From the moment my first big commission check cleared, I set up a direct deposit for my mother: $800 a month. It was my way of saying, “Thank you,” but also my way of saying, “Please, stop looking poor.”
My mother lived in a small, rust-belt town in Ohio. The factories had closed years ago, and the neighborhood was tired. I wanted her to be the queen of the block. I wanted her to renovate the kitchen, buy nice clothes from the mall, maybe get her hair done professionally instead of dyeing it over the bathroom sink.
But every Thanksgiving, when I drove my luxury sedan into her gravel driveway, nothing had changed.
She was still wearing that same faded wool coat she bought during the Bush administration. The heater was always kept at 62 degrees to “save on gas.” The pantry was full of generic canned beans and day-old bread.
The breaking point happened two years ago. I walked into the kitchen and saw her washing a Ziploc bag to reuse it.
“Mom, this is insane!” I snapped, the stress of my high-pressure job boiling over. “I send you nearly a thousand dollars a month! Where does it go?”
She looked down, wiping her hands on a rag. “I manage, son. I manage.”
“You don’t manage! You live like a pauper!” I shouted. My ego was bruised; her frugality felt like an insult to my success. “Are you sending it to one of those TV preachers? Did you get scammed online? Or are you hiding a deadbeat boyfriend somewhere?”
