As I face motherhood and joblessness simultaneously, I can’t help but be plagued by money matters to weighing heavily on my mind.
Babies are expensive, and there’s no deferring payments on them. I just keep thinking that for the next 18 years of this kid’s life, I’m paying to feed it, clothe it, entertain it, and generally care for it.
Then I started thinking about my own parents. I was in and out of their house until my wedding and never paid them any rent, contributed to bills, or purchased food. I was a hardcore moocher. My immediately younger brother is nearly 26 and shows no signs of moving out any time soon. He too is a full-fledged moocher, as is his girlfriend who lives with her parents and spends significant amounts of time at my parents’ house. Then there’s my youngest brother. In one year, he’ll be graduated and moving back home and most likely be crashing at my parents’ house for the foreseeable future as well.
My parents just can’t get rid of us! And my mother, bless her heart, even mentioned that if my little family and I fell on hard times because of my layoff, we’d be more than welcome to move back in as well.
I know that ultimately, my mom likes having us around. She likes the sound of a full house, she likes a family to cook for (although that’s something she definitely didn’t enjoy as we were growing up, so it’s funny that it hit her later in life), and she just generally enjoys having us there to chat with. My dad…well…I guess I don’t really know how he feels about it. But I’ve gotta imagine that he would prefer his paycheck went to funding his life with my mom rather than feeding his kids who just won’t leave home. For 28 years, they’ve been stuck with kids in their house non-stop.
So with all this in mind, I realize that this little baby inside may pull the same crap my siblings and I have, and that housing it in my womb is just the beginning of DECADES of caretaking I might have ahead of me.
At what point do I decide to cancel my cable in order to fund this baby’s lifestyle for the next 30 years?
