With No Savings and No Home, There is a New Debt Crisis. My Mom Can’t Afford to Retire

Written by Alainta Alcin

Last year, my siblings and I had a heart to heart conversation with my mother. It broke my heart to say it. It broke her spirit to hear it.

My mother is a 64-year-old, a native Haitian woman. She wants to retire soon. Better yet, she needs to retire soon. She doesn’t have much formal education. Due to a dreaded past mistake, she is a formerly incarcerated felon. All these factors have limited her opportunities; she since worked in agriculture. This was arduous labor that offered long hours and little to no income growth.

“With No Savings and No Home, there is a New Debt Crisis Affecting the Black Community.”

The Pivot

This past summer (2019), my grandmother passed away, a few hours after my mother arrived back from Haiti. As I picked her up from the airport terminal, she was shortly hit with the sad news. She didn’t cry nor shed a tear. She just politely asked me to help with the luggage.

Life is often hard and unbearable.

My mother is 6’2 (Yes, you read correctly lol). She is prideful to her own detriment and a hard worker. She lost her husband (my father) decades before and had to raise three children under the age of four.

Like other Caribbean mothers in the 80s, she was home in an alien place. She was alone. I was 1-yr old at the time. A widow and a woman, with little to no understanding of English. She did her absolute best in raising all six of us with little to no support in a country that wasn’t her own.

Tough But Fragile

She was tough and a disciplinarian. Looking back, she didn’t have much of a choice. Black women are seldom afforded this luxury. Life got busy and my mother grew older. We grew older.

The big retirement plan (if any) was overshadowed by family medical issues, house purchases, daycare, house chores, low wages, the school for the kids, and homework among other things. 30 years later, it’s time to bring up the inevitable topic. If it didn’t scare her, it soon scared me.

One Retirement, an entire Family Discussion

I knew it was time to have a real talk with everyone (my siblings) about our mom’s retirement and finances. The timing felt right. It was rare to get the family together and my mom was in town. My older brother and sister were also available. Everyone came over to my 1 bedroom apartment. It was clear my mother knew nothing. She thought it was a small family reunion with her kids and grand kids.

In retrospect, it was a friendly ambush.

Sometimes you can count the moments with the spaces between the words. Everyone is looking and motioning for the perfect moment. My older brother started the conversation. He looked over to my mom and asked, “What are your plans for retirement?’

It was a terrible ambush. This is exactly what you don’t want to do. She must have been embarrassed or angry. I would have been. She looked at my brother with a confused look and replied, “Kisa?!” Haitian Creole for What?!

“Kisa?!”

To make matters worse, he followed up with “How will you fund your retirement?” I sense my mother’s defense mechanism loading. If there was a shoe, I swore she would have beat him right then and there. I reminded myself that we are older. While her back turned, and in a calm dark demeanor, she replied, “I don’t know what you are talking about?

Simple translation, “Stay out of my Business”

Our Concern

My mother, like a lot of other parents, thinks that her retirement is solely her concern. It was all of our concern, especially if she didn’t have the savings. As a family, we are asking ourselves, how will our mother support herself? Can she support herself? If not, who will pay the mortgage? As she ages, who will care for her? All these questions ran through my mind.

I recalled a close friend of mine Lawrence once said “If you’re not asking about your parent’s retirement plan, you’re likely ARE the retirement plan. This resonated with me and hit it me deeply. My thoughts were soon interrupted by my mom’s snacking sound. Eating plantains. I decided to interject and tell her we are concern about her finances. We were concerned about her.

She laughed (nervously). Eventually, she said she will continue working. She will continue receiving a paycheck throughout retirement. Everyone stood silently and looked at one another, I immediately walked where my mom stood.

What Mom didn’t Understand

I explained to her that once you retire you can no longer receive a “TAX” funded paycheck from your employer.

She was surprised. Her eyes hastened. I soon realized the concept of retirement was completely different than what my mother initially thought. At that moment two generations sat there in the kitchen. Grappling with what was said, I looked down at the kitchen’s floor trying to understand the cultural norms.

The silence felt like forever. And the space in between us only grew larger.

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