Mom snaps at daughter for complaining about money, 'you chose to be a teacher.'

Jealousy can tear apart even the closest relationships, and financial jealousy is perhaps one of the most common jealousies and one of the most difficult to shake.

If you're jealous of someone's perceived charm or 'ease' in life, that's harder to pin down and fixate on, but if you're jealous of their house, extra cars, or vacationing lifestyle, well, you have evidence backing up your feelings of jealousy.

While being jealous feels awful, experiencing someone else's jealousy of you can feel awful in a completely different way, and sometimes, the tension comes to a head and it all spills out.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for snapping at her daughter over her money complaints.

She wrote:

AITA for telling my daughter she shouldn't complain about being poor because she chose to be a teacher?

My husband and I, both late 50s, have three lovely children, 'James' 34, ' Maggie' 33, and 'June' 32. My husband is a lawyer and I have been a paralegal since my last child graduated, so we make a good living. James is also a lawyer, same firm as his dad, and Maggie is now in law school after being a part-time paralegal while her two kids were young. Her husband is in engineering and does quite well.

I'm not trying to brag, but we all do quite well and it is relevant to this posting. June is an elementary school teacher, and her husband manages a restaurant. They are both very hard workers and I am proud of June for doing well at a very hard, and vastly underpaid job. However, she is always jealous and complaining about how hard she has it.

She's complained we have a cabin in the UP (Michigan) and she's got a starter home (that we gave her $$ for). She's complained about her sister having nice clothes, her brother's house in the lake, her husband having loans for his masters, us having nice cars, you name it. She constantly complains.

Every damn time she comes over, she says things like ' must be nice to go on vacation', ' must be nice to get new furniture', etc. Last night she started again, complaining that she can't afford to go to the UP house and it 'must be nice to be able to afford gas' and ' still be able to wear fancy clothes.' I snapped.

I told her her constant complaining was getting old, we gave her the same help with her college and grad school as her siblings, and she knew when she chose her career what the salary was. I told her I am very proud but she knew what she was getting into, and this attitude makes her family not want her around.

She was furious and left, screaming that her siblings are 'golden children' and that she was just as good. I tried to tell her that wasn't true but she wouldn't let me get a word in. She won't talk to me but she called her sister, who was quite put out by the whole thing, but on my side. My husband, however, said I should have just let it go and my mother is very upset and is acting like I did something terrible, so AITA?

Unsurprisingly, this topic inspired a lot of opinions and discussion.

pineboxwaiting wrote:

NTA. Why should everyone feel guilty for having a disposable income? June could still choose a different career. My BIL was a teacher & hated it. Now he tutors kids in HS math. He works a couple of hours a day and makes more than he made teaching. He picked up a job life-guarding in the summers when the kids are in school, and he just stayed on.

So now he has a full-time job with the city with great benefits, and he works as a tutor at night. So now he’s doing pretty well financially and is pretty happy. Point is, June can probably figure out a way to make more money. I hope she doesn’t have kids if she’s already bitter about money. Why did her hub need a master’s to manage a restaurant?

Anyway, June’s incessant complaining is annoying.

PS: Whenever anyone says “must be nice” the best possible response is “yes, it is! It really, really is!”

TypicalTyrannosaurus wrote:

Not gonna lie, as a teacher myself that title got me heated from the jump but I think I have to say NTA. I understand why you snapped. I have been around people who are always making comments like that, and it's so draining. It starts to feel like you can't tell those people anything cause everything is a misery competition.

If she is always being negative that can be hard to constantly walk around and ignore. But also I see where she's coming from. It sounds like maybe she has some insecurities about choosing another path as compared to her siblings, as the golden children comment might imply. I'm sure she loves teaching, but maybe she wasn't ready for feeling so different from the rest of her family.

Maybe she feels insecure or out of place. I think you guys could benefit from a good heart-to-heart about the situation. You can explain where you're coming from, and she can explain her experience and maybe give some insight into why she's been acting like that. I don't know how she feels but maybe there's a bit of shame attached to not having as much.

Maybe those comments were her searching for validation that she's doing great as she is, and she doesn't need to be at the same financial level as the rest of you because you're more than proud of her as she is.

I hope you guys can see eye to eye soon, teaching can take a lot out of you and it can be discouraging to not see much come out of it financially, especially if your family is doing well off comparatively.

10SnakesInACoat wrote:

NAH she's an elementary school teacher in a family of well-off lawyers. Her job is 10,000x more valuable to society and it gets shit pay. She has the right to complain and indeed, lots of people loudly complaining is the only way this will change.

flmdicaljcket wrote:

Really wish people valued the people they entrust their children to and paid them a livable wage. Guess we should just stick some underachievers, poors, and dumb dumbs with that job? I’ll get downvoted to oblivion but you are horrible.

alwaystasks wrote:

NTA. Her complaining isn’t a one time thing, it’s her mindset. She is constantly comparing and becoming bitter in her comments. It’s exhausting to be around. Rather than let that develop, when you love someone you may need to gently point out she is in a situation of her own choosing.

Fabulous-Mastodon546 wrote:

NAH but you maybe have to decide whether being “right” here is more important to you than your relationship with June. It would be easy to write this off as plain jealousy but the “golden children” comment and her increasing alienation from the rest of the family suggests there’s more going on here.

If you care about her and want her to stay in your lives, think about reaching out and try not to just write her off as “broke and envious, made bad choices, married a loser,” or whatever else she’s assuming you’re all judging her over. Because that’s probably what this was all about. Even if you think you’ve done nothing to make her feel that way, that’s what she was telling you with her outburst.

People cannot agree on a verdict, but it's clear that OP and her daughter need to have a heart-to-heart in order to mend this relationship.