Chris didn't have it easy. After his parents divorced when he was 10, he lived full-time with his dad — a man who believed in tough love. Chris said his father "would barely help me. Not because he couldn't, but because he wanted me to understand how hard it was to actually make money."
That lesson stuck. Chris worked multiple jobs to pay his way through school and eventually became a teacher.
His brother's path? The complete opposite.
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On "The Suze Orman Women & Money Podcast," Chris shared that his 52-year-old brother hasn't worked in 10 years. "He has no disability. He is a spoiled brat," Chris wrote. "He has a boat and a car. My mother pays his rent and for his boat slip. He gets $2,400 cash for spending money each month. Everything else is paid for. Yes, car insurance, a phone, etcetera."
Despite everything being handed to him, Chris says his brother isn't happy or even appreciative. "He says it's not enough. All he does is complain and ask for more money."
Chris asked Suze Orman to cover a topic many parents avoid: how not to raise a brat. "In order to make a happy child, you need to make a productive child," he wrote. "Parents think that giving their children everything helps them. In my experience, it ruins them."
Suze agreed — and didn't hold back.
"I have a very hard time understanding why you would want to ruin not only your children's lives, because this kid is now 52 years of age. This isn't a kid. This is a grown-up."
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Then she turned the question toward Chris's mother:
"When you die, Mom, what is he going to do?"
"If you leave him your entire fortune, does he even know how to do anything with it?" Orman continued. "Is he just gonna spend it all at once and then it's gonna be gone, and then he's going to be on the streets like others that I have told you about?"
But she didn't stop there. Orman offered a possible explanation for the mother's behavior — one she's seen before.
"When a couple gets divorced, especially a mom… she feels so guilty… she starts to overcompensate by buying things, providing things… by providing financially everything to that child that maybe she feels that she cannot provide emotionally."
Orman emphasized that good intentions can still cause long-term harm.
"Sometimes helping is hurting, and sometimes hurting is helping."
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She said she recently had the same talk with her own brother-in-law, who now regrets the amount of money he and his wife poured into private school and college for their kids. "They're having a great time, and it's not so great for us."
Orman warned against confusing love with financial support.
"Do not think by giving them an easy life, that therefore they're going to be more, and therefore have more… If they don't have to struggle, if they don't have to work for it… they're going to grow up doubting every move they make."
Chris ended his message with a line that Orman said she loved:
"Nothing worth having comes easy."
And that's the takeaway. You can't control your parents. You can't fix your siblings. But you can decide what kind of parent or grandparent you want to be — and whether the legacy you leave behind builds character or just covers the bills.
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