Journalled on Thursday, 14 September 2023 | Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro: 30 degrees, hot, sunny and cloudy.
Over the past few days, we have discussed family, relationships, and money.
Families are beautiful and important to society, but can also be complicated and, to a greater or lesser degree, completely dysfunctional.
Reflecting on my past, one reason I came to Brazil was to unconsciously escape problems in my family, particularly with my mother. I may have mentioned how my mother was callous to my brother and me when we were children. Her behaviour seemed to have indirectly and unintentionally prepared me for the world, but left me feeling completely unloved.
Until my parents were together, we had money like the average British middle-class family. We lived in a semi-detached house. It was in a nice residential street in a small, beautiful town/village in England.
However, my grandparents on my mother’s side lived their entire lives in a council house in a council estate. Different classes within the same family, and, to add to this, my mother’s cousin, my uncle, was a top lawyer and a top executive in some of the largest and most influential companies at that time in England.
He built an outstanding career and became a millionaire. As a person, I consider him to be a bit of an asshole, as the Americans would say. So, in the same extended family, we have three different social classes. My grandparents were traditionally working class. My brother, parents, and I were considered middle class, and my uncle was upper class. He is an asshole. But he is upper class.
Returning to money and family, and how complicated it can sometimes be.
Once, my mother called me from England. My stepfather, Roger, had already died. I must have been living in Brazil for at least ten years. My mother called me and was crying on the phone, complaining that my brother, Russell, had withdrawn all my grandmother’s money from her savings account.
At first, hearing this, I couldn’t believe it. My grandmother didn’t have much money; she depended on her state pension. Private pensions did not exist at that time. It was just a pittance of a state pension she received weekly from the post office, which she would withdraw in cash.
It was just enough to keep her going and to put aside a little. The English love saving money for a rainy day, and my grandmother was very responsible with money.
At first, believing that my brother had cleaned out my grandmother’s savings account wasn’t easy. When everything was confirmed, and this betrayal was in front of our faces, I decided to go to England to resolve it.
My mother had called me in October, so I went to England in December to spend Christmas and New Year. It is the best time of year for me to travel, as that is usually when my school is closed. It is the only time of year when I can have two weeks off, from just before Christmas until the first week of January.
I’ve been called the family sheriff, who doesn’t tolerate nonsense or foolishness. It was amusing when my mother suggested that this would not have happened if I had been living in England. I found her comment to be unfair, unnecessary, and highly manipulative.
In my mother’s eyes, she was implying that what my brother had done was partly my fault. I know that’s absurd; I’m not responsible for my brother. However, she attempted to shift the blame onto me.
When I arrived in England, my brother spotted me on the first day, as he lived next door to my mother’s house, and invited me to dinner that evening. During our conversation, my brother indirectly confirmed what our mother had claimed.
I advised him that life would exact a much higher price if he did not repay what he owed.
So, it would be better for him to find a way to pay back whatever he had taken as soon as possible, even if it were in instalments, to pay it off. I emphasised that if he didn’t, it wouldn’t be me making him pay; it would be life, and life’s bills are usually much more expensive.
He understood what I was trying to say. There was no animosity or bitterness between us and no finger-pointing or judgmental behaviour. I stayed in England until the first week of the new year and a little after. He began paying back what he owed to my grandmother in instalments.
20 years later, it remains a dark stain on the family. Neither my mother nor my brother speaks to the other.
My mother uses this case to blame his wife, Debbie. I don’t know whether she wants to blame Debbie because it is easier to accept and to put the blame on the daughter-in-law, who is not of my mother’s blood, or whether it is an opportunity to use the situation to put the daughter-in-law down and discredit her.
All I know is that my mother has never been easy. But I also think my brother would do anything to please his wife. As for his wife, I’m not sure about her. I know she is a good wife and a perfect mother, and she seems to me to be a decent, respectable person at face value. But we never know.
The question of whether money and family mix well is complex. In some cases, they do; in others, they don’t. I’ve witnessed wealthy families fighting over trivial things for chicken feed, and poor families who would take their shirts off their backs to help others selflessly.
Life is too short to focus solely on money, although it is undeniably essential. We need money, but ultimately, whether we have it or not is partially within our control.
It’s essential to have goals and work towards them, but I also believe in the role of luck. Luck is a factor that cannot be ignored, and it often comes from hard work, education, and making the right choices for ourselves and others.
Thursday has been a day of classes, working on the websites, and moving forward without looking back.
In bed by 9 p.m.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
