A 23 year old Malaysian man has sparked a discussion online after claiming that his mother expects RM3,000 from him every month as a form of “repayment” for the cost of raising him.
According to the man, he had only recently started working, but the monthly demand was already putting pressure on his finances.
‘She counts every sen spent on me growing up’
In a Threads post which garnered over 44,000 views at the time of the screenshots, the man said his mother had set RM3,000 as the amount he should pay back for being raised in her household.
Every month, she demands it like I owe a loan shark. I’m only 23 and I just started working,” he wrote.
He claimed that when he initially refused to hand over the money, his mother would bring up expenses from his childhood during meals.
According to him, she would make remarks about the food he was eating and even remind him that she had previously worked hard to afford milk for him when he was young.
The man said his mother has a stable income, but allegedly views her son as a “long term investment” for her old age.
Started setting aside a fixed budget
His friends reportedly advised him to be firm with his mother, but he admitted that doing so made him feel like an ungrateful son.
At the same time, he questioned how long he could continue giving in, especially if it eventually wiped out his own savings.
He later decided to separate his monthly budget, allocating 20% for his mother, 50% for living expenses and 30% for emergency savings.
Whenever his mother asked for more, he said he would show her his accounts to explain his financial situation.
However, he claimed his mother became angry and called him an ungrateful child.
“This isn’t easy. Sometimes the guilt eats me up,” he wrote, before asking whether others also felt the situation had become unhealthy.
Netizens urge him to set boundaries
The post drew mixed reactions from netizens, although many sympathised with the 23 year old.
One commenter urged him to consider moving out and renting a room, while another mother said she could not imagine demanding repayment from her own children for raising them.
“Children are not investments,” she wrote.
Another commenter argued that providing food, clothing and education to a child is part of a parent’s responsibility, and that caring for parents later in life should not necessarily be measured purely in money.
Others took a more moderate view.
One netizen suggested that if he could afford to contribute, he could gradually pay the RM3,000 rather than jeopardising his own finances.
Another said financial support for parents should ideally be based on what a child can realistically afford instead of being treated as a fixed debt.
