<p>While I don’t think the OP should have asked and it should be the D communicating with the other D, I don’t really blame the OP either. She’s a mother and just acting motherly in trying to help her D. I think it’s best to shrug your shoulders on this one, learn from it, and just see if your D can contact the other D directly if she wants to or if not, go to plan B.</p>
<p>The other person may have reacted so quickly because of something about HER daughter that you don’t know. Or she may be afraid that there would be friction between the girls or whatever that would result in harm to your relationship. Of she may have agreed to something like this in the past and ended up with a destructive, annoying freeloader who damaged the property or annoyed her D. </p>
<p>You just don’t know.</p>
<p>I think your D ought to start her job search in YOUR city and stay at home, or find a cheap living situation in LA on her own, plus a way to bankroll herself. Your D could certainly contact the people she knows who live in LA, one of whom might be this girl. Although now that you’ve made the direct ask, it could be awkward.</p>
<p>As a mother, I certainly don’t blame you for wanting to help her, but I don’t think you should be angry at the other mother. I think you kind of put your foot in it. :)</p>
<p>I don’t think that asking if someone might have interest in a temporary sublet situation is nervy. It’s not as if the girl is asking to freeload - she’s asking if the other girl has any interest in sharing costs for a month. I don’t think it’s at all strange to mention it to the mother first if that’s the stronger connection, and then put the girls in touch. But if the answer is no, not seeing how it’s upsetting or disappointing any more than if a Craig’s List ad didn’t work out.</p>
<p>If the girl does not have enough backbone to ask the other girl herself, the mom should NOT be in the mix for a college graduate (I have one kid with backbone and one with… less, so I understand the implications of this).</p>
<p>It’s interesting, this situation. We recently had a mother of a girl ask us to do something for her daughter. It’s more along the lines of getting her resume to someone we know well, but the same idea. The mother thought “there was no problem between our daughters, though they don’t speak much.” </p>
<p>Except that girl was the leader of a group of girls who bullied our daughter terribly in Junior High. Nowadays our D might see her at something or other, but she’s never lost her distaste for those girls, and maybe never will. While that was going on, my husband was astonished girls could be so mean. (obviously, I was not, and told her to find new friends and get on with her life, which she did)</p>
<p>So, when the mother came to H to ask this favor, he very quickly said, flat out, “No.”</p>
<p>Nothing else, no explanation. </p>
<p>He actually was proud of himself for stopping at, “No.” What he wanted to say was unprintable.</p>
<p>ETA: D told him he should have passed the resume along because Jr. High girls are just mean, anyway. He said he was her father and he felt the way he felt. D just laughed. What can you do?</p>
<p>OP, I don’t think you should be upset. You said that this woman has never mentioned her daughter’s living situation, you only learned that she has a house in LA through the grapevine. This tells you she wants to keep the fact private.</p>
<p>Your D should have asked the girl herself. If she was not comfortable doing so, then there’s your answer. </p>
<p>Our D has an apartment in the NYC which we are paying for entirely until she is on her feet. After that, we plan on splitting the rent with her, so that we can continue to come to the apartment and stay in the living room on a sofa bed whenever we want. (We have a house in a nearby suburb.) D has her own bedroom.</p>
<p>Many people have asked to stay over, but if it involves the weekend and there is the possibility that we may chose to stay there, the answer is always no. D can have her friends stay mid-week. But weekends are our time. (Even if we don’t come all the time.) We have turned down cousins coming to the city for concerts, D’s friends that work late in the city waiting tables and various people hoping for a free weekend in NYC.</p>
<p>I don’t feel beholden to anyone. Sure some of them can sleep in my D’s bedroom even when we are there, but to be honest I just don’t want them there. D is fine with that, since she can squarely place the blame on me.</p>
<p>Nobody needs to justify their housing arrangements or the fact that they just don’t want to be bothered by other’s requests for (temporary) housing. It doesn’t matter how many bedrooms someone has.</p>
<p>This reminds me of a friend who thought it was her right to drop off her kids at a neighbor’s house for about 15 or 20 minutes a day every morning so that the neighbor can bring my friend’s children and her own child to the bus stop each morning. My friend felt that as a “working parent” she deserved this assistance because the other mom was a “stay at home mom” and should be wiling to help out since she could. To my friend’s surprise the neighbor said no, stating she just didn’t want other children in her house every morning. My friend was stunned–but to be honest I agreed with the neighbor. There’s being nice in an emergency and then there’s being taken advantage of because it really is an inconvenience. My friend ended up having to pay for a 1/4 hour’s worth of day care at her kid’s school, which was not that big a deal.</p>
<p>Same with this. If your D is going to move to LA, she needs to solve the temporary housing situation herself. Her two or three week visit should be part of her re-location budget.</p>
<p>Now that I go back to the OP, I see that the OP asked the mother if it would be OK for the D to stay for two or three weeks. I agree that that’s over the line and it’s the D that should have done the asking. The most she should have done is to say my D would like to speak to your D to see if she’s interested in a temporary sublet or knows anyone else who would be. Do you have her contact information?</p>
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The problem is she is not you. You are not the one who owns a large house. Of course it is easy for you to say someone should share their good fortune with your child. I don’t understand why you feelsso entitled. I think it is ridiculous for you to judge how someone else should live when you are not paying for any of it.</p>
<p>She is your child. If YOU feel it is reasonable for her to move to a new city without a job then it is YOUR responsibility to pay for it.</p>
