Family and finances

I have a cousin in Ontario who is a year younger than me. She’s always been lucky.  I remember that as children, I used to visit her family’s house a lot.  She always had the most toys and the latest gadgets.  I used to be quite jealous.  Then as young adults, her parents paid for her to go to university while I struggled to navigate living on my own, student loans, and credit card debt.  Then, as adults, she travelled to Europe on her parents’ dollar while I had to wait until I saved up enough money to travel.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twon/

But if that were the extent of it, I would be okay with that.  After all, there’s lots of people who make more money than me, were more fortunate financially me, or made better financial decisions than me.   I can’t begrudge other people for what they have.  It’s her attitude that bothers me.

This cousin and her parents came to visit once and stayed at my parents’ house.  My parents gave them free accomodation, provided her with gifts, and took her and her parents out for dinner.  When they wanted to go sight seeing, we drove them around town.  After the visit, they told everyone that my family was cheap and that no one should bother staying with them while visiting.  WTF?

Apparently, taking them out for one dinner was not appropriate.  We should have taken them out for dinner each day they were here.  And the gifts?  Cheap, in their view.  We should have given them cash.  Worst of all?  We took them to see free attractions.

So needless to say, I’ve been a little bit irked about the whole thing.  Here was a girl who has never held a job, never finished university (7 years and counting!), flunked out of each program she’s entered into, and lives off her parents… and she feels the need to critique the finances of others? That’s entitlement at it’s worst.

And sadly, it’s not just my family who is a target.  Another set of relatives who were down on their luck had to stay with this cousin for a few weeks until their housing situation got sorted out.  Drama ensued as my cousin didn’t appreciate sharing a house with her “poor relations”, and my cousin cussed out my Aunt in front of her parents (who did not do anything!)!  Where’s the respect?!

Anyways, I was reminded of the situation recently when my mother and sisters returned from visiting family in Ontario.  They reported that my cousin is now telling everyone that she’s taking classes from the University of Toronto 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.  Naturally she gets an allowance from her parents to do so.  Whether or not she’s *actually* taking classes is up for debate… I don’t know many profs who work Sundays  😉