A Daughter’s Dilemma: Keep Grandma’s Inheritance or Give it to Her Mom?
Welcome, darlings, to a family saga worthy of a Netflix miniseries. Only this gem isn’t streaming on your digital devices. No, it’s straight from the pages of Reddit’s goldmine of human drama. Buckle up, buttercups, because today we’re dissecting the juicy tale of a 33-year-old globe-trotter, a complicated family dynamic, and one hotly-debated inheritance. Ready? Let’s get sashaying.
The Protagonist and Her Family Web
Sit back and enjoy the wild ride of our protagonist, let’s call her Rebecca, the 33-year-old who left sunny Europe to embrace the hurricane of emotions back home in the States. Rebecca adores her grandmother, a formidable lady who raised her single-handedly— yes, without the seven dwarfs or knight in shining armor.
Now, let’s untangle the real drama: Rebecca’s mother, the other lady in question. Picture this, Rebecca’s mother is a woman who’s no stranger to living her best life at the craps table in Vegas while her own mother, our heroic grandma, lies in a hospice bed. Oh, the irony!
The Matriarch and Her Tangled Legacy
Granny was no run-of-the-mill grandma. She was the anchor in Rebecca’s stormy life— showering her with emotional support, financial help, and even delightful trips to wonderful places like New York and San Diego. Talk about a dream come true, eh? But here’s the tea — Rebecca’s mom, despite receiving plenty of love and even monetary gifts, shunned her mother like yesterday’s fashion. Not a postcard for Christmas, not even an emoji-filled text.
Sounds like a page-turner already, doesn’t it? Well, it gets better.
A Twisted Inheritance: To Share or Not to Share?
Grandma, in her infinite wisdom and perhaps a bit of spicy pettiness, left Rebecca her pride and joy: her house. Of course, this is not just any house; it comes with a juicy reverse mortgage. For those blissfully unaware, a reverse mortgage is what you get when you treat your home like an ATM. Withdraw now, pay (or let your heirs pay) later.
Rebecca, like the adoring granddaughter she is, shoulders the herculean task of navigating probate and preparing the house for sale while her mom offers moral “support” via text—and nothing more.
Enter the plot twist. Rebecca’s mom, who we should really call Vegas Vicki, decides she deserves a slice of the inheritance pie — you know, for reasons only her uniquely tilted perspective on life could justify. Our girl Rebecca is fuming with justified rage, no doubt contemplating dipping her quill into some gall ink for an epic letter detailing why her mom deserves nothing. And who could blame her?
The Million-Dollar (Well, Maybe Not) Question: AITA?
The moral conundrum: Rebecca is left pondering if she’s the antagonist in this family drama for keeping the entire inheritance and telling her mom to hit the road. Listen, if giving someone a piece of your mind was a sport, Rebecca would be an Olympian.
So, darlings, here’s where my fabulous opinion sashays in. Buckle up.
Roger’s Take: Family, Boundaries, and Balderdash
Listen up, for Roger is about to drop some pearls of wisdom. Our darling Rebecca is in no way, shape, or form the villain here. If anything, she deserves an award for not chucking a champagne bottle across the room.
Let’s break this down with a sassy tip-toe through reality. First and foremost, Rebecca’s mom has displayed Olympic-level emotional absenteeism. For Pete’s sake, she checked into Vegas faster than a Kardashian onto a reality show while Rebecca handled the less glamorous but infinitely more noble task of caring for her dying grandmother. Rebecca’s grandmother obviously knew which side her bread was buttered on – and spoiler alert – it wasn’t Vegas Vicki’s side.
Furthermore, where are we on this entitled rationale that just because you gave birth, you suddenly deserve all your kid’s good fortunes? Honey, that’s not how the cookie crumbles. Rebecca’s mom didn’t lift a single manicured finger to help out; she can’t just parachute in demanding dividends from emotional and labor investments she never made. That’s not an inheritance, that’s freeloading with vintage flair.
The Final Verdict: A Resounding No
Hey Rebecca, if you’re out there sipping on a well-deserved glass of Pinot, this one’s for you: Keep the inheritance. Use it, savor it, maybe build an empire, who knows? But whatever you do, you owe your mom a big, fat NOTHING. The friendliest thing you should offer is a lesson in personal accountability—wrapped in a sassy, no-nonsense letter of course.
Stay fabulous, stay fierce, and most importantly, stay unapologetically yourself.
To everyone reading, your takes? Spill the tea in the comments below!
Original story
I will try to keep this as short as possible but it is a long family story.
I am a 33 year old female living abroad. A year ago my grandmother got sick and I came back from Europe to help take care of her during hospice care.
She is my mothers mother, but a couple decades ago my mother disowned my grandmother and it isn’t completely clear why. My grandmother was a single mother raising my mom by herself, my grandfather was not in the picture.
I know my grandmother can be strict, but she took care of my mom the best she could, giving her a car, buying a house with a pool for her, letting us live with her when I was a baby, taking my mom on trips to Hawaii and Europe, but my mom, since I have been alive, has always hated my grandmother and always made it very obvious.
I love my grandmother as she has been the most loving and supportive person in my life. Shes always emotionally supported me, offered financial help, taken me on trips to New York and San Diego, and generally making my visits to her home very pleasant, loving and the closest thing to a family home I have ever known.
I have never been able to help mend their relationship and it always pained my grandmother, my grandmother used to call my mom, send emails, send gifts and even send money, but my mom would never return calls, emails, and completely cut my grandmother off. My mom has always seemed very jealous of our relationship.
Fast-forward to today. My grandmother left me her house, which is in a reverse mortgage (which means my grandmother took money out of the house as income, and this money she took out is debt owed on the house).
I came back to the US to take care of my grandmother, while my mother went to las vegas to party, instead of visiting her dying mother, or me, to be supportive. It has been almost a year of a bureaucratic nightmare that is probate, selling the house, dealing with the reverse mortgage debt, etc.
, and my mom has offered no support other than texting me, she barely even calls. Recently my mother asked me if she would be getting any money from the house.
The only thing my grandmother left her was her very old car, which my mom didn’t deal with either and I have to figure out what to do with it. After selling the house and then paying off the debt, lawyer, realtor, and taxes, I don’t know exactly how much money it will be, but it will be a decent amount, not huge, but my one chance at an inheritance.
My mom was not a supportive mother growing up, she didn’t have custody over me, didn’t let me see my friends anytime i was staying with her, and wouldn’t buy normal things like bread/food or toiletries/neosporin. There was never any financial support, we never went on trips, she didn’t help me learn how to drive, nothing.
She was also very emotionally and verbally abusive. She was surprised when I told her I didn’t feel supported by her growing up and thinks she deserves some of the money simply for being my mother and my grandmothers daughter.
AITA for not wanting to give her anything and wanting to write her a long letter detailing why? My relationship with her has been a lifelong burden and it’s crazy to me that she doesn’t seem to be aware of it at all.
My mom was diagnosed bipolar in her early 20s, shes been on and off medication her whole life, but honestly shes always seemed the same, I suspect she is also a narcissist.