One day when my kids were young and I was complaining about money and how I needed more of it to buy things for my kids, my mom made the strangest comment (or so I thought back then.) She said, "You better have a money tree in the backyard, it only gets worse!" I remember thinking, "Is she crazy? Doesn’t she realize how much diapers and formula cost? How could it get any worse?" Now, with four teenagers I truly understand what she was saying.

When you finally send them off to college you think, "Yes! I am done with senior pictures, proms, cars, and driver’s education, my money is my money now. I’m going to travel, buy a convertible, eat at expensive restaurants and buy myself a new wardrobe.

You drop them off, wave goodbye and drive off into the sunset with the feeling of a job well done. Wrong. Everyone I know who actually had the audacity to think such a ridiculous thought is now feeling pretty silly.

Instead of, "Mom, I need $20 for a date." it’s, "Mom I need $500 for books, $75 for club fees and by the way I lost my phone, can you send me a new one?" Or my favorite, "My new backpack is too small for my new $1,800 laptop I need another one!"

When I experienced this through my friends and their kids it seemed funny. I giggled every time my friend called me with a new college scenario. Her son wrecked the car, chipped his front teeth, broke his collarbone, and then decided he didn’t want to go to that college after all even though the tuition and housing had already been paid. I admit it, for some reason it was funnier when it was somebody else’s kid.

I have come to the conclusion that once you have kids, you never have a empty nest you just have an empty wallet. With cell phones and the Internet it is way too easy for them to find us and our money.

But, even though we may never have that convertible we should be thankful that they still want us in their lives (even if it is somewhat financially motivated.) I wasn’t dreaming about an empty house when I had kids, I was dreaming about filling it with them, their friends, their spouses, and my grandkids. I just wish I had planted that money tree in the backyard when my mom told me to!

Susan Eldridge works for the Anderson Public Library.