Tethered by Love and Lifelines: On Mothers, Money, and the Myth of Letting Go

My mother lives in Johannesburg. I live in Israel.

A continent apart, connected by a WhatsApp voice note, a daily call, a shared chuckle over my latest humiliation or minor triumph, or sometimes, just the comfort of silence and mutual exhaustion.

We’ve always had what can only be described as a… complex relationship. Mothers and daughters, right? A tale as old as time, but throw in oceans, trauma, patriarchy, financial instability, and an unusually high tolerance for brutal honesty, and you’ve got our particular cocktail.

Recently, my mother read me a shiur written by her local Shul’s rabbi. The topic? The rising generation of brats — grown adults, emotionally stunted, tethered to their parents by an umbilical cord that should’ve long since been snipped, burned, and buried. Are today’s young adults too dependent on their parents, who are hysterically trying to preempt any mishaps or mistakes by carrying their adult children so there is no danger of their falling, failing, or flailing?

The rabbi’s tone was sharp, his examples even sharper. Adults calling their moms from the makolet to ask which apples to buy — not teenage interns doing family errands, but grown people shopping for their own kids. Apparently, Granny Smith apples are not a sign of discernment but rather a symbol of dysfunction. And G-D help you if you pick a banana without inspecting the stalk.

I cringed. Not because I’ve done that, although let’s be honest, I’ve called my mom to ask dumber things, but because I felt seen. Not lovingly illuminated. Judged.  What’s the word young’uns use today? I was “Triggered”!

Because here’s the truth: I call my mother every day.

I call her because she is 82 and mortal, and I don’t want to wake up one day and think, I wish I had spent more time with my mom. I intend to speak to her every day until I can no longer do so. Even when we talk about the same things over and over again. Even when I can recite her stories back to her in perfect order — voice, intonation, sighs and all.

There is comfort in repetition.

There is comfort in her voice.

But — and this is the messy bit — there’s also the lifeline. That blessed, uncomfortable, miraculous, infantilizing, utterly necessary financial umbilical cord.

Yes, my mother helps me. Sometimes rent. Sometimes, a birthday party. Sometimes cat food. (Yes, I have three. No, I won’t apologize.) Is it co-dependence? Is it exploitation? Or is it just the truth of a woman in midlife who still hasn’t found stable ground and the mother who refuses to let her drown?

I ask myself this regularly. Especially when I’m spiraling into overdraft, watching the rent go unpaid, praying for some unexpected windfall (or at least a check that clears).

My mom throws me a lifeline. I grab it.

But do I rely on her because I have to, or because I can?

I’d like to believe I’m not taking advantage. I’d also like to believe that I’m one unexpected invoice away from solvency and that I’m just “temporarily in transition.” I’d also like to believe the patriarchy is mostly to blame.

But if I’m being honest (and God knows we traffic in nothing else in this family), I could be doing better. Maybe budgeting. Maybe tracking expenses. Maybe downloading a finance app instead of yet another wellness podcast.

The problem? I don’t get numbers.

I’m a word person.

Mathematics is another language. One I never learned. That part of my brain was left underdeveloped in favor of the internal playwright who lives rent-free in my skull. The one who spins elaborate tales, tells inconvenient truths, remembers your cousin’s wedding menu from 1992, but not how to calculate interest.

And so I phone my mom.

Because I love her. Because I need her. Because she’s the only person on Earth who will tell me my haircut is ridiculous, my taste in men is worse, and then ask if I’ve eaten lunch.

Our relationship defies psychology. We are radically honest. So honest, in fact, that psychologists would likely label us emotionally enmeshed, unhealthy, inappropriate, and possibly a case study. I’m fairly certain the DSM-V has an entire appendix on this kind of familial candor.

But what we have — what we are—is not quite codependent, not quite independent.

We are real.

She gave me life. And every now and then, she keeps giving it, in tiny doses, through wire transfers and worry and words.

And I? I take it. I drink it up. I gulp and gag and sometimes even say thank you.

Because I don’t want to live in a world where I don’t speak to my mom every day.

Even if the bananas are too yellow.