Jul 1, 2015 2 min read

Q. My father passed away many years ago and my mother remarried and moved to a vacation home. However, she still owns the house we grew up in and two of my siblings now live there for free. My sister is 60, and my brother is 46. Neither has worked for years.

I talk to my mother about it all the time, telling her she is not doing them any favors by allowing this to go on. Can you tell her what a horrible thing it is to enable two perfectly capable grown adults this way? My mother is 82. What will they do when she is gone? I have two other siblings and the three of us don’t take advantage of our mother this way. – Not Right

A. We agree that this type of financial enabling is a huge liability. But a good work ethic and accountability need to be instilled when young. Your mother may consider these two children to be incapable of working, and that her support is all that keeps them off the streets. She does it out of compassion and guilt. She isn’t asking us for advice, nor is she likely to take it, even if we point out the problems this will create when she is no longer in the picture.

Your mother should have a legal will to minimize disputes about her property and money. It’s her decision, whether or not you agree. Your focus should be on forgiving all of them for what they are not, and then doing what you need to do in order to be sure that these siblings don’t become too great a financial burden on the rest of you.

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