Mum feels entitled to my Career payment I receive for her can she stop me from getting it ?
A bit of context: Mum has a brain injury, and I receive Carer Payment while providing support for her. I’ve been cooking her dinner, buying groceries and cigarettes, helping with medication, giving her money when I can and trying to help her find better housing. The payment doesn’t cover everything I spend supporting her.
Yesterday, Mum messaged me asking why I’d transferred $100 into her account. I’d sent her the money to help with essentials and had also organised a basic grocery shop.
The conversation quickly turned into an argument about Carer Payment. She’s been threatening to contact Centrelink to have the payment changed so her brother can claim it instead. I’m concerned she doesn’t understand how the payment works or what changing the care arrangements would mean.
She accused me of being ungrateful, claimed I’d betrayed her and said I was keeping her away from Ivy. This is despite the fact that I stepped back after she verbally abused me and threatened to get physical with me.
I explained that I wasn’t permanently ruling out a relationship between them, but that I wouldn’t expose my two-year-old daughter to aggression. I also told Mum I’d continue helping with essentials where I could and would contact Centrelink to clarify the situation.
Her response was to accuse me of lying and betraying her, say she no longer wanted anything to do with me, and bring up things from my childhood and her own struggles. She also said she was done protecting me.
At that point, I stopped engaging with the argument. My last response was simply telling her that her groceries were at the front.
I’m still concerned about Mum’s wellbeing, particularly given her brain injury, but I’m exhausted by feeling responsible for everything while also being verbally abused when I try to set boundaries.
I’ll be contacting Centrelink to clarify my obligations and eligibility. In the meantime, I’m keeping my distance and prioritising my daughter’s safety. I never wanted Ivy to lose her relationship with her Nan. I just wanted that relationship to be safe and healthy.
Thank you to everyone who responded to my original post. I’m still struggling with the guilt, but I’m beginning to realise that setting boundaries doesn’t mean I don’t care about my mum.
Jobadvisor
No, she can't stop you getting it on her own. Carer Payment is assessed by Centrelink based on your caring role and your own eligibility, and the care recipient doesn't control it. Mum can contact Centrelink to raise concerns, but they will assess the situation themselves. Her brother also can't simply take over the payment. He would have to apply in his own right and show that he provides the care. Generally only one carer can receive Carer Payment for the same person at a time.
If your caring arrangement changes, for example because you stop providing care, you usually need to tell Centrelink within 14 days. Keep records of your care and of the messages between you and your mum, including the threats and the abusive language. Those records will matter if the arrangement is ever questioned.
When you call Centrelink (136 150), it's worth asking:
- Exactly what you need to report and by when, and whether stepping back from some tasks affects your payment.
- Whether the money you give your mum needs to be declared, since it can affect your assessment.
- What options exist if you need a break or want to reduce your caring role. Carer Gateway (1800 422 737) can also help with respite and support for you.
Your mum's wellbeing is a separate question, and it may be worth raising with her GP or a brain injury service such as Brain Injury Australia or Synapse. Her doctors can assess whether she needs more support, such as an NDIS or aged care assessment, which could take some of the load off you. Those services are better placed to help with her housing and daily needs than you are alone.
Lifeline (13 11 14) is available if you need someone to talk to, and 1800RESPECT is there if you feel unsafe at any point.
Your concern for your mum and your decision to protect your daughter can both be true. Caring for someone doesn't require you to accept abuse, and setting limits is a reasonable way to keep caring sustainable.
Anxiety about next semester: Should I finish my software development degree or look for work with an advanced diploma and four co-ops?
I’ve been experiencing significant anxiety about next semester, when I’ll have three midterm tests and three final exams without access to AI. This semester is assignment-based, and I use AI to help with my studies, which is currently allowed. Although I’m one to two weeks ahead in three of my courses, I’m worried about managing next semester’s exams.
My parents suggested taking one or two easier courses and focusing on my two upcoming co-op terms. They think I should start looking for work afterward instead of finishing my degree.
However, I’m concerned about finding a job in a difficult market without a completed degree. After my second upcoming co-op, I’ll have completed four placements, totalling about 16 months of work experience. I also completed an advanced diploma two years ago, but I worry that these qualifications may not be enough for jobs that require a degree.
I would appreciate some support in managing this anxiety and thinking through my options.
Jobadvisor
Your anxiety makes sense. Three midterms and three finals without AI is a real change, and it's natural to dread it. It may help to separate two questions: how you'll handle next semester's exams, and whether to finish the degree. The exam fear is making the bigger decision feel more urgent than it is.
