Okay I have seen enough to last me a life time! Children taking advantage of their mothers or their fathers! Grandchildren who act like they care and instead are taking money out of grannies purse or sliding a ten spot out of grandpas’ wallet! Come on! Grow up!  It cannot be this way anymore! What can we do?

I see it every day working among the fragile and the quiet ones. Their voices are muffled behind lost mobility and no hope of survival. It makes me sick that too many family members take full advantage of their own family, someone that loves them unconditionally. Doesn’t it bother you? It makes me angry. It makes me want to stand up and shake my fist in the air with thoughts of pummeling the person doing it! I can’t help it because I do, I see it every day. It is frightening that it happens day after day to the same people. It’s their lives. It sucks the life right out of them. Their own children are killing them physically, mentally and financially.

Last week I went to my client’s house, she used to be a radio host. She had lots of money. She lived in a high rise and dated an Egyptian prince, back in her day when she had sparkling diamonds in her ears and a closet full of furs. She opened the door for me wearing raggedy clothes, smelling unclean, her house a mess, under filth and dust, papers and bills piled everywhere, dog crap on the floor. She smelled like urine because she had lost her self-respect in "WHAT CAN I DO"? She actually said that, I cannot do this anymore. She lives in her own home but it has become less and less hers and its now just a shell to be miserable in. Her daughter does nothing to help her, no cleaning, no laundry, no cooking. It is all on my clients shoulders now and she has given up. Her spirit is busted but her smile still genuine. At the door before I even got in, she promptly asked to borrow twenty bucks. Immediate response from me, of course and I would have.

The first time I did. Of course I did and I bought her a sandwich and some chocolate bars because she told me she had just opened a can of corn for Gods sakes!  She was hungry though she received Meals on Wheels. After her meal arrived, I sat there watching her put the milk in her refrigerator for her grandson and the fruit for her daughter on the side of the frig door because her daughter likes sweet things. Two minutes later, she shared her hot dog with the dog because she couldn’t afford dog food. It’s insane!

The second time I couldn’t. Not because I didn’t have it, I did but because I had witnessed first-hand, her daughter taking money out of her mom’s purse. Her mother, my client said NO DON’T TAKE MY MONEY! IT’S ALL I HAVE! I heard it with my own ears and it made me sick. I listened while she begged her own offspring not to take the last of her money. But it didn’t faze this two faced daughter, this woman who is supposed to put her mother’s needs far above her own. I wanted to scream and shake her daughter until she couldn’t see straight! Evidently she can’t see at all already because she is so blind to the real world, including her mother’s needs for food and survival and love.

Her daughter doesn’t have the tiniest of clues that her mom is a miracle. She never appreciates her. She uses her for a bank, for a ride. She takes her mom’s car, empties the gas and then asks for more money so she can go shopping for shoes and hair products. It makes me sick. I’m sorry. It makes me really ticked off. I cannot help it because I know what’s real in this world, what’s right in this society and what’s wrong with it. Children are killing their parents slowly and methodically, dollar by dollar; starving them by taking the food out of their mouths and by stealing money that is supposed to be paying for food, gas and electric. Step by step until dignity and strength are diminished. What’s worse than that? They are getting away with it.

Why doesn't my client speak up for her rights, kick her daughter out of the house and her life? The only reason because it would make her situation worse and she knows it. The swearing, the yelling, the accusing her of being the worst parent. Why? Because she would make my clients life a living hell. So she keeps her mouth shut, goes hungry, lives with less food and respect and nothing gets paid and she is frantic in her daily existence. I will be damned if I will be quiet.

In my world, my client thinks I am an angel. She wants to adopt me. She loves me and compares me to her child in terms she knows so well, self-sacrifice.  Why can’t YOU be my daughter? Yes, I care about her. I worry about her. I make sure she eats her food and asks if she has money. I know the answers. Every visit it’s the same thing.  No money, no food, no anything that makes her tiny, little world a better place. There are no back-up plans here. No retirement income. Never has been a 401k or stocks, bonds, or dividends coming in, not at this household or her bank.

No nothing for a woman that lives with her own child. A child that she says wishes didn’t exist. She said that and it made me want to cry and put her into my vehicle and take her someplace where she had food, a little bit of pocket money and her self-respect back. But that’s not my job! But someday it will be! I swear.

How many times have I called her case-worker in, too many to count? Yes, I treat her like a human being and her own flesh and blood treats her like trash. I could never treat my mom or my parent, or my grandparents or a STRANGER like that! Who are these children we raise? Monsters! They are full advantage eaters of their own bloodlines and flesh and bones. It is sickening! Take, take and take some more!

What did the daughter want her mother’s money for? A trip to the gym and a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee! I am ashamed! This woman has no right to even be living with her Mom. She makes her sleep on the couch while she has her bedroom! Can you believe it? Is it not a shame?

We spend a lot of time while I am there to help her do errands, pick-up prescriptions. One day, I bought them out of my pocket. She didn’t have the cash. She was trying to live on nothing. She gets social security. She gets help paying a few bills yet her bills are two months behind, her refrigerator empty, no gas in her car but her daughter just spent $80.00 on Revlon. It doesn’t seem right to me, any of this. Not when her daughter gets child support but of course spends it on take-out food. I have witnessed this and this selfish emasculating idiot does not buy food for her son. Grandma does because she sees the child not eating. Her daughter gets disability but spends it on new clothes, dates out with her girlfriends. She does not give her mother any money for rent or food or bills at all. She keeps her cash and takes her mom’s to buy whatever it is that fits her whims. In the meantime, mom is not paying her bills, her phone is shut off. Mom is going hungry and begs me for money.

Alright! Do you see my point? It has to end before she dies from a broken heart, from neglect or from her own child’s hands! I have seen her daughter get angry. Yes I called her case-worker again but it still goes on. I have been going to see her for four months. Every week it is the same, CAN YOU LEND ME TWENTY DOLLARS SO I CAN GET MILK FOR THE BABY? No wait! We can’t go out yet until I pick up my bed on the couch! It is so wrong.                    

Deborah Joy Leadingham-Baskall