The Financial—and Emotional—Cost of Supporting Your Parents

, Joel Anderson’s column about money and how we think about it. To suggest a subject, or get in touch, email emotional.investment@slate.com.

She eventually found a Black orthodontist who cut her a break. “He gave my mom a $2,000 discount,” William said. “And she paid monthly for those braces for two or three years. It was probably $130 .” Which meant, of course, that he couldn’t say no. It’s a feeling that hasn’t left him more than a decade later, even as her requests have come a lot more often.“Sometimes she doesn’t like the way I say . ‘Well, if you don’t want me to have it, just say no,’ ” she would say. “But honestly, I feel like I can’t say that.”even for college-educated Black Americans.

William really likes his job—with his background, he hopes to someday work with athletes. But he can’t know for sure if there’s a big payday ahead in his career that will relieve his burdens. And he worries about how supporting his mother financially might hamper his dreams, or worse, how it might make him feel about her.“Honestly, it really started to annoy me sometime last year,” William said. “I don’t want to say that I started resenting her.

But I think we all underestimated how much retirement costs, from the toll of health challenges to car upkeep to the random issues that come with maintaining a 45-year-old home. And though we didn’t underestimate how much it’d cost to raise a child, the obligations quickly ate up any cushion we’d built in the previous decade.Brown, of course, had heard this story so many times before. As warmly and as kindly as she could, Brown let me know that William and I were both headed for trouble.

Once again, Brown left me in something of a daze after our conversation. Her question seemed particularly urgent to me, at 45.Erin Hawley Wants ER Doctors Like Me to Do What, Now?

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