House Woes and General Malcontent

This whole move thus far has not been great for my relationships with my family members. It’s kind of a long story, so here goes…

My mother has always played favorites with my two younger brothers and myself. Our whole lives, growing up, she showed incredible favoritism. She spent months on end in the summer, every summer, sitting in the baseball stands across the state watching my brothers both play ball. She would regularly give them things at different ages that I was not gifted. She afforded them numerous opportunities (such as baseball), which I was not given.

Perhaps this was because she and my father were better off financially as we all grew up; I do not know. What I do know is that the preferential treatment has continued, intensified even, as we matured and have entered adulthood.

My youngest brother has always been the favorite. He is four years younger than me, so I was just out of high school when he was entering it. And he got it all. He got to go on trips to places like D.C. which were always out of my reach. He had the best opportunities of us. Some years after college, he moved close to my hometown (an hour away), and started a family. My mother has continued her blatant favoritism across the generations. Both of my nieces have been handed everything. My mother watches my two-year-old niece 3-5 days a week, so my brother doesn’t have to pay as much in daycare costs. She takes my older niece to a local performance of “The Nutcracker” every December. She takes them to art classes and children’s time at the local library. She helps out by driving them all around the greater tri-county area.

But not my boys.

There have been numerous time over the past several years when we have needed babysitting for a day or two. Parent-Teacher conferences, different professional developments, teacher in-services (work days), etc. we teachers lead busy work lives, and with two small children, things can be complicated and challenging. But my parents, who are very much retired, very rarely ever came up to help. In the past 7 years, there have been about ten times when they babysat for us when we neededthem to. They always seem to have other plans; they have to clean to host their Card Club, Mom has a luncheon with her friends, my out-of-town Uncle will be in town, they already made plans to babysit some other relative’s child… these are a handful of Mom’s excuses, but by no means an exhaustive list.

You get the picture. Me and my family always seem to come in lower on the list than just about everyone else. (Meanwhile, it should be added that my in-laws, who live significantly farther away, will bend over backwards and jump at any and every opportunity to spend more time with the boys.)

So here’s how this big move of ours plays into all of this:

About two months ago my grandfather passed away. It’s sad, but also a good thing. He had been sick for a long time and in a lot of pain. He lived a great, long life (he was 91). But he was ready to go, and made the decision back in February that he was going to refuse further treatment for his collapsed lung, which had ailed him for the past 3 years.

Grandpa had a house, which he built, in my hometown. My mother is the executor of his estate. M and I had expressed some interest in buying the property when we first learned that we’d be moving. We didn’t ever commit to it, because it really isn’t the house that we want, but with all of the craziness going on in the housing market, we wanted to make sure that we had something which would be ready for us if we could not find anything else. The house is rather small (about 250 sq feet less than our current home), and it is incredibly outdated. The house was built in 1989, and it has not been updated internally since. The outside was redone a few years ago after a major hail storm, but everything on the inside is vintage 1989 (flooring, lighting, appliances, cabinets, etc.). It would take either a lot of money or time (or both) to update the home to 2023 standards.

Well, we told my mom that we were interested. The initial asking price that my mom gave us was within our budget, but at the very high end. We thought this was a little outrageous, because she was going to ask significantly more than either M or I thought the house was worth (by about $30,000). But, Mom said that was going to be the market value, and my uncle said they couldn’t go any less. FYI: the house was left jointly to my mom, her younger brother, and her sister.

So I ask Mom if she could hold off on listing the property until August 1st. That would give M and I about two weeks after we came back from the cabin to accept an offer on our house, find something (or a few somethings) we liked, and put in a couple of offers. If nothing panned out, we’d still at least have a “last resort” house; certainly not our dream home, but at least someplace for us to live. Maybe it would only be for a year or two, maybe longer. Who knows?

We got back from the cabin yesterday and I called my mom to check in. I hadn’t spoken with her in a week, and I wanted to fill her in on the details of our trip. I told her about it all, we chatted about our Tuesday/Wednesday trip this week for HR paperwork and our TB tests. I asked her if she was available to babysit the boys while we conduct our business. Of course she’s already babysitting my niece, so she won’t be at home either day/night.

Oh, and they decided to ask for $50,000 more for Grandpa’s house they had told me a week ago.

I am beyond outraged. She knows that this move has been stressful for us. She knows that this was our fallback plan, so that my children will have a roof over their heads.

I brought this up to her, and I straight out told her that we don’t have another option if they follow through with this. Our fallback plan now is to rent an apartment (for more than our mortgage would be) and be locked into a 12 month commitment. Oh, and we wouldn’t have room for our stuff. Oh, and we will have to get rid of our dog.

She said “Well we have room in our garage, and we can take care of your dog for as long as you need.”

I didn’t even know how to respond. I still don’t. But I’m pretty confident that if this were my youngest brother that this wouldn’t be happening. This is possibly the worst, most blatant instance in what is a long line of her dropping the ball and not putting my family at the fore in her line of importance.

M and I had talked about using my mother as before and after school care for the boys, but I don’t think that we can anymore. This is the perfect example of her lack of responsibility for me, M, L, and A, and I don’t think that I can trust her to put the boys first, like she would need to in order to be a part time daycare provider.

I’m sorry that this entry was so much bitching. I’ve been angry, sad, and stewing on this for more than a day, and am still very upset about it. They are having a realtor come early next week to look over the place and give her opinion on market value. And right now, I rather hope that they get a rude awakening and are told a figure well below what they think the house is worth.