Thanks for all the help, everyone! I talked to my mom and she was (not surprisingly) completely amenable to the idea. I don't think she'll touch the account either. I told her I was opening it with ScotTrade but I'm sure she's forgotten by now and I'm sure that has no meaning to her anyway. She agreed to put some money into it every month in the form of a check she'll write to me. This is in addition to the money I'll put in for her.

Anybody know of a good retirement calculator? I need to figure out how much she'll have by retirement if we max out what we put into the account for the next 20 years.

Again, thanks soo much!