For one sibling, I'm the safety net when crises happen that they can't afford. E.g. can't come up with their car insurance deductible, water heater broke, etc. They don't ask but I always offer when it's clear that a small outlay would spare a huge amount of stress for everyone. Because what am I going to do, let these very minor issues send their financial life spiraling out of control? Of course not.

Other sibling is more financially responsible and trying to work through college part-time. I'm paying the car payment and car insurance while they go because I am 100% on board with this self-improvement plan. I proposed this because these expenses were keeping them from enrolling and I think it's in my own financial interest to invest in broadening the base of financial stability in my family.

Other context: My dad has a decent job (government job paying ~$80k/yr in small town America) but mom is a lunatic when it comes to money so they have nothing saved. Her idea of being able to afford something is being able to afford the payments. So far I haven't had to bail them out but only because my dad is too proud to ask and would rather go to his mother whenever there is a budget crunch.

Edit to add: I see lots of people saying things along the lines of "keep money and family separate". That is a very privileged attitude. It's very hard to enjoy money when people you love are going through hardships that would be solved by an infusion of cash. Obviously it's important not to give more than you can afford but you would be surprised by the number of people in tech who are sending money home in one way or another.

I was afforded the "luxury" of doing a PhD instead of getting a job out of college because my older brother was working and assumed the financial responsibility of the house. Now I work too, and if the occasion arises, I am happy to part with reasonable sums of money without even thinking of whether it is meant to be repaid or not.

Could you share the untranslated phrase if I wanted to read more about it?

I also loaned my dad basically my life savings to bail out his company which the great recession ended bankrupting him anyway. This caused a strain with our relationship mostly because he felt and continues to feel extremely guilty about it even though I was able to rebuild my savings since then. Now I pay half his rent and try to avoid tying my finances too closely to him to try and avoid his creditors and possible future medicaid clawbacks. Money and family can be tricky.

Then if the loan is paid back, you will be happily surprised. But if it’s not you won’t be bitter about it, and it won’t ruin your relationship.

Corollary: don’t lend your family members an amount of money that would cause you hardship if it’s not paid back. (Obviously extreme circumstances call for careful consideration of the particulars. This is not blanket advice)

YMMV.

Because at the end of the day, I'm not going to let money destroy a relationship, and I gave her that money to relieve her stresses, not to contribute to them. So from now on, if I give money to my family, I let them pay it back according to their conscience and ability. People who need money really don't need more things to worry about.

Maybe, but on your death bed which one do you think you are going to have the most regrets about?

(This is the generic “you”, not you in particular).

I would say don’t let family or anyone else borrow money. If anyone is going through hardships, just give it to them. It makes things a lot easier on them and you both. If you can’t afford to give it to them, don’t put yourself in a position that you are depending on getting the money back.

I’ve found that often, if they can, they will pay you back anyway.

My parents combined make roughly 30k/yr with little to no retirement savings. They are immigrants (including myself) and neither of them attended high school. They have four children including myself: three girls, one guy (me). My dad, the person who brings in most of the household income, is close to retiring, at least I think he is: he's in his early-mid 60s and has his own gardening business with his own workers. I assume his body is taking a toll or even more so, can't handle the 6am to 7pm, 7 days/wk work days. My mom, on the other hand, is in her late 40s and works as a part-time elementary school supervisor - looking after kids, etc. She recently, as we were joking around this past holiday break, mentioned that I should already get my degree and that fancy new-grad gig so she wouldn't have to work anymore. I laughed it off, secretly wishing I could so immediately.

We, as in our 6 person family, live in a two-bedroom apartment in the Orange County area. My parents have been edging to move to some place cheaper like Perris, to finally be able to achieve that ol' American dream of owning or renting a home. I'm not too fond on the inland empire, and prefer the southern coastal cities of Orange County, etc. I've been wanting to say, "Wait a few years. I'll have a full-time salary job, and I can definitely help you rent a lovely house in a nice, quiet area I think you would all love. I'll send 2.5k/mth and maybe my sisters can help out too." But that's a big commitment to make.

