Family values
Today, Brooke Astor's son Anthony Marshall was convicted of fourteen charges relating to defrauding his mother of millions of dollars as she sank deeper and deeper into Alzheimer's.
This case, which I've followed with horror and fascination since the story broke, brings to light two important issues: elder abuse, and the sick ways that greed can twist family relationships.
I understand that greed has a terrible warping effect on character. As shocking and awful as it is for fraudsters like Bernie Madoff to commit fraud against friends and acquaintances, though, defrauding and taking advantage of family (especially family that is particularly vulnerable because of decline or disability) is a whole other class of crazy. My sibling and I are actively involved in my mom's finances to look after her well-being. When my dad was alive, we were even more protective because he was so physically, mentally, and emotionally fragile in the last ten years of his life. I can't imagine doing anything different, and this is one of those situations where I simply can't put myself in the other guy's shoes to even attempt to understand his motivations.
Have you dealt with a fraudster in the family? If so, what happened and how did you deal with it? If not, is there someone you're actively working to protect from fraud outside the family, and what are you doing to protect that person?
12 retorts:
I don't really understand posts like this. I can imagine thousands of reasons why someone would defraud their mother. If your kid is that motivated by money, what did the Mom do wrong as a parent? Maybe the kid was abused. Maybe she neglected him to do her social charity work. Maybe she promised him the money all the time, and then at the last minute they had an argument and she disinherited him. Who knows? Who really gives a damn?
I know parents who have shot their children, children who have tortured their siblings. Not all family life is idyllic, and it's ridiculous to apply your family values to another family.
Er, InterfaceLeader perhaps you haven't noticed, but this is a personal finance blog. We talk about personal finance and how it impacts many aspects of your life....
FZ, this is a topical post. I remember the first time I heard of financial abuse (a few years ago) I was shocked it even existed, but have since learned of its huge prevalence. It's so common it's considered part of domestic abuse. A quick google brought up some interesting sites and research - http://www.preventelderabuse.org/elderabuse/fin_abuse.html and http://www.dfc.sa.gov.au/pub/tabId/431/itemId/1283/moduleId/1618/Preventing-the-financial-abuse-of-older-people-by.aspx.
I have to speak up with this one and agree 100% with what InterfaceLeader has said. It is refreshing InterfaceLeader to find someone else who understands that not everyone was brought up in a warm nuturing environment with close family ties. Gosh, if only, sometimes I think I would have been better off being brought up by robots.
InterfaceLeader - Thanks for your comment. Guilty as charged: I was looking at this situation through a very narrow prism of my own experience. Having followed the story out of interest, though, I'd submit that although Brooke Astor was probably far from a perfect mom in that I got the impression she was inattentive and distant to some extent, I don't think extreme mitigating circumstances apply here.
Thanks for making me think about this differently; I appreciate your taking the time to write that.
Penny - Thanks for your feedback. Elder abuse is a huge problem. My dad was one of those extremely vulnerable people because of his physical and mental fragility toward the end of his life, and if it hadn't been for my mom, it would have been so easy for him to end up in a really bad situation. Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.
Dreamer - Thanks for the feedback. Robots, huh? I'm sorry. This is one reason I self-selected out of the gene pool myself: I think I'd be one of those parents myself.
@Penny - I do understand it's a PF blog! Family and money are tied very closely though. While I do not condone defrauding anyone, particularly those who are vunerable, I do not believe children 'owe' their parents to look after them, and I do understand how such a situation could come about.
Perhaps parents have as much to learn from this as anyone else. ;)
@frugal zeitgeist - glad you could se it from my pov! Most abuse remains pretty quiet, so I doubt the courts will dig out everything there is to know. At the end of the day the state needs to provide more safeguards and safety nets for the vunerable, the elderly, and those alone.
We're not doing it yet, but my husband and I will almost definitely have to keep an eye on his parents. They have no retirement savings, she's now disabled and he's out of work. And they're nearly 60. Meanwhile, they let my brother-in-law live with them and ignore the fact that he's obviously not clean and sober. And he squeezes every cent he can out of them. As their health deteriorates, my guess is we'll have to check on their finances to see that they're able to stay in their house. But we have limited earning potential so, frankly, we won't be able to help out much. They've made a lot of bad choices, and will probably suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives. It's depressing and upsetting, but there it is.
