Mom upset after visiting kid gives her cash in front of relatives, they swarm her.

No good deed goes unpunished, especially when it comes to money.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, the OP asked if they were wrong for giving their mom money she can give to relatives. They wrote:

"AITA for giving my mom money in front of her relatives and telling her to decide who gets it?"

I'm visiting my mom's home country and everywhere we go someone needs something and my mom expects me to pony up some cash. It is getting annoying. I came here to meet extended family and help my mom get around. After three days of this, I went to the bank and withdrew a large sum of cash. That evening we were at a party with a bunch of her family and it started.

I said in my very poor Spanish that I would love to help all of them but my mom knew them better and what they needed. I gave her the wad of cash, said that was all the money I had to spare on this trip and she could decide who deserved it most. I got drunk with my cousins and my mom was overwhelmed by her needy relatives.

The next day she made my hangover that much worse by yelling at me for the way I handled it. Apparently, she didn't have a spare minute without someone coming to her to explain why they needed money more than someone else. She said she even started getting calls from people who hadn't come to the party but heard she had money to help them.

I said she had made my vacation into a charity trip and then I went looking for more beer. She says that I behaved poorly and that I embarrassed her.

The internet had lots to say.

JaxValentine91 wrote:

NTA. Your relatives sound like leeches (no offence). I don't know why she was embarrassed. Her child was able to give her a large sum of money to help the family. That sounds like something to be proud of (or at least grateful for). She is your mum, though. I'd try and talk to her eye-to-eye about how much you should be financially supporting EVERYONE in the family.

QuinGood wrote:

NTA. Your mom did this to herself by expecting you to give her "needy" family members money. You put her on the spot with them and it made her mad. Don't go on any more trips with her. It's not a vacation, it's a begging event to extract money
from the "rich foreign relatives." Good luck.

ConfusedAt63 wrote:

NTA. Yes you embarrassed her and you also handled the situation quite nicely. She prob won’t forget this but hopefully you will be treated with more respect next time you visit!

Koalasareburrs wrote:

NTA! Sometimes, the only way to get people to realize how annoying it is to be asked for something constantly is to arrange for them to be in the same position. Your mother didn't like people asking her for cash all night, but she was perfectly fine with you being in that position for days. This exact kind of thing is why no one other than my husband has any clue how much money I make 😅

I had a small inheritance come through, but because it was contested pretty openly, people knew about it and the relative amounts. I literally had people asking me for money before the check even f#$king cleared. People I hadn't spoken to in a decade... friends just expecting I'd give them thousands whenever they asked. 3 people even asked me to help pay their rent for a while. I wasn't close to any of them.

Honestly, I empathize with you. Some people take an attitude where you having money means THEY have money, no matter how stupid that is. I sincerely hope your mother learned the lesson you intended to teach before it winds up straining/ruining your relationship with her and making your visit any more awkward.

NotoriousMOT wrote:

NTA. When I used to go to my home country, I used to just give my grandmother all the stuff and money and let her give it away or spend it as she wanted. My family is too small for me to be swarmed by relatives but there were neighbors and friends of the family.

I’d also go crazy with buying stuff and tipping because what was a little bit to me could make a big difference to a granny selling socks or a kid selling postcards to save up for a bike.

That worked out fine but I had some big fights with my family over misunderstandings about presents and entitlement of people (ahem, stepmother and half-sister) who never even bothered to send me a single message the rest of the time. And they have proper money—my father owns a lot of property these days. My boyfriend who witnessed one of the blowups still mentions sweatergate.

People get all f-ed up in the head over free stuff. I haven’t been there since I lost my grandmother

OP is NTA here, it's just a hard situation.