The Oldest Kid Tax

We opened on whether it is selfish to keep having children when you are already struggling, and Honade did not need a run-up: it is selfish, because you are taking from the children you already have. Her argument is that people have kids to hold a relationship together or because babies are cute, and then those babies grow up and cost more.

Curtis answered it from inside the problem. He grew up with a stack of siblings, and he said the worst part was never the love, it was that there was not enough money to take care of each other. He was clear that if you can afford them, have as many as you want — but knowing your situation is rocky and continuing anyway is a different thing. Then he named what actually happens to the oldest: they stop being a kid and become the third parent, the one everybody runs to with questions instead of the actual mother. His line was let kids be kids. Honade added the part people do not say out loud — a lot of older siblings end up resenting the younger ones, and it is not the younger ones' fault, it is the parents who set it up that way.

Do You Owe Them Anything?

The second question is the one that made this a bonus-round episode: do adult children owe care, money or forgiveness to parents who mistreated them? Honade said if she had the money and nobody else was looking out for them, she would put them in a nursing home — but she is not going out of her way, and she was honest about why the question is live for her right now. Her parents started reaching out once the health scares started, and she said what that feels like: you did not visit me before I passed, and I could have passed any time up until now.

Curtis went further. He said he does not even know his mother, and drew a distinction that carried the whole segment — it is one thing to fail as a parent trying, it hits different to fail and not try at all. He pointed out that with eight kids there are seven other people to ask. And he separated forgiveness from obligation the way he always does: I forgive you, I love you, I pray for you, and I am still not about to go do something God has not managed to do in your life in forty years. He also said, plainly, that they died before they died to him. Part one closes on disrespectful grandparents, where we both agreed — if they are disrespecting you, they will disrespect your children, and if they were not good parents to you there is no reason to believe they will be good grandparents.

Betrayal, Bloodlines And A Secret DNA Test

Part two asks whether it is betrayal when your siblings stay close to the person who hurt you. Curtis said he used to see it exactly that way and then grew out of it, because everybody does not experience their parents the same — his sister's version of their mother is not his version, and that is her life to live. His only condition is that nobody pushes it on him, and that when he shows up nobody springs a room full of people he does not want to be around. Honade landed in the same place from a harder starting point: she has already distanced herself, her family keeps pushing the but that's your parents line, and she decided distance is easier than discomfort.

Part three opens with the secret DNA test. Honade's answer was the surprise — if she has nothing to hide, she is not going to be mad that you went and got it. She would be hurt that you questioned it, but she called betrayal a bit much and a little dramatic, and she told the story of talking a sibling down when the father in that situation finally demanded a test more than a decade in. Curtis agreed for a different reason: a man should be able to know, it is not a crime, and it is his child either way. We also did family secrets, where Curtis said he waited until his grandmother passed away to start telling his stories, and Honade described a family so committed to sweeping things under the rug that the rug does not even cover it — everybody knows what happened, they just will not say it.

The Funeral, And Where We Both Landed

The finale is the funeral question, and neither of us hedged. Curtis said he did not go to his grandmother's funeral even though she raised him, because he had already mourned that loss years earlier and he does not do the thing where the family only comes together to celebrate a death and not the life. He said he would rather forgive people while they are still living so there is nothing left to feel when they go. Honade's answer was practical and just as final — everybody there already knows you have not been around, the person who passed has been telling them so, and there is no version of you walking in that does not become the show.

We covered a lot after that: whether siblings should split funeral and elder-care costs, whether refusing to care for an aging toxic parent is cruel or just a boundary — we both said boundary — whether a parent's new spouse should ever come before their adult children, and whether you can love a family member and still never speak to them again. That last one is where the episode ends up, and both of us said yes. Forgiveness from a distance. The full episode is on Patreon at patreon.com/c/messytalks — and tell us which of these questions would divide your family the most.

“It is so selfish because you're taking from the children that you already have.”

“They died before they died to me.”

Where it splits

The family episode is the least comfortable one, and it divides over what adult children owe. One thread is the oldest-sibling tax — the child who became staff before they were a teenager, and the resentment that grows toward siblings who never had to. The other is whether parents can be held to account for a life nobody could have prepared them for. It ends somewhere near a funeral, and the two positions never quite converge.

The debate