17-year-old refuses to give her struggling aunt $50 after she made a pact with her 19-year-old brother to send her money: 'Family is constantly asking my parents for money.'

She said she would send the money, so she should stick to her word.

Do you send money to your family members? Your answer to that question depends on your socioeconomic status and your culture. If you're doing poorly financially, you might be the family member who receives cash from your more well-off family members. They might send it unprompted because they know you're struggling, or you might have to ask them for money to keep the lights on. If every generation in the family is struggling financially, you might all help each other out when you can, so there's never enough to save for the next crisis.

If you grew up in a culture where adult children are expected to send money to their parents, even to the children's detriment, you may feel pressured to continue that tradition. In other cultures, it's considered uncouth for parents to ask their adult children who are making $45K a year for money. But in other cultures, $45K a year is the big bucks, so someone making that salary would be expected to send their parents money, both because their parents are struggling and because they believe they owe them for raising them. 

While some people take great pride in sending money back to their relatives to help support them, others don't want to get trapped in the cycle of losing a large chunk of their income to relatives who feel entitled to it.