Mom has limited earning capability

Mom has become a convert to a very iconaclastic subset of Christian theology, one that practices tithing

Mom, perhaps because she has had to endure way too many changes, is holding onto a home that is too large, perhaps in size, but certainly in dollar value, for her current fiscal competencies and her needs.

Mom is being subsidized by her caring, but fiscally meticulous daughter, who resents the reality that, if Mom were not a heavy donor to her church, could afford her staggering (for her) mortgage.

One might guess that Mom, as a stay-at-home, never learned fiscal management, other than the routines of managing purchasing related to maintaining food, clothing, etc. One would doubt that she learned strategic fiscal management, or that she learned comprehensive budgeting techniques. I doubt that Mom has ever sat down with a spreadsheet that itemizes her monthly outgo and income and tallies the two against each other........

Rather than hiring an accountant for LW and playing a pea-and-shell game, it would seem more prudent to hire an accountant for Mom, or at the very least, for both family units, although the issues are bound to be quite different. The basis can simply be the legitimate reality that LW is facing increased demands on her own discretionary income, and that she wants to achieve some equitability in how she supports Mom.

If tithing is a religious committment that Mom feels deeply about, then it is up to Mom to assess, with some care, her other committments, and redress the balance of where her money goes. In that process, I suspect that being house-poor is going to crop up immediately in any objective financial analysis.... and that Mom's needs might be best met by a tidy condo or some other relatively modest residential setting. The end result of this may well be that the house goes, a more modest (and manageable) residential setting is developed, and Mom might even become financially independent.

If, after all is said and done, Mom still needs financial help, it is absolutely within LW's perogative to determine what she gives the money for. However, if her money really is a gift, then she cannot, ultimately, tell her Mom to not tithe.

As for the concept of tithing, I find it reprehensible in this day and age... having been part of a religious congregation that posed very different criteria for its members, and presented, always, a balanced budget to the congregation for review and final endorsement. My wife's Quaker Meeting has a somewhat parallel process, albiet embedded more deeply in concensual decision-making. At no point, in my U/U congregation, was there any expectation that any member "had" to tithe... and the congregation was acutely aware and profoundly respectful of the many "donations in kind" of service work provided by folks with truly limited means; something that, as a member of the board and an impecunious graduate student, I deeply appreciated at the time...... But then, U/U's tend to hew a slightly different path, one clearly radically different from the path that Mom has chosen. That she has chosen a didactic religious tradition that is somewhat demanding and judgemental is hardly surprising, given the sequence of abusive and demanding husbands, but I digress....however, it might help for LW to understand,if not accept, that Mom may be comfortable with didactic, harsh and stringent boundaries for behavior defined by someone other than Mom, and that in the absence of a terrorizing husband, she would seek out a theology that would be equally presumptuous.

Amazing pitched conversations..... So some random thoughts from someone who has never been a father and is not Jewish.

I love parents who blackmail the decisionmaking process in their children's lives by claiming to disown the grandchild. It is apalling, and represents behavior that is more childish than the child in question. I remember my late, unlamented mother, who refused to acknowledge that my brother's adopted daughter was her granddaughter (the girl in question was the illegitimate child of my sister-in-law till legally adopted by my brother) until my brother threatened to not allow Mom to see her "real" grandchild. Emotional blackmail can work both ways, and Mom came around, as they say. If she had not, my oldest niece would have lost contact with a narrowminded witch. Had ole Neal held his ground, what on earth would his children have lost? Shrill, judgemental narrowminded folks, from what I can gather......

I understood that true Jewishness was passed through the maternal connection, so one could question how Jewish his son is going to be, having been borne by a Goy. And, with that, what constitutes true Jewishness? The bloodline? Time in the Catskills? Or study and participation in true Jewish teachings, practicing ethical practices promulgated by Jewish moral values? How much really has to do with disfiguring the body?

Circumcision is an ancient religious ritual for some, a bizarre and sexually restrictive clinical procedure for many others, based on specious science at best. Given that we haven't bound women's feet for some time to improve their attractiveness, as some Chinese cultures have, it may be time to give it up.