That feeling of Entitlement
I read with a little sadness about what is happening to a lady who I knew distantly when I worked in New York, Brooke Astor. She’s a very wealthy woman and has made many contributions to different charities and universities and at the time was pretty active lady in her society. I even had the opportunity to meet her and she is a gentle soul.
Apparently her son is accused of siphon off her money for his own interests. His own son accused him of not taking care of grandma. Now they are in court trying to find a new guardian for her.
Link
I can’t imagine how someone who is supposed to be your own flesh and blood could rip you off. One of my best friends recently told me about another case of a friend of hers whose own sister, took another mortgage out on their mom’s house, racked up some high bills, bought lots of new and fancy stuff and didn’t pay the new mortgage. Now the house is gone. The mom died recently and they had to scramble to get her buried in the style she wanted. How could your own flesh and blood do that?!
Unfortunately for me this also comes close to home. My grandparents home is gone because of the same thing. Unbeknownst to us our uncle who has lived in the home since our grandparents died, in fact, since he was a child, took out another mortgage on the house, and never repaid the loan. Do you know when we found out about it? When a buyer made a deposit on the house. A friend of our family who works at the local housing company made a call to one of my relatives, that is how we found out. By the time we could scramble around to undo the deed it was too late!
It’s a really cool place, a large house, large property with lots of fruit trees, vegetations and land as far as the eye could see. Now it’s gone. That’s because we trusted the one person who we didn’t know would be so selfish. There were other family members living on the property as well, now they have to find somewhere else to go. I don’t know what would make people do things like that. Then again, I know what it is, greed! Greed and selfishness!
It’s not the loss of the money value of the house that hurts us; it’s the memories and the sense of belonging that we all were connected to this land. It’s been in our family for generations, and it is no longer. Although we do have other family homes to go to, this was the matriachial home that everyone converged on and alas it is no more.
I’ve learned of other stories of deceit done to older people because they trusted the very people who are supposed to be looking out for them. Instead they line their own pockets.
What’s with this sense of entitlement that the people who do this feel? Did they work for the money they are stealing? No! How could they feel that their parents ‘owe’ them and why shouldn’t they take the money now instead of waiting for the parent to die? What’s with that thinking?
In the article I posted above there have even been cases of caretakers helping themselves to the money or possessions of the ones they are supposed to be taking care of! There is also a case of one neighbor helping the elderly lady next door to go on errands and appointments while stealing her blind!
I think its wrong and it’s just sad that people are faced with these kinds of situations when they get older and their kids are too far away to take care of them or they are left with the one sibling whose interest in their parent is questionable. You know how that goes; there is always that one sibling who never seems to get his or her act together.
However, robbing their parents or grandparents is the lowest kind of level they can stoop to! Then it takes the siblings or other relatives to try to pick up the pieces, it they can.