On the exams, being one to two weeks ahead is a good position. Closed-book work is a different skill from assignment work, so practise that now: do past exams under timed conditions, explain concepts out loud without notes, and build small coding problems you can solve from memory. Office hours and study groups also help. If the anxiety is hard to manage, your school's counselling or accessibility services can help, and many institutions can arrange support for exams.
On the decision, your parents' suggestion to take one or two lighter courses and focus on co-op is a reasonable middle path that keeps both options open. It may be worth checking how a reduced load affects your co-op eligibility, funding, or timeline before you commit to anything.
Your concern about a degree is worth taking seriously, but your situation has real strengths. Sixteen months of work experience across four placements, plus an advanced diploma, is substantial for a junior developer. Degree requirements vary a lot. Some postings ask for one explicitly, while many weigh experience more heavily, especially in software. You can test this directly by reading job postings in the roles you want and noting how often a degree is required versus preferred. Talking to your co-op advisor or to developers who started without one can also give you a clearer picture than general market worry.
You don't have to decide this week. You could take the lighter-load route for next semester, see how the exam preparation goes, and revisit the question after your next co-op. Would it help to think through what the remaining degree would cost you, or what kinds of roles you're hoping to get into?
I’ve lost some trust in my manager after a confusing promotion decision. Now how do I navigate an internal move?
I’m a high-performing individual contributor working toward people management. A management position opened on a sister team, and my manager strongly encouraged me to apply, saying I’d reached a glass ceiling on my current team. She repeatedly told me I was a good fit and even began discussing how my workload would transition if I got the role. I genuinely believed she saw me in that role.
Around the same time, a former colleague was pursuing an individual contributor (IC) role on that team as a lateral move. I recommended him to my manager and helped him prepare. After his interview, she told me he’d been candid that his interest was partly driven by needing employment, rather than necessarily seeing himself in the role. She praised his honesty and seemed almost giddy about bringing him onto the team.
I interviewed for the management position but wasn’t selected. My manager said my interview could have been stronger, leadership wasn’t convinced I genuinely wanted the role, and my lack of direct people-management experience was the biggest concern.
Then I learned my former colleague had been offered the management position instead! He was negotiating an offer for the IC role which resulted in him being invited to interview for manager. But, like me, he lacks direct management experience, and I have comparable experience leading without authority and considerably more relevant domain knowledge. He may have interviewed better or demonstrated strengths I’m unaware of, and I’m not suggesting he was undeserving. But it’s hard to reconcile my commitment being questioned while his moderate interest was apparently well received, or my lack of management experience being a major concern when he had the same gap.
There’s another layer: a woman on the sister team told me our manager had encouraged her to apply, and she came away feeling like she was a shoo-in. Yet, during the interview process, our manager shared this woman’s shortcomings with me in unusually candid terms. She was ultimately passed over alongside me and received the same explanation. She’d also interviewed my former colleague for the IC role and will now report to him.
The way this has all unfolded has left me questioning my manager’s judgment and discretion, and whether I can trust her to advocate for my career. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes, but the experience has left a bad taste in my mouth and made me want to move on.
The problem is that I like my company and would prefer to stay. I have a young family and value my benefits, leave eligibility, and stability. I’m considering an internal move, but applications require me to notify her, and she may be consulted during the process.
How would you handle the relationship with my manager going forward? Would you seek clarification about the decision or accept the feedback and move on? What are my next steps in pursuing a new internal role and possibly even use this to my advantage?
Jobadvisor
Your frustration makes sense. You were encouraged, planned around the role, and then lost it to someone whose gaps looked the same as yours. You don't know what was said in the leadership discussions, so it's worth holding your conclusions loosely, even though the pattern is hard to ignore.
On the manager relationship, I'd aim for a professional working relationship and a clear-eyed view of her, rather than either cutting her off or pretending nothing happened. Asking for feedback is reasonable. The key is how you frame it. "Why did I lose out?" can sound like an accusation. "I want to understand what leadership is looking for so I can develop toward it" invites a real answer. Ask for specifics: what would have made the interview stronger, what evidence would have addressed the question of commitment, and what she would look for in a future application. Her answers will tell you a lot, whether she's candid, whether she can name concrete steps, and whether she's willing to advocate for you.
You should avoid using the colleague's comments or the other candidate's feedback in those conversations. Those were shared with you in a way that makes them sensitive, and bringing them up would damage your credibility and possibly put others in a difficult position. Your case should rest on your own record and your own goals.
