'My Parents Might Sell Their House to Fund My Sister's Doomed Business!'

You need to speak up before it's too late.

Whispers (1957) by Dorothea Tanning

Dear Polly,

About six months ago, my older sister, let’s call her Ann, decided she was going to open her own artisanal candle business. On the surface, it sounds harmless enough, but it’s turned into a full-blown obsession that’s causing havoc in the family. She quit her job to pursue this "passion project," even though she had no experience in business and barely knows the difference between a tea light and a taper.

Here’s where it gets messy. Ann convinced our parents to give her a significant loan to get started—money they can’t really afford to lose. They’re both nearing retirement, but they dipped into their savings because Ann has always been the “golden child” who could do no wrong. She told them she was destined to make it big, selling “luxury, spiritually-infused candles” that will “bring light to people’s lives.” Her entire pitch is based on Instagram vibes and faux-spiritual nonsense she picked up from a self-help book. She even had the nerve to ask me to co-sign a loan for more startup capital when her first few batches barely sold at local craft fairs.

Now Ann spends her days in her tiny apartment surrounded by herbs, crystals, and wax, making these overpriced candles that no one wants to buy. The family has become her unofficial marketing team—Mom’s constantly posting about Ann’s “amazing entrepreneurial journey” on Facebook, and Dad is practically begging his friends to order candles out of pity. I’ve already bought more than I can ever use just to keep the peace.

What’s worse is Ann’s ego has inflated to absurd proportions. She acts like she’s some visionary who’s revolutionizing the candle industry and constantly lectures us about the “energy” she’s infusing into each creation. She’s alienated most of her friends and refuses to listen to any constructive criticism. When I suggested she might want to consider keeping a part-time job until the business takes off (if it ever does), she accused me of being “negative” and not supporting her dreams.

The situation has escalated to the point where our parents are considering selling their house to “invest” more into Ann’s venture. They’re blind to the fact that she’s dragging them into financial ruin, all because they can’t admit that this candle business is a fantasy. They keep pressuring me to contribute as well, saying that as a family, we should all “come together” to support Ann’s dream. I love my family, but I’m not about to throw my money away on something that’s clearly going nowhere.

I’m stuck between wanting to help my parents see reason and knowing they’ll never listen because Ann has always been their favorite. Meanwhile, Ann’s delusion keeps growing, and I’m left feeling like the only sane person in this circus. I know that if I don’t agree to support her, they’ll make me the villain, but I can’t just stand by and watch them go bankrupt over this nonsense.

How do I deal with this situation without burning every bridge? Is there any way to wake them up to reality, or do I just have to let them learn the hard way? I’m exhausted from playing the “bad guy” just for trying to be practical, but I’m also tired of pretending like this isn’t a disaster waiting to happen.

Sincerely,

Official Candle Hater

Dear OCH,

Too bad you can’t make your own candle and infuse it with reality, logic, and 73 bracing but illuminative Al Anon meetings and give it to your parents as an anniversary present.

They aren’t the first parents to confuse love with building a bubble of fantasy around their child, of course. Parents do it every day all over the world. What’s sad is that as long as everyone is confused and codependent and all boundaries are completely permeable, no one grows or takes responsibility or faces reality. Everyone is tied to the ship, prepared to drown in honor of the big, sad baby of a captain who steered them all straight into the shoals.

The more money people have, the more they’re prone to the illusion that everything can be fixed by money. The more high-strung and avoidant and fixated on success they are, the more they see having a kid who can’t figure out life as a poor reflection on them that needs to be controlled and corrected. Giving your daughter your life savings and then bragging that she started a successful business almost makes sense in this context. Your child was always an extension of your ego at some level, so failure was never an option. You will do everything in your control to keep the fantasy afloat.

Needless to say, the real victim is your sister. She’s been robbed of the opportunity to sit alone in her apartment with her herbs and crystals and wax and calculate exactly how many candles she’ll need to sell in order to pay her rent. Maybe she doesn’t pay her rent anymore. Maybe she never did. Maybe she’s been protected from the nuts and bolts and endless inconveniences of adulthood since she was young, and this whole glorified pyramid scheme is more of the same.

