There Is a Clear Next Step for My Aging Parents. My Mother Is Furious at Me for Even Suggesting It.

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Recently, I went back to my childhood home to visit my parents. They are in their 70s and living in one of the highest-taxed states. My father designed and built their beautiful home, but after 40 years with no remodels and my mother not being a very clean person, it is falling apart: The kitchen floors and hardwood are coming up, the cabinets are collapsing, the water pressure is nonexistent, and the deck is starting to separate from the house.

My father cannot make the repairs anymore and has wanted to leave the state. He is tired of paying high taxes for a school district we no longer use. They live on the East Coast on the border of the state, so they can move 20 minutes away and make their retirement much nicer by not pinching pennies to pay taxes. My mother refuses. She screams at me, says I am making things worse for her and my father, and claims I am selfish.

I am completely terrified she will stay in the house forever. My father will not leave her, as my parents are very die-hard Catholics and divorce or separation is a no. This has caused me to be angry with my mother, to the point where I barely speak to her. I feel like she does not care about the financial stress of high taxes on my father, about the fact that it is hard for him to get around, or about the reality that my sibling and I will be left with a devaluating asset. I wanted her to sell while the market is hot and people would be willing to overlook the massive amount of money they will need to put in to the home to make it nice again, but my mother just yells at me. I am especially distraught because if it keeps going like this, by the time my mother passes, I will probably have to condemn the house and have it torn down, therefore destroying something my father worked so hard for. I have tried so many times to bring it up calmly with my mother, but there is no way for her to be civil about it. I have mentioned the fact that my sibling wants children and it might be nice to have some money left to give to their future grandchild, just like my grandmother did, which allowed me and my sibling to go to college without loans. She does not care.

My mother suggests I move back home and help with the repairs, since I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for many years. However, after years of my mother’s selfish behavior, and tons of therapy bills to help me be a functioning adult after living under her narcissism for many years, I cannot uproot my life just to keep my eye on things and preserve my father’s hard work. My mother says I am a selfish person because of this, but really, I think she is being selfish. How do I help my mother see a different perspective, and realize she is making the entire family miserable with her “my way or no way” attitude about this?

Presumably your father has some say in this, too. What does he want to do? You say he wants to leave the state, but you also say your mother claims you’re making things worse for them both. If your father indeed agrees with you, then you both need to be doing the persuading here. If he doesn’t, or he’s ambivalent, I think you need to recognize this is more about your needs and wants than theirs. (You need to also be sensitive to a scenario where he might agree with you that moving might make more sense, but doesn’t personally want to do that.)

Another thing: You seem very concerned about preserving your father’s hard work, but also state that whoever buys the house will need to put a massive amount of money into the home to make it viable for living. It’s unlikely a new owner would care about preserving what your father did, while doing all these renovations. And it doesn’t really make sense to say that you care about preservation when you prefer to sell. If your dad wants to leave the state anyway, as you suggest, it seems as if he doesn’t care much about preserving it, either.

Your concerns that the house might be worth less, or have to be torn down, by the time your parents are gone are reasonable, but if that’s the issue, you shouldn’t tell yourself or your parents that this is really about maintaining your dad’s hard work. And it’s not unreasonable for your mother to want to stay in the house she’s lived in for 40 years—it’s the only place she’s known as home for four decades.

So if you’re sure your dad agrees with you, then I think it’s worth continuing to try to persuade her, but it sounds like he’s not lobbying her to leave; you are. And if you really do care about preserving your father’s work, and protecting an asset you stand to inherit, there’s also a third way: subsidize the repairs yourself, and consider it in an investment.

From: My Daughter Says I’m “Bad With Money,” But She’s Spending All Of It. (November 25th, 2021).

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I am an older, single woman with no children. I have an IRA and a few other assets that are substantial. Most of my siblings are equally well-off (if not more so), as are their children. My current will leaves everything to another sibling who is not as well off, but comfortable, and who knows I’ve currently left everything to them.

This sibling’s politics do not align with mine, and I want to change my will to leave percentages to my preferred charities, while still leaving a substantial part of my estate to them. The thing is that I used the same lawyer my sibling uses to redo my will. Yes, there are attorney-client privilege issues, which I understand. And yes, I get that I can change lawyers to redo my will. But do I tell my sibling about the changes in my will, and if yes, how do I do that?

