My [23F] mom is in jail and sends these little 4 second voice messages that cost $5 to listen to and gets really upset when I don’t.

My mom is in jail for drug charges. She calls me every day and it costs around $3-5 per call and I’m fine with paying that because I’ve always been close with her and I don’t live near her so I can’t visit. The jail has this system where the inmate can send voice messages to you, and it texts you notifying you of the message, but it cost $5 to listen to. They are always just like 4 seconds and just say “I love you and I’ll call you later.” I understand this system would be good if she for some reason couldn’t reach me and had an important message, but that’s never the case.

My mom gets really upset when I don’t listen to them. I think the underlying reason is because she’s upset to be in jail and wants to feel close to me. But she even cried a little bit once I didn’t check them. I just think it’s unreasonable to expect me to pay $5 to hear “I love you”.

How do I tell her I’m not going to do it without hurting her feelings?

tl;dr my mom expects me to pay $5 to listen to a short voice message several times a d

Submitted January 30, 2019 at 10:59AM by bklove1 http://bit.ly/2WxYyXY