@InterfaceLeader & Dreamer:
I didn't have a great childhood. My parents were severely screwed up. Never hit me, but pretty emotionally abusive. Most of the time, I didn't want to spend time with my dad, because he was given to rages, yelling and ranting and generally making you want to sink into the couch and never come back up for air. But he basically had me convinced until I was 21 that all of our bad relationship was my fault -- that I didn't love him enough to want to spend time with him and it was only natural that this would upset him and make him angry and yell... Even then, I only realized how full of it he was when my therapist told me just how screwed up the whole situation was. Meanwhile, my mom dealt with the friction by not dealing with it; by trying to be on both sides and by being so torn apart that it only worsened my guilt about the whole situation. She and I have made our peace, more or less, since she left him. But he and I don't talk anymore.
I know that all seems pretty mild compared to what a lot of people go through, abuse-wise. But to this day, I start to shake when men raise their voices or when I have to stand up to a man, and I usually end up crying afterwards, even if it's not all that upsetting a situation. I constantly get asked to speak up because I talk so softly. Little things that may get better but will never go away completely.
I dealt with this by cutting him out of my life. I tried one time to create some sort of relationship with him via email; it simply didn't work. He couldn't rage at me but I was expected to leave the past in the past and not bring it up.
Even if we had a relationship - even if it turned out that I was the last person in the world he could turn to while he were dying and I were somehow a big enough person to go take care of him - I could never steal his money, under any excuse.
Again, I know plenty have suffered far worse than I have. Even so, I think your choices are to work through it, if you can, or get away from it. Preferably both. Being an awful human being - stealing money from someone too frail to defend themselves/know about it - is not excused by that person's offenses. If you still feel you have a score to settle with a parent, you try and talk with him or her. If that doesn't work, you stay away from their poisonous influence.
You're both absolutely right that children shouldn't "have" to take care of their parents. If they can - emotionally and financially - then they probably should try. But if you hate your parent so much, just stay away from them. Made their own bed, and all that.
So sorry to hear your story Abigail. Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you like to look at it) I understand it well - it's almost identical to my story too! (except my mother and father are still together... which causes me no end of angst).
Thanks for sharing, and I agree, no matter how much your parents (or anyone really) hurts you the best thing is to distance yourself, not stay around to get back at them by hurting them or stealing from them.
InterfaceLeader - thanks to your comments and Dreamer's, I have a little more perspective on why something like this might happen. As I noted in an email to a reader who reached out to me privately today, when it comes to senior citizens and well-being, I have a blind spot big enough to drive a truck through. Additional perspectives are really, really important to me because I have such a hard time putting myself in the other guy's shoes. Having said that, I also cannot condone the actions that Anthony Marshall was convicted of perpetrating. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that. Thanks again for your input.
Abigail - You are such a talented, talented writer. I'm sorry to hear of the problems you had growing up, and it sounds like you were right to walk away.
Penny - Well said and fully agree!
I simply can't imagine how people like that think.
Generally speaking crimes that involve taking advantage of the elderly make me especially mad. What kind of person would take advantage of the very person who gave them life? Insane!
About 20 years ago - my grandmother was alive a the time and in her late 70s. One day some young s.o.b attacked her when she walked into her apartment building, pushed her to the ground and tried to grab her purse. He wasn't able to get it, and ran away, but my grandmother was understandably shaken. People like that - violent or not - do not belong in decent society.
Shadox - Ick - so sorry to hear the story about your grandmother. I was happy to hear of Marshall's conviction in this case, and even at his age (84 or 85, I think), I hope he gets jail time out of it.
I don't think it's terribly narrow-minded to condemn poor/immoral behavior, which is what stealing is, regardless of the family situation. I don't think all kids owe it all every parent to take care of them, there are indeed thousands of cases where I feel like the parent should be taken out back and hung for what they've done to their kids, but I also don't think the answer is for the kid to stick around, take responsibility for the parent when they're elderly and then steal from them.
S'pose my personal perspective in such a case is to stay far far away from the intolerable parent, like Abigail, and have no further contact with them. Call it naivete but I don't think committing moral offenses of one's own really gets back at the person who committed the initial wrong.
And yes, I do have a sizable sense of responsibility when it comes to parents, but I also understand that people find other ways to deal. Ie: my paternal GM was an absolute harridan. Treated my mom and her SIL worse than dirt beneath her feet while living with SIL. SIL housed her for 15 years, but when GM became bedridden, my mom took over her care because SIL had more than done her time, and knew she couldn't tolerate an abusive, bedridden mother. She stayed in the family because she had very little money and no one could afford a nursing home but they found a solution that prevented mental snappage.
For me, I'm still racking my brains trying to figure out how to prevent my brother from manipulating my parents into giving him money when/if I'm no longer around. If anything happens to me, I won't be around to protect them from his selfishness anymore, and will have to set up a trust of some kind to limit the access to my life insurance money. *Shrug* It's an ugly situation, I never thought my own blood would be so untrustworthy, but there it is.
Post a Comment