Tldr: parents didn’t save financially, grew up in a very manipulative/sort of abusive household.

For context: My Dad (69 M) moved to America from Bangladesh in 1992, my mom (59 F) came in 1999, had me (24 M) in 2001 and my brother (20 M) in 2004. My dad has worked in the restaurant business as a waiter ever since coming to america, while my mom has been stay at home until last year where she got her first job as a lunch lady at my old high school.

Growing up, we never really had any money (you can imagine working as a waiter and being a stay at home mom doesn’t pay all that well). They never made any smart financial decisions. Never saved a dime, never invested, put lots of expenses on credit cards, no college fund (They literally have $0 saved and $0 invested). My dad was the sole provider for a while, living paycheck to paycheck. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely grateful that I have food on the table, clothes on my back, a roof over my head and had all the opportunities I came across in america (school, job, experiences, etc.), but man I wish they made some effort to set us up for a better future.

In our culture I was always told that your children are the ones who are supposed to take care of the parents when they’re old and sick, as a way to give back to them since they took care of you when you were young. This makes a lot of sense to me and I’m sure a lot of people feel the same way. My issue is that my parents never had the urge to save or work towards being financially responsible. As a result, they never took care of their own parents financially but I’m expected to have to contribute a significant amount of my salary towards them so that they don’t become homeless? I still need to pay off my own student loans, save and invest for my own future, pay my own bills, etc.. It’s hard enough already in this economy.

Growing up, I was always compared to the other Bengali kids (particularly by my Mom) who were my age. X has a 4.0 GPA, why don’t you? X is becoming a doctor, why not you (I work in finance)? X is going to [prestigious school] why can’t you? She would scream at me to do better, sometimes a slap on the face when I was much younger too. This really plummeted my confidence and even now I can’t stop comparing myself to my peers and am never proud of the things I accomplish.

My parents would fight All. The. Time. For instance, when I was 12 years old I would count the number of days in a row that they would fight and I counted 4 months straight (no days went by without them fighting). My mom screaming at my dad about finances, divorce threats, fighting over how other families are doing better than ours. This would trickle down onto my brother and I because we would get lashed out at even if we were in other rooms.

My parents are unable to do anything independently. Whenever we go out whether it’s for a simple family outing or a vacation to a nearby city I literally feel like I am trying to keep control of two toddlers. Have to show them when to cross the street, how to not get caught in tourist scams, make sure they’re not bumping into other people, book hotels, book restaurants, make an itinerary of everything we’ll be doing, walk them to the bathroom. They refuse to attempt to learn any simple street smarts stuff on their own (despite living in america for 20+ years). Also if you’re thinking it, no they don’t have any mental or physical disabilities.

They talk about dying a lot and use it as a form of guilt tripping. “Once I’m dead then you’ll understand how hard it is to be a parent.” “Once I’m dead you’ll understand how much you love me.” “When I’m dead you’ll understand have to take care of your brother.” Lol when I was like 8 I was being a little shithead and I got into an argument with my mom saying I want another mom and she goes “how about I die instead?” Then she proceeded to lay on the floor pretending to be dead. 8 year old me was freaking tf out (hysterically laughing at this while typing this out hahaha). Regardless its pretty fucked up to use death as a manipulation/guilt tripping tactic.

Religion/cultural differences also played a big role. We grew up in a muslim household. From a young age (literally as young as 8 years old), my parents would tell me to never look at any girl, never be friends with any girls, and that my end goal is to marry a muslim girl (I have a White american Christian girlfriend who I love now lollll funny how that turned out). I was always told that I am a bengali and nothing more. Well, being born and raised in an american society makes that a bit tough because now I’m balancing two cultures. The one cultural thing I absolutely hate is how normal it is to comment on body shapes and sizes. I was always a fat kid growing up, and my mom would make fun of me for being overweight (SHE MADE THE FOOD!!), some other aunties and uncles would make similar comments as well. Fast forward to the past few years, I lost 80 lbs and now I’m “too skinny” or “you looked better before.” Lose lose situation. In terms of religion, Islam was pushed onto me (dare I say forced) from an early age as young as 6, where I was taught extensively about fearing Allah, Heaven & Hell, praying 5x a day. I feel that the values my parents have from bengali society combined with Islam, and my values I obtained primarily through my experiences growing up in the US, made us clash heads so much more because I don’t believe in a lot of the same things they do and I get berated for that constantly. Being told I’m going to hell, or that I’m sinning, or that my life is being wasted forgetting about Allah when in reality I’m living a pretty normal life. I don’t drink, don’t smoke/do drugs, very active, stable 9-5 job, but none of it matters because I’m constantly being told I’m going to hell.

Overall relationship: My dad was always absent in my life. This is partly due to him working two jobs for a while, but even when he would come back he would have no interest in anything I’m doing. On his off days he would just sit on his computer browsing the internet, didn’t ask me about school or extracurriculars. Never showed affection towards my mom, never gave me solid advice on growing up (simple things like shaving, taxes, investing, puberty, etc.). Whenever he and I would have disagreements, he would sit in silence and never finish a conversation. My mom was much more vocal growing up. She was the one who would lay her hands on me, berate me, compare me to other kids, comment the most on my weight, say I’m not sending enough money per month. She goes from 0-100. I can be watching TV and 3 minutes later shes lecturing me on how ungrateful I am. Out of 5 years that I played soccer, they only showed up to one of my games (we were a 10 minute walk away from the field we would play at every game). I’m 24 years old now, living with my girlfriend now and I’m being asked to come visit home every month. Lets just say that frequency is definitely not going to happen. I got a new job recently that has a nice paycheck but I don’t want to give them money but because I’m such an empath I’m going to anyways.

AITAH for not wanting to visit or provide for them financially?