Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

(The title doesn’t exactly go with this post but I can’t think of another one now, I’m too jetlagged)

On Thursday I received a cryptic message from my sister asking me to call her ASAP. I was a bit scared and wondered if anyone had fallen ill or was in an accident and immediately calling her back and ended up getting her voice mail. When we finally connected she told me my brother’s car was pretty much dead and it would cost more to fix it then what it was worth. She then asked (on my stepmother’s behalf) if I’d be willing to sell my car to my brother since he really needed a car and that they’d already looked up the value. Uh NO! I was a little peeved because 1) I couldn’t believe they were asking me to finance a car for my brother (selling mine would have meant monthly payments to me made by either my brother or my stepmother) and 2) because my brother needs to get a real job or be a student.

A little background, after his junior year at a small university in Arizona my decided that he wanted to move back to North Carolina and eventually transfer to UNC (his grades weren’t good enough to automatically transfer even though he’s a NC resident). He had one year left but decided to leave against everyone’s advice and move back to Chapel Hill. Just one year left and he would have had a college degree. So far he’s been taking non matriculating classes here and there but hasn’t actually applied for admission to Carolina and I just found out that he’s not even taking classes this year and is just working at a part time job and playing with his band.

I’m just appalled that my dad and stepmother are financing what I perceive as a disaster. Although he’s paying most of his bills they pay his rent and paid off the car that just died. My first reaction after being asked to basically finance this car was that my brother needed to get a real job or go back to school. Although I can’t afford to give anyone anything at this junction of my life I was pissed that this 23 year old was still living life as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If he’d been a student I would have totally understood but since I feel like he’s pissing his life away by not finishing college I was totally flabbergasted.

After calming down a bit I started to think about the money my mom will slip me to this day. Here I am a 31 year old home owner and my mom is helping me out with major purchases (the fence I blogged about in the old blog). Although we’re in different points of our lives my situation wasn’t entirely different from my brother’s. If I’d been a little bit more fiscally responsible I would have had all of the money to complete the fence and though the money was offered to me I took it knowing full well that I should be ashamed of borrowing money from my mom when I make significantly more money then she does.
My brother is such a talented individual who taught himself how to play the guitar about seven years ago and is now making awesome music with a band that plays at small venues in Raleigh and other towns around N.C. Although I disagree with the direction he’s taking with his life (now he wants to move to Cali with his girlfriend and work for a year before going back to college there). I do understand that he’s pursuing his dream and doing what he feels is right, I just don’t think my parents should continue to fund his lifestyle and wish he would just finish school and then pursue his dreams. I know I can’t make him do anything but I just can’t sit and cosign this new development.