Dear MIMsters: How My Lazy Brothers Are Slowly Killing My Mother

I live abroad with my mom and sister while my elder brothers who are married live with their wives in Africa. My lazy brothers are slowly killing my mother.

My sister and I live with our kids and hubby but our mom lives alone. The issue here is that, my mom who is based abroad lives in a very bad condition, in a room to be precise and isn’t helping herself even though she makes a lot of money. This is because she decided to send all her money to my brothers in Africa.

These are married men with kids. My mom practically pays them twice a month, pays their children’ school fees, children’s antenatal, delivery, birthdays, diapers, rent, clothes and in fact 100% of their bills.

My eldest brother executed a small contract some years ago, but wasn’t paid until recently. He received almost N2m in cash as payment for the contract but can you believe he ‘forgot’ to pay his child’s school fees from the money until he squandered it all. In less than a month after, he was calling my mom to pay his daughter’s fees.

Mimsters, truth be told, my mom is in debt here as she is struggling and cannot pay her bills. I find it difficult assisting her because I think she is destroying her son’s lives. She believes she can’t watch them suffer but they are not even looking for a job. She acknowledges that my immediate elder brother is being lazy as he is not working but keeps on making babies.

Meanwhile, my mom is over 60 years old while the youngest of my brothers is 36 years old. It hurts to watch my mom suffer so much; sleeping at home once or twice a week while she works a very horrible job meant for teenagers. Whenever I assist my mom with cash, she sends it to my brothers. I want her to live long and still be healthy but it will be a miracle for that to happen due to the stress that she is constantly going through. It’s more than her strength can handle.

My brothers don’t want to work so they can relieve my mom from this burden and she isn’t helping them either. My question is, what should I do? Am I a bad person for blaming my mom because she is helping her grown and married sons with children out? Please let me know. My sister and I will be reading your comments.