Am I a bad daughter?

Sorry for the long text.

Am I a bad daughter for not wanting to rent a place for my mom because I have other plans for my life and I don’t want to drown myself paying rent right now?

Let me explain the situation. My mom (66 y) has been in a rehab center/nursing home for almost a year, and she has no job or income because she was a stay-at-home wife/mom. My dad didn’t give her money and emotionally abused her. Before she entered the nursing home, she separated from my dad and went back to her home country. Then she got sick and was close to death, I had to travel to take care of her before her brother brought her back to the U.S. for better medical care. Once she stabilized, she was sent to a rehab center because she couldn’t walk and was receiving physical therapy.

Now she’s ready to return to the world, although she still can’t walk well. The problem is she has nowhere to go. Since she didn’t work, she doesn’t qualify for SSD, or anything like that, so the options are very limited. I spoke to a social worker who told me a good option would be for her to go to a shelter, where she could quickly get a housing voucher since she is disabled and a senior. She would have her own place and wouldn’t have to pay anything, and they would also help her get other benefits. But she doesn’t want to go because my uncle (63 y) influenced her. So she has decided to move back in with my dad, all of us together in a small ONE-BEDROOM apartment where we lived for 10 years, my sister (23) and I (25) sleeping in the living room on the couch, and every time my parents fought she would come sleep with me in my small bed, a bed where I barely fit myself.

I don’t want that life for her because I saw all the abuse she suffered. And I don’t want it for myself either because I’m tired of living this way. My uncle wants my sister and me to rent a place, but I don’t see that as smart if she’s being offered a free place, where she would have to be uncomfortable for a little while in order to live comfortably until she dies. She wants to go back to the slaughterhouse forever.

My sister and I don’t want to rent without savings. We were unemployed for two years, two years with no savings, struggling and feeling like we were missing out on life because we had no money. My sister got a job last summer, and I just got one in November. I’m saving to buy my first car and also saving to move into a good place, but I want to save enough because I don’t want to live paycheck to paycheck. I want to enjoy my youth as much as I can without worrying about money.

Paying rent now would mean abandoning all my dreams and plans because I don’t have enough money. It would also destroy my future and the future of my children because I just started working and saving three months ago. I don’t think what my uncle wants is fair. At first, my mom agreed to go to a shelter, but then my uncle came and manipulated her like he always does, and she listens to him. This has also destroyed my parents’ marriage, because even before my sister and I were born, she listened more to her brother than to the man she chose to marry. I think part of the reason my dad treated her so badly is that she would leave him to go with her brother, he feels resentment towards her and my uncle.

He says my mom sacrificed herself and gave up her dreams for us, but she had me when she was 41. She wasn’t a teenage mom or a single mom.What did she do with all the money from her youth? Didn’t she think she had to save for her future? She had a good job in her home country, she even retired there and received a good pension. I don’t know exactly what happened that they stopped giving her that pension, but instead of fighting for it, she stayed with her arms crossed.

I don’t want to repeat the same story, not saving money or building something in my youth. I want to have children when I get married, and I don’t want them to struggle with me or have to support me because of the bad decisions I made in my youth. I want to do things the right way. I want to help my mom, but I also have to help myself.