'AITA for canceling my mother’s planned visit after she billed me?'
"AITA for canceling my mother’s planned visit after she billed me?"
My mother (65) came to visit me (39f), her daughter, after I called her to share the news that I had received some troubling news about my health (I’m on the mend, worst is behind me).
She lives approximately 2 hours away from me. During the visit she signaled she planned to charge me for parking fees at the clinic she brought me to, among a couple of other expenses that she incurred helping me out that day.
I was fine with that. She’s not exactly swimming in it after retiring, though has some discretionary income, and, well, I’m a grown-up. In fact, I would have taken care of the parking fees (and other expenses) myself at the time if I wasn’t incapacitated. So totally fine and expected.
Where I stopped being fine was when she called me after the visit asking for a lot more money than I’d expected. After probing a bit, I discovered that she’d lumped in there an estimate of how much she’d spent on gas to come visit me and not just the pasta salad she bought for me at lunch (totally fine) but also the pasta salad she bought herself.
I’m happy to treat her for lunch, and often do, treated her for dinner that very night, but I found it odd she would just go ahead and add her lunch to the bill. I hadn’t offered and aren’t I the sick one? It was only 20 bucks altogether.
But the reason I canceled her visit tomorrow to come over and help some more was because I couldn’t believe she’d pass on her gas expenses to her sick adult child to visit her.
When she said she was coming to visit after learning of my condition, she omitted the part of her plan where she’d charge me for her gas to get here. Sure, she complained about the cost of gas when she arrived, but never did she share her plan to make me cover it.
She’s never done anything like this before. It’s not the money. It’s the principle. And I had no intention of paying for her to visit me tomorrow, too. I plan on sharing with her my feelings about all of this once I’ve given some thought to how I’ll navigate it with her.
I would feel so ashamed as a parent if roles were reversed. This whole thing makes me question why I haven’t billed her when I’ve gone to visit her after falling ill. Of course I could never bring myself to actually do that. The thought of it makes me feel sick. So AITA for canceling her visit?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
latents
NTA. I’m imagining the conversation: “No thanks, Mom. Don’t bother visiting. My medical insurance doesn’t cover the fees.”
Modelsandtools
I would probe a bit first. Maybe she is struggling and hasn’t said anything. If this is odd behavior, you should check in on her first.
Next_Dragonfly_9473
I had no idea just how bad my mom's financial position was until she died. She had asked me to pay $100/month for keeping stuff in my old room even though she was the only one in the house (she was widowed and I'm an only child). I thought it was weird, but I didn't pry. I wish I hadn't been so obtuse.
If this is unusual behavior for your mother, I would be concerned with her mental condition. If she's always been a penny-pincher, then it's just business as usual and I would not invite her to visit often. NTA
SnooSketches6782
Yes, I'd be like "mom, I'm a little surprised at the bill you passed me for your visit. If you couldn't afford to come visit me, I wish you would have let me know in advance so we could figure something out before you drove down. Is everything okay?"
etds3
Yup. Has she recently gotten scammed out of money? Is she finding that her retirement income isn’t keeping up with inflation and she’s having trouble covering her expenses?
If there’s not some financial reason behind it, it could be a sign of declining mental acuity, which would also be worth knowing. When someone behaves atypically, you should go into “why” mode before “mad” mode. That is especially true with someone of advanced age.
Later OP came back with this edit:
Edit: thank you all for weighing in. Many of you have encouraged me to probe her financial situation further, or consider her mental state. All good advice. I will do so when I speak with her about this. That said, I’m confident she is doing fine financially.
While retired, she regularly goes out to lunch with her friends, sees plays, goes on a couple trips annually (she has a trip to Italy to look forward to in the Fall), etc. So while her income may be modest now that she’s retired, she’s not in dire straits financially as some of you wondered. As one commentor pointed out, she may just have a “quirky” relationship with money.
I could see that. While this is the first time that she’s billed me for her gas to visit me, she’s treated other family members like this for other expenses, despite their not treating her that way. She can get anxious, so there may be something there in terms of mental health for me to be aware of. Appreciate the comments encouraging me to look more at things from this angle. To be sure, she did visit out of love.
She was terribly worried about me and genuinely wanted to look after me that day. I’ll update again after having the convo with her. Will be borrowing suggestions on how to approach it from the comments. Thank you.