On the internal move, it helps to know how your company handles it before you apply. Check whether there's a policy about notifying managers, what the timeline looks like, and whether a manager's input is required or just a courtesy. If she has to be consulted, you can still prepare. Ask HR or a trusted HR contact how the process works and whether there's an option to raise concerns. You may also consider a conversation with a skip-level manager or someone in HR about your development path, which gives you a second perspective without going around her unnecessarily.
For the move itself, I'd start with a short list of roles you'd genuinely want, including ones on other teams that match your domain knowledge and your experience leading without authority. Then do the work that doesn't depend on her: update your record of impact with concrete outcomes, get feedback from peers and stakeholders outside her team, and seek a management-adjacent project like mentoring, leading a cross-team initiative, or running a process. That builds the people-management evidence you were missing, which strengthens any future application.
As for using this to your advantage, the most useful thing is to turn the lesson into a clearer case for yourself. You now know that leadership wants evidence of commitment and some form of people-management experience, so you can gather both deliberately. The feedback you get, even if imperfect, gives you a checklist for the next opportunity.
Finally, it's fine to be honest with yourself that you no longer fully trust her advocacy. That doesn't mean you have to leave. You can rely on her less for sponsorship, find other sponsors, and keep your benefits and stability while you look for a better fit.
Do you know yet what kind of management role you'd want next, or are you still deciding whether this team or company is where you want to grow?
Sorry that I dont want to participate in a system that is collapsing, doesnt benefit me and blames me for pretty much everything. How can I dare!
I came from a poor and awful family. Worked hard and made smart decisions since I was 16. Went into IT because "learn to code". For 10 years everything went well. Now fired due to AI. Cannot get a job even after 500 resumes.
Back home with awful parents. Used up my unemployment benefits. Used up over 1/3 of my savings and sold half the stocks I had to stay afloat.
All the corporate leaders care in their (for now) secure jobs is "growth". Instead having 200 stores across the country they need 500. Instead 10 Billion profit/year, they want 20 Billion. And thats the only thing they care about. Selling more crap and making more money.
Meanwhile most people struggle, everything is getting worse.
I worked hard. I made smart decisions. Yet here I am again poor. Back to where I started 10 years ago.
And then comes along a Boomer who got lucky by landing a great job just with HS and wants to lecture me about how "you make your own luck". Or someone who got a juicy job through the connections of his parents. These people then tell me that I am not working hard enough, didnt do enough and am ruining the economy.
Absolutely delusional. Its like people who play the game on easy mode lecturing people who play on hard.
You can do everything right in life and still lose, due to circumstances that are completely out of your control. No amount of hard work or smart decisions will save you when an entire industry goes bankrupt or your company closes.
But always blame the individual for not working hard enough and not being smart enough. Never the system that has obviously turned against working people.
I wont get a pension anyways. Boomers will suck the social system dry until 2040.
The US has 40.3 Trillion in debt and 10/30 year treasury yields are the highest in 25 years. We wont even be able to pay our debt anymore. This system is collapsing.
So sorry, but no. I dont want to participate in a system that is collapsing, doesnt benefit me and blames me for pretty much everything like not buying houses, not having kids, not working hard enough.
If we build something better after the crash, count me in. Until then im not gonna participate. Or only at the absolute minimum in order to surive.
Jobadvisor
That's a lot to carry at once. You did what the advice told you to do, for a decade, and it still ended with you back where you started, fired by a change nobody asked you about. Feeling bitter about that is reasonable. Being lectured about work ethic by people who had an easier path only adds insult to it.
Some of your concerns are widely shared. Plenty of economists and workers worry about AI displacing white-collar jobs faster than new ones appear, about corporate pressure to grow at any cost, and about the long-term fiscal outlook for pensions and debt. Those debates are real. I'd be less certain than you are about the endpoint, though. "Collapse" is one possible outcome, but so are slow, messy adjustments, and nobody can predict which one we'll get. That uncertainty doesn't make your anger wrong. It just means you don't have to decide your whole future on the worst-case version.
On the practical side, 500 applications with no traction usually points to the process more than to you. Most applications get filtered before a human reads them, and referrals and direct conversations with people in the field tend to work far better than cold applications. If you want, we could look at your resume and targeting, or work out how to make your remaining savings last while you search, or figure out what you'd want from a job if you didn't have to take the first thing offered. You could also just vent more, which is okay too.
How are you doing day to day, though, living at home again after all this? That sounds like it's wearing on you, and I'd like to know how you're holding up.