It's difficult. Thinking about this adds a load of pressure on my shoulders, and it's even convoluted with a deep rooted sadness because I think about life and death and their respective lives and feel this what my parents need/want and I can't help them immediately. This might be part of the reason why I've been engulfed in eastern religions and eastern mysticism these past few years, maybe as a coping mechanism. I mean, these are just "cultural" problems. After all, a bed and roof over our head is all that will do fine and dandy. But I don't want to tell my parents that, they probably know it, and despite it, they just want their own perception of a little happiness. Alas, all is well. I hope I play my cards out right these next few years. If not, that's okay too.

This issue is a very important one because it can strain or break marriages if your spouse does not agree with how money should be treated among family. How one treats money is a part of how they implement their values and morality in general, after all.

I've seen this time and time again, especially with PoC, who (statistically speaking) have much lower net worth as family units and thus are more susceptible to financial ruin when going through times of hardship

It’s also privileged to assume family = people you love. My relatives are OK. Some are nice people but I have no interest in them for the most part. Just because we’re related doesn’t carry any obligation to love them or do anything for them.

I can see if it’s your little brother or little sister and helping out with some tuition though.

Also hand-me-downs are okay.

I really don't like your implication that it's just "their fault" if they're worse off than you. In a system that is designed to exploit "low skilled" labor.

"Codependent" is a really weird choice of word too.

Some people do have a good head on their shoulders and just need _some_ help, but not a “subsidy”. Like I said, younger sibling needs some help? Sure. Need some money to tide over rent this one time, ok. No recurring stream though.

However, you probably could interview a few hundred people a label some “earnest,” others “grifters,” and find there are many more of the former.

My sister and her family were struggling so badly. Underwater mortgage, lost the house to foreclosure, could barely afford to rent a place. They were discussing having to leave the area (Southern California) moving hours away from grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends, and of course me and my family.

In the end, I bought a house in 2010 specifically for her and her family. I continue to rent it to them at below market rate (They don't cover the morgage payment, but come close), and although we've had a few close calls, they have yet to miss a rent check, and have recovered significantly on their own without further help from me or other family.

There has been zero co-dependence.

Since they pay rent, and take good care of the house, it really has helped them maintain a sense of dignity. I let them treat the house as if it was their own, and they take excellent care of it.

I think this was a better option than just bailing the out. All parties really get something out of it, not to mention the emotional aspect of having close family continue to live close by.

Yes they might become codependent, but if you look at the situation realistically there's not a lot they can do to change the situation. Being there as a safety net can take a lot of mental pressure off of them.

Decentralized, sure. Robust? No way. Unless they are wealthy and economically independent, your family are a small number of failures away from not being able to support you. A locally correlated failure ( i.e a plant or industry that employs many of them folds) can knock out the support system. Not to mention that unlike government programs, your family are under no legal obligation to help you.

It's apples-to-oranges to compare a biological definition of robustness at the species level over eons to the definition we use to evaluate the current condition of people in modern societies. They are completely different metrics, operating over different timescales, and measuring totally different phenomena. Your usage measures the survival of humans as a species on biological time scales. The version of robustness that is relevant to the article is the chance of destitution or suffering faced by the typical member of a modern society, given modern society's standards for measuring those.

Wild animal species experience extremely high mortality rates compared to humans, due to a number of factors, including predation, disease, displacement, and environmental changes.

The whole experiment of human "civilization", from animal domestication, to agriculture, to the development of technology and the societal structures needed to support all of those, has been about protecting us from the risks nature poses to our existence.

> Whereas the oldest extant government are only several hundred years old. And many aren't even as old as my grandparents.

Whether it's an extant government is irrelevant. Governments come and go, but their function doesn't remain unfulfilled for long. We know that governments of some kind or another have existed since at least 3000BC, and importantly, that these governments had mechanisms for redistribution of their society's productivity (regardless of the direction of that redistribution).

EDIT: fixed the fallacy name

In context though, they did the same for me when I was poorer than all of them and I do it in return now that I am doing well. I also have an open offer to family to help their first month or two of rent in an expensive area if they are looking for a job there, so that they become part of this safety net.

My parents can't work, for example. They're both disabled and rely on food stamps plus medicare just to survive. This puts a rather large financial burden on me at times to say the least, because I would rather not see my parents starve to death.

If only we had a government that took better care of people in poverty. Imagine that.

Have they tried getting SSDI? No one gets rich off of that, but it is one of the major government programs to help support those with disabilities.

And then there's the difference between loaning and gifting money.

Or do you mean they might resent you if you do that?