CAROLYN HAX

DEAR CAROLYN: My sister owns a few apartment buildings and my mother lives there rent-free. My mother plans to give my sister slightly more in her will. Our brother is angry about this, he wants my sister to just charge our mother rent. My sister thinks our mom will spend the money on medical expenses anyway and doesn’t mind missing out on rent. My brother thinks my sister is doing this to get credit of some sort. It’s annoying. What do you think? — Heir

I think your brother needs to stop beancounting and start living as a fully-fledged human being. And if there were some way an advice columnist could get a writer to get a sibling to do this, then I’d have published a book on it and retired on the proceeds. I’m sorry.

I will keep a good thought about his discovering, soon, that our spiritual side is some of the best factory-installed equipment we have and that we shouldn’t ignore it just because we can’t be bothered to read the manual. Kind of like Bluetooth.

I suppose you can suggest to your brother that if he’s so sure your mother operates on a credit-for-kindness system, and if he’s so adamant about getting in on the credit himself, then he’d probably do better to increase his kindness contribution than to lobby for reducing his sister’s.

I’m not saying this will go over well, just saying you’re welcome to give it a try.