accordingly. At his age, Mr. G. is not going to find a perfect job next month when he didn’t get one 6 months ago. And, the college student kids should be eligible for a certain amount of financial aid and nice loans, though that is a pretty minor point.
I’m surprised that they have the nerve to hold their hands out for financial help when:
the wife refuses to work
they haven’t downsized their lifestyle
they haven’t made any effort to reduce their debt (like selling the money-sucking home)
I would be fucking ashamed to ask for help if I hadn’t done everything possible to help myself first. If after a year of living in reduced circumstances the Grasshoppers’ plan of action is still “wish and hope and beg” the Ants owe them nothing.
I’d sell everything I owned before I let a sibling starve, but since it’s just a matter of losing their house and fancy toys (something people go through every day for less contemptible reasons than “we spent grossly beyond our means and rubbed it in our relatives’ faces”) I’d like to think that I wouldn’t give them a cent until they showed me that I wasn’t just throwing money down a neverending hole.
If the situation is not so bad that Mrs. G won’t go back to work and try to replace the one-third of income that her husband’s new job can’t supply, then the situation is not so bad that they need any help.
I’m sorry, when you’re at the point where the repo man has taken both your cars, you don’t get to play the role of the non-working wife of the manager who does a bit of charity work, any longer. Suck it up and go be a waitress, a cashier, an office helper who does filing and copying, whatever it takes.
I have a grasshopper sister-in-law - well, I have two of them actually, but this is about one of them. She used to live in the apartment above my husband and I. Every now and then we’d notice she wasn’t paying bills - the water was cut off twice, the electricity at least twice, but she always insisted that it was a billing error, she’d sent the money, blah blah. And considering how much she shopped she certainly didn’t live like she had money problems. At Christmas 2005 she brought in more presents than even her very well-off siblings, enough to shame my husband and I certainly. A few months later she called my husband, frantic. She hadn’t paid her rent for the last five months and was about to be evicted. (Turns out that she also owed a few hundred dollars for the water bill too; the town tried to stick us with that until we gave them her new address and explained that she’d moved.)
We talked about the situation, and then loaned her the money for the back rent. A couple months later the lease was up and hers wasn’t renewed. She found a new apartment that was being rented out by a high school friend, so she had no troubles there, and since her behavior wasn’t really “punished” via having such a black mark on her rental history, it looks like she didn’t change her ways much. She’s blamed her slow repayment on everything but her choices. Nearly a year later, she’s only repaid maybe a quarter of the original sum, and sometimes payments came only after nagging by my husband. We know that she got close to the amount she owed us as a Christmas present from their parents, but she still didn’t pay us in January anywhere near on the day she’d set up, and it was her stated minimum. We also found out that she hit up all of their other siblings for money, and maybe her parents too. So, fool us once… well, hopefully it won’t get past that.
The grasshoppers are owed nothing. We all make good and bad decisions and we are all responsible for the consequences of those decisions, both good and bad. The grasshopper family doesn’t see their situation as a problem yet, and they won’t ever see it as a problem if they don’t have to fix it themselves. And she should get a damn job. I would not hand over one red cent if she was not working. My parent’s neighbor is in this kind of situation and it sucks, but the wife will not work and if she isn’t willing to help herself no one else should be willing to help her either.
I’m not one to let a family member starve but then we all worked our way through life so it would truly be a situation in need. If I had to I would pony up the payments for a used mobile home and a beater car. That’s how I started out. Which is what Mr and Mrs Grasshopper are going to be doing. Given their lifestyle that’s where they’re going to end up anyway without any form of retirement.
What you guys are really debating about is where the social safety net should be set. I’d say someone who loses their income for whatever reason should have shelter, clothing, food and medical care, at a basic level. Sounds like you do, too, when you’re talking about family. But of course what applies for your brother applies for everyone.
I might add internet access of some sort as well, although maybe just the public library if you don’t have a wireless laptop so you can go to wifi hotspots, because you just about have to have it to find a decent job nowadays.
Really? There is subsidized housing in this state (though there’s a waiting list, I’m sure) and all the hospitals are required to provide care for those who come, regardless of their ability to pay. There’s a ‘free care’ pool of money the State uses to reimburse the hospitals for that care.
Uh, no. Not all all. What my OP is about is what RELATIVES owe each other. Most especially if the disparity in their material status results from deliberate choices (like one over spending and the other choosing to scrimp and save money) rather than disasters. Or, I guess, windfalls. If I hit a $100 million lottery I’d definitely do some sharing of wealth with my and hubby’s sibs at least, and probably some to uncles/aunts, and college funds for those young enough.
I don’t think ANY reasonable person would say you shouldn’t help out a family member who’s been hit with an unforeseen disaster like high medical bills or someone of that nature.
And, in case you misread, the Grasshoppers are NOT destitute by any reasonable definition of the word. As in, his salary from his current job is several multiples of the official poverty line for a family of its size. It’s simply that it’s a lot less than he used to get. IOW, he has dropped from, well, call it Upper Middle Class to just Middle Class. If not for the albatross of their McMansion house AND the huge credit card debts that they ran up (mostly WHILE making the bigger salary, note) they could live what any objective observer would call a pleasant life style.
What they CAN’T do any longer is take month long cruises, buy a new car each year, keep her in clothes and accoutrements to hang out with the country club set, and so forth.
There is no way the Grasshoppers would qualify for any sort of governmental aid. The intake worker would bust a gut laughing if they applied.
They don’t need handouts (though they sure want them.) They need to face the fact that their lifestyle HAS to change to fit their new income. They simply CAN’T afford to keep living in their house. Sell the house, sell the jet skis, sell the ski mobiles, sell I’m guessing that they need to go through a bankruptcy, to at least get a reduced repayment schedule on the credit cards.
Uh huh. Don’t know where you live but in the United States we have medicaid for the indigent. And every city I’ve ever checked on has subsidized housing.
Word. Brother Ant has an absolute, ironclad responsibility to see to it that his brother is neither homeless nor starving. It’s pretty goddamned hard to starve in this country no matter how poor you are, and Brother Grasshopper has a new job, so he can afford to move into a smaller place. So Brother Ant’s obligations have already been met.
Further, helping out with the mortgage would be a total waste of money. He might as well just burn it. Grasshopper is not getting a job as good as his old one. Not at his age, not unless he is absolutely amazingly good at whatever it is that he does. And if he were that good at it, he probably wouldn’t have been laid off in the merger. Pay off the mortgage now, and in a few years, they’re going to be right back at Ant’s front door asking for another handout.
One thing I might do, were I in Brother Ant’s position, is offer to pay for Grasshopper’s kids college, assuming the parents are still paying for that out of pocket (as opposed to financial aid, scholarships, college trust funds, or the like) You said they’re almost finished, so it wouldn’t be too bad an outlay, and it takes one financial burden off brother’s back without directly paying for anything in bro’s extravagant lifestyle.
Grasshoppers also don’t speak English or play the fiddle, but that’s kinda beside the point. The purpose of a parable is to teach you about human behavior, not insect behavior.