Equal Value, My Toxic Family Can Rot

My mother always preached the rule of "Equal Value Exchange." The better the college you got into, the more allowance you received.

She put a literal price tag on my and my twin brother Noah’s college lives based on our schools.

"Get into an Ivy League, and you get five hundred dollars a month."

"Get into a top-tier regional university, you get four hundred. A standard college gets you three hundred."

"If you end up at a local community college, I'm sorry, but you'll only get a two-hundred-dollar monthly safety net."