A woman identified only as “Subjugated in Texas” wrote to the syndicated advice column Dear Abby describing years of financial strain caused by supporting her adult daughter, a single mother who has been evicted four times in the past decade, had two cars repossessed, and struggled to hold a job for more than a year.
The letter writer, a widow of 15 years who runs her own business, said she is considering letting her daughter move in rather than see her and her two grandchildren without housing, but wants to set a limit on how long that arrangement would last.
Columnist Abigail Van Buren advised against the move-in plan, warning it would trap the mother indefinitely. She recommended instead giving the daughter a fixed sum for temporary housing, framed explicitly as the final financial handout, with the expectation that the daughter get a job to support herself and her children going forward.
The column, founded in 1956 by Pauline Phillips and written for nearly four decades by her daughter Jeanne Phillips, also addressed a separate letter from a retired quality assurance engineer frustrated that a bank offered no explanation after correcting an error the reader had flagged in advance.
