That’s what it sure as Hell feels like anyway.  It started about six months or so when we transferred the money from his savings account to our checking account.  We needed it for bills, clothes for him, and food.  We could not pay our bills without it.

Now we just take whatever Tyler gets from his birthday, Easter or Halloween money and just throw it into our “mix”.  Part of me knows that he needs clothes, shoes or underwear whenever the seasons change so we are spending a lot of the money on him, but the other part of me feels like this is so wrong.

A couple of weeks ago we took out his 529 college fund.  Apparently if you have lost more money than you had originally put in you are entitled to take it out.

When I was growing up, any money I would get as gifts was put in my college fund.  My parents never had to “borrow” out of it.  The money was mine.

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.  Grant and I were supposed to be working and putting investments into his 529 and our 401Ks and saving for our retirement.  We knew we would never be able to send him to college without help from student loans, but we wanted to help him as much as we could, like our parents did for us.

I don’t know if we will ever be able to pay him back.

The worst part of it all for me is that Tyler is too young to know what we are doing with his money.  We cannot ask our four-year-old’s permission.  And what would he say if we could? Would he say what we did was wrong, or agree that we did it for all of us and say he understood?   Would he be angry at us?  Would he have wished for parents who could have taken care of him better than we did?

All I know is I hate taking my beautiful son’s money and it feels like the worst crime in the world.  A crime against my child committed by the parents he loves and trusts.