It’s my opinion that you’re never obligated to tell someone about changes in your will, unless it drastically affects their livelihood or would give them additional responsibility. For example, I would definitely tell someone if they were the executor of my will, because that’s a huge job they may not even want. I would also tell someone if I changed my will if they were depending on an inheritance from me to support them after my death.

Since neither of the scenarios sound like your situation, I guess my real question is this: Why are you holding your sibling’s political views against them? Now, if they are flying Confederate flags and burning crosses, I get it. But short of that, if you are thinking you might make this change (and then tell them about it) to get back at your sibling for a political disagreement, I don’t think it’s worth it. You can agree to disagree and move on from there.

If you are insistent that you want to move forward, let your current attorney edit your will to include your new changes. Casually let your sibling know that you have changed your will to include financial contributions to charities close to you, but that nothing further is needed from them at this time. If your sibling asks “Why the change of heart?”, you can simply share that you’re building a legacy, and then end the conversation.

From: What Should I Do With This Shard Of Bitcoin My Evil Ex Left Me? (November 16th, 2021).

My husband and I are planning for the next phases in our lives, and I need some perspective. Hubby is separating from the military in just under six months and, through his military connections, seems poised to enter into a lucrative career. We’re also preparing for our first child (I’m not pregnant yet, because it takes some medical intervention on my side to make this happen, but the procedure is soon).

What I’m debating is whether it would be totally detrimental to my career to be a stay-at-home mom for a few years. I’m 25, and currently wrapping up a bachelor’s degree while working full-time. The plan would be to do an extended grad school program while I’m at home with baby, and to have two kids anywhere from two to four years apart in that time frame. Ideally, I’d stay home until the kids were each old enough for a preschool environment. So I’d be out of the workforce for five to seven years.

Would that totally kill my career? Would it be better if I worked part-time? Would anyone even hire me if I tried this? I don’t want to completely lose my independence to have children, but I also want to enjoy having my kids home while they’re little, since we’re very lucky to be able to do so. Hubby has said he’ll support me in whatever I decide to do.

—Paying the Mommy Tax

I don’t think being out of the workforce for five to seven years would kill your career, but it would affect it. The extent of that is sort of a function of what industry you plan to enter and what you plan to do.

You mention that you want to do a grad school program while you’re home with the baby, which is ambitious and labor-intensive, and probably akin to having a full-time job. I’d think about what that means for you in terms of the reasons why you want to stay home. If you don’t have childcare, doing anything school-related along with having a baby in the first year is going to be like juggling a job on top of being a stay-at-home mom.

Which is not to say that you can’t do it; I’m sure you can! But I think you have to decide what you want to get out of your children’s first few years. Depending on your field, you may be able to work part-time from home—and you may discover that you want to do that after a few months of around-the-clock renditions of Baby Shark. Ditto for doing that grad school program.

But my advice is to take a wait-and-see approach, because no one knows how they’re really going to feel about going back to work until they actually have a child. I have friends who thought they wanted to be stay-at-home moms, and discovered they missed work and needed some adult engagement that didn’t revolve around their kids. I also have friends who decided to extend maternity leave to five or six years because they realized they wanted to be home with their children, and felt that whatever potential cost they incurred to their careers was completely worth it.

I don’t think you’re going to fully know what you want, or how much you can handle on top of caring for your children, until your first baby is here. So my advice is to have a plan for all of these possible situations. Start researching part-time work in your field, and if you do decide to stay home full time, prepare to at least keep in touch with people in your industry, and keep yourself informed until you want to enter the workforce again.

The mommy tax is real, but there are ways to mitigate it.From a resume standpoint, it’s probably better that you work a little if you can (part time, remotely), if only to demonstrate that your career is important to you and you continued to develop professionally during that time. But it may not be an option for you, and that’s fine. And there’s no wrong choice here; there’s only what’s best for you.

From: Why Won’t Anyone Tell Me How Much I Should Be Getting Paid? (November 18th, 2021).

More Money Advice From Slate

We have two daughters. One was married, but after two years of marriage, her husband had the rug pulled out from under him and found out she had been having an affair for seven months. We dearly loved our son-in-law—a person couldn’t have asked for a better human being. He was totally devastated, as we all were. This daughter and I have always butted heads—we are like oil and water. I can’t say or do anything right, and she truly just does not like me. I am seriously considering changing my will to the one daughter 50 percent, the daughter who doesn’t like me 25 percent, and ex-son-in-law 25 percent.