Mother Is No Longer Giving Handouts To Her ‘Enabled, Ungrateful’ Adult Daughter After She Takes Advantage Of ‘The Bank Of Mom’
She claimed her daughter has done nothing to earn any of the handouts she's gotten.
NTshutterth | Shutterstock A mother revealed her frustration with her adult daughter's constant need for financial help and how she decided to put her foot down so that her daughter would learn how to be financially independent.
In a TikTok video, Bernice Johnson explained that her daughter previously asked her to cosign on a car. At first, Johnson saw no problem with it but quickly realized that her daughter was simply taking advantage of her and refused to stand for it anymore.
She's no longer giving handouts to her 'enabled, ungrateful' adult daughter because she takes advantage of her.
Filming the 2020 Chevy Equinox that she cosigned for her middle daughter, Crystal, Johnson insisted that she would never be doing something like that again, at least not until her daughter learned how to take responsibility for herself and finances. She explained that her daughter promised she wouldn't get any speeding tickets and that she would take care of the car and all expenses tied to it.
However, Johnson said, that within the first three months of having the car, her daughter got a speeding ticket, and because it's "the bank of mom," she paid the ticket when she felt like paying it. Johnson made sure to tell her daughter on numerous occasions that she needed to get the car out of her name because she didn't want anything bad reflecting on her if she refused to pay her speeding tickets.
"She thought I was going to let her go on willy-nilly. Well, then she gets arrested. She was arrested driving ... license revoked, expired tags and registration," Johnson recalled. "My name is on that car. She's riding around — no license, expired tags, registration, smoking weed, and drinking."
Left with no choice on the matter, especially after warning her daughter on multiple occasions that she needed to handle any business that came up regarding her car without implicating her, she took the car away from her daughter. Johnson pointed out that if her daughter had been in an accident where someone ended up getting seriously hurt, she would've been the one called in since her name was associated with the car.
"Do I feel bad about it? No. Not one bit," she continued. "Put your big girl pants on and figure out your life."
She claimed that 'tough love' is the only thing that will work on her daughter now.
Johnson pointed out that her daughter doesn't see any fault in her behavior and would be more content to blame all of her problems on her mother. However, Johnson explained that she's tired of helping "ungrateful children," and tough love is the only thing that may work to get her daughter back on track.
"Parents of grown-ups, tell me what you think. And for those enabling parents, don't come for me, 'cause y'all are part of the problem," Johnson insisted. "You enable these kids and they just sit around and want a handout. I'm not giving no more handouts."
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Johnson's initial video ended up receiving over a million views, and in a follow-up, she doubled down on her decision, acknowledging that as a parent, she can do everything in her power to prepare her children for adulthood, but when they get out there on their own, suddenly things don't work out for them.
"For those of you that are going through this or have gone through this, I'm sorry. It's hard. It hurts, especially when there's grandchildren involved because, you know, they're gonna cut contact. You're not gonna get to talk to your grandkids," Johnson said. "But you know what? It has to be done because they need to learn."
Most young adults are struggling to support themselves without help from their parents.
Unfortunately for many young people, especially in later generations like Gen Z, the economy hasn't been the most forgiving when it comes to being financially independent from their parents. The cost of living is at a staggering all-time high, and whereas moving out and buying a home was possible for later generations, it's just not feasible anymore.
According to a January 2024 study by the Pew Research Center, 44% of adults ages 18 to 34 who have a living parent say they received financial help from their parents in the past 12 months. The top two areas in which young adults say they received financial help from their parents are household expenses (28% of all young adults say they received help for this) and their cellphone bill or subscriptions to streaming services (25%).
For the most part, parents say that helping young adult children financially doesn’t have a negative impact on their own finances. More than six-in-ten of those who say they helped their children (64%) say doing so didn’t hurt their personal financial situation much or at all.
Despite the lack of financial challenges that parents face, it's not the most ideal situation for some to have to continuously provide for their adult children, and while that is an aspect of parenthood that is expected because once a child turns 18, doesn't mean they should just be tossed out on their own, it can be frustrating when adult children don't at least try to stand on their own two feet and abuse the privilege and advantage they receive from their parents.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.