I want you to forgive her for having a shitty personality right now. Think of her as a drunk whose spouse keeps bringing home more bottles of gin. The same bad bubble behavior will show up in anyone who’s locked into an unhealthy relationship with someone who is unknowingly keeping them weak and dependent. That’s the dark shadow of this whole picture, of course: Parents who do this fear losing control of their kids so much that they slowly become willing to witness their child turning into a strange, needy mutant who’s always coming around for more doses of praise and admiration. And to be clear, these parents absolutely love their kids, and they’re doing everything they can to lift them up. But what they end up doing with all of that love is hobbling their kids, rendering them delusional babies who can’t face the world alone.

Now, lest we lose a grip on our empathy: We are all delusional babies who can’t face the world alone at some level. We all struggle to face reality, and most of us will happily avoid it the second someone enters the picture and says “Don’t worry, baby, all you have to do is sit right here and eat donuts and the world will come to you.” Reality is harsh. Hard work is… well, hard. And building a business that actually succeeds requires looking at the big picture of how things work while also keeping an eye on the tiny details that can make or break you, like profit margins and material costs and whether or not 90% of your sales so far have been generated by your mom’s book group.

When I write about believing in your dreams and cultivating an unlimited mindset, I usually try to include something, somewhere, about hard work and living in a crumbling hut. If you expect matcha chai latté to flow out of your faucets because that’s what happened in your childhood home, you’re going to need to overcome that expectation in order to drain the bourgeois groundwater on which your shaky emotional foundation is built. (I think bourgeois groundwater is also 90% matcha chai latté, so it’s pretty tough to throw away all of that sweet, tasty goodness forever and ever.)

Artists and dreamers like your sister — and most people with big visions and big goals — need to stand on their own two feet and feel the pain and suffering of uncertainty, of delaying gratification, of going without. What else could possibly motivate a person to understand profit margins? Fear and hardship are powerful motivators.

That doesn’t mean making an investment in your kid’s business is impossible, or that bailing someone out when the shit hits the fan is a terrible idea across the board. I am not talking in some pro-capitalist eat or be eaten language right now. I’m talking about the emotional perils of having Mommy and Daddy holding your hand and telling you that you shit diamonds at the exact moment when you need to walk out into the world and start digging.

Making and building something meaningful is hard enough on its own without throwing in the ENORMOUS pressures of having blown your parents’ nest egg on your overpriced “prosperity” and “security” candles.

Tell your parents this. Sit them down and say to them, “I love you and I love my sister. But you are not doing her any favors right now. You are making her dependent, which is a burden to her even more than it is to you.” Try to avoid words like charade and Ponzi scheme. Stay calm. Don’t get snagged on the favoritism thing. Cultivate empathy for their confusion. But explain that you are drawing a boundary, respectfully, and you want them to reconsider their path, speak to a financial advisor, and draw a new course for the future that is healthier and more productive and less worrisome for everyone involved.

Your sister is a tougher call. She’s probably in a kind of extended state of panic right now, so I’m not sure she’ll hear anything you say without defensiveness and anger. You need to make sure you don’t go off on her. Just stay very calm and explain that you’re worried about your parents’ financial solvency. Try to do so without casting aspersions on her ambitions. She’s probably falling to pieces behind closed doors, so she’s likely to remember every single harsh-sounding word you say at this moment. Even if you’re kind and mild about it, she could freak out. So be as gentle as you can.

But I would not stand back and wait until your parents are bankrupt to say something, for your own mental health and for everyone else’s. Just be calm and loving about it. Commit to not getting angry or going off on anyone, no matter what. Your open displays of rage and resentment, however justified, will erode their ability to hear you. If ruptures in your relationships occur, you’ll be more likely to blame yourself after the fact.

Talk to them and then go to an Al Anon meeting and listen to how confused people can get when they’re all wrapped up in other people’s problems, to the point where other people’s drama becomes a form of escape from their own lives.

Again, we all like to escape reality. We all love a comfy bubble. No one has bad intentions here, even if they’re acting deluded to the point of being unstable. Speak up and be kind.

And then? Step back and let them learn the hard way. It’s the most loving thing to do.

Polly

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