The Day I Stopped Being Their ATM
So one evening, after rehearsing in my head for days, I sat both of them down—my 25-year-old daughter and my 28-year-old son—and told them the truth.
“I love you both. I always will. But I’m done covering your bills. Rent, car insurance, overdrafts—those are on you now. I need to take care of myself.”
My daughter cried. She tried to wipe her tears quickly, embarrassed, then asked in a small voice:
“Can we still get coffee every week?”
That question alone broke my heart. She wasn’t worried about losing my money. She was worried about losing me. I held her hand and promised the coffee dates would stay.
My son… laughed. Actually laughed. Not kindly, but in disbelief.
“Wait—what is this?” he scoffed. “Are you having a midlife crisis or something?”
I told him no. I wasn’t breaking down. I was finally building myself up.
“It’s a self-respect revival,” I said. “I can’t keep funding everything.”
His face changed instantly. The laugh disappeared. The entitlement rose like a storm.
“You know I need help right now,” he snapped. “So you’re seriously abandoning me? Your own son?”
That word—abandoning—landed on me like a slap. I reminded him he was almost thirty, not thirteen. But he kept spiraling, accusing me of being selfish, irresponsible, dramatic.
He stormed out of the room, leaving my daughter and me staring at the door he slammed behind him.
I cried later. Not because of what he said, but because of what I suddenly realized: somewhere along the way, my support had turned from love into obligation, and from obligation into expectation. And when I took that expectation away, he saw me not as a parent, but as a resource that had suddenly dried up.
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