Dr. Laura: I'm Dr. Laura Schlessinger, my number: 1-800-DR-LAURA. Kenny, welcome to the program.
Kenny: Hi, Dr. Laura, how are you doing?
Dr. Laura: Hi, fine, thank you. What can I help you with, Kenny?
Kenny: Well, my mother's incarcerated. Dr. Laura: Your mother's in jail for what? Kenny: For theft.
Dr. Laura: What did she steal?
Kenny: She stole money from her company that she worked for.
Dr. Laura: Gee, how much?
Kenny: A lot. Hundreds of thousands.
Dr. Laura: Hundreds of thousands? So for how long is she going to be- Kenny: For two more years, and she did it over a long period of time. She got basically addicted to drugs, and she used the money to pay for her drugs.
Dr. Laura: And your mother's a druggie! Okay. Mother's Day must be interesting at your house. Kenny: Oh, it is. My fiancée, which we're plan on getting married here next year, doesn't want me to have pretty much anything to do with my mother now, because of the fact that I make very good money and I send my mother about a hundred dollars a month. And it started out, it was seventy-five dollars a month, and that wasn't enough, so we went to a hundred. Now she says she needs a hundred and fifty dollars a month, in jail, to live, to have extra things and stuff.
Dr. Laura: Like drugs.
Kenny: No, not drugs- Dr. Laura: Well, how do you know? Kenny: Well, I don't know. Dr. Laura: That's correct, you don't know, sir. Kenny: I do see what she buys, because I get receipts from the jail showing exactly where the money goes, so I know that she's not buying drugs. It's going for cardboard, papier mache, just to make things and to keep herself active, and write notes- Dr. Laura: Papier mache for a hundred fifty bucks. All right.
Kenny: Not papier mache. Well, she also buys food off the commissary, because food I guess they give her is just awful, so I do it because I want my mother-she understands what she's done, she straightened out even before she went to jail. She cleaned herself up, she got off the drugs- Dr. Laura: So you're going to support your mother for the rest of your life. Kenny: No, but I give her a hundred and fifty- Dr. Laura: Okay, Kenny, how are you going to not, when she gets out of jail? How are you going to not support her? Who's going to hire her? Kenny: No one would.
Dr. Laura: It's going to be very difficult for her to get a job. It's going to be very difficult for her to get a job and earn much money. So, what your girlfriend is pointing out is that she is having second thoughts about a life with a guy who's going to be supporting his errant mother. Kenny: Yes.
Dr. Laura: So you need to be honest with your girlfriend, that the truth is you're going to be supporting her for the rest of your life, because you really don't have much of a choice in your mind. You have to be honest with her, and then she has to make a decision whether or not this is the road she wants to travel.