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<p>Agreed. I’d only even bother to entertain such a request if the person asking was a close friend or a relative I’ve known for years and get along with. Anyone less close than that…no way. Moreover, I’d never entertain such a request if it came from the parent. He/she needs to ask me him/herself. </p>
<p>In fact, the only friends I know who’d entertain and approve casual acquaintances staying in their places stopped after encountering many problems ranging from guests staying well-beyond their promised stay time to turning the home/apt into a dump. </p>
<p>Having to start eviction proceedings due to weirdly worded pro-tenant state tenancy laws really tends to put a damper on one’s enthusiasm to allowing others into one’s living space…especially if it’s a casual acquaintance one barely knows.</p>
<p>OP, I think you may be at a point where you may want to step back a bit as your D makes her next change of life plans.</p>
<p>Since she changed majors more than once, I hope you see this latest choice may seem, to outsiders at least, as a bit of a wild whim. Moving across the country without a job, with the intention of breaking into a highly selective industry, without any inside contacts, a specialized education, or lots of experience, and not being loaded with funds is just plain risky. Your D should know that such a risk has consequences. Without you footing the bill, it’s really her challenge to figure out how to manage. </p>
<p>And I suggest that you scooping out a young woman of removed acquaintance who is living in a “big” house, checking it out online, and assuming anything at all about who is paying for what is simply none of your business.</p>
<p>Your D is now the one who must drive any and all life decisions, do the research, connect with friends/contacts in far off cities, learn the ropes, and support herself. If she isn’t capable of such a thing, how will she be capable of breaking into and making it in a very tough, fiercely competitive business where creative problem solving and drive and chutzpah are often the very traits needed for success? Consider this cross-country move her first challenge and then, step back.</p>
<p>One of the things that jumped out at me while reading your original post was how offended you seem that a rather distant-type acquaintance did not want to wholeheartedly join in with your arrangements. It is not a crime to want to help your own kid, but then you must give the same rights to the other mom and expect that she is most likely looking out for hers! I would never press my adult children to open their houses, disturb their comfort or privacy, or risk exposing their private property, close friends, and work associates to a virtual stranger. As a parent, how can you really know why the 2 Ds are not close? And just read the reports of roommates from hell to remind yourself that many things can and do go wrong.</p>
<p>There are simply too many good reasons why the other mom may have given you a quick no, so I’d suggest you realign your expectations and let your D take over her new dream from here.</p>
<p>I don’t even ask relatives I am on good terms with if I can stay with them if I am in the area. To me, that’s just something that always requires an unsolicitedinvitation. Someone’s home is private space, no matter what.</p>
<p>I’m betting the quick no had a bit to do with the idea you knew way more about this lady’s daughter’s living arrangement than she ever volunteered to you. Especially if the family is trying to keep a low profile.</p>
<p>It would certainly creep me out if an acquaintance asked to use the extra bedrooms in my daughter’s home when I never told her there were extra bedrooms, or even a home.</p>
<p>Why doesn’t your D just get a hotel for a couple weeks?</p>
<p>I don’t think you should be miffed. It sounds like a pretty unreasonable request to me. I would have said no, too, and I have a very large home with lots of empty bedrooms. The issue for me would have been the two or three week timeline. That is far too long for a request like this, especially coming from someone who is not a close friend. This doesn’t sound like a close enough relationship, either yours or your D’s, with this family to even consider asking this kind of favor. If your D were close to their D, and she had several interviews lined up within a few days, then perhaps, it might have been more reasonable but the request should have come from her directly to the girl living in the house, not from you to her mother.</p>
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<p>I have to echo this post. This type of job is ridiculously difficult to secure, and virtually impossible, under these circumstances. Did she study this in college? If so, she should be using her contacts there and her career office for assistance. You don’t just show up in L.A., apply, interview and get a job offer with these positions, in several months let alone a few weeks. If she’s truly set on pursuing this, and she wants to do it in L.A., she should plan to move there, probably working a job that supports her while she looks into the business. What exactly does she want to do in “tv or film production”? That is an incredibly broad description of a business that would include hundreds of different types of positions. The above quote, though somewhat harsh, is probably the most honest response you’ll get.</p>
<p>OP–just let it go. I’d tell your daughter to start looking on Craig’s List and networking to see if she can find a place to stay while she’s job hunting. I think to secure a position, it’s going to be important for your D to actually move to LA while she does this.</p>
<p>My experience–through child of friends who has done it–is that most of the jobs the OP’s daughter thinks she is going to get will be gone before she gets her application in. The whole field operates on contacts and connections–if there is a job opening, it will quickly go to someone who is tipped off by someone already there and on the inside.</p>
<p>To go out there with the idea of just getting a job in the film industry without an existing network and connections shows just how unconnected the OP’s D is. Her plan needs to be re-thought from a number of angles.</p>
<p>The D seems to live in a world of unrealistic expectations, where things like the perfect job in a very competitive industry in which she has no connections, will just fall in to her lap–maybe she gets that from her parents, who seem to expect somewhat the same–like the expectation that of course a relative stranger would be thrilled to house another relative stranger for an indefinite amount of time?</p>
<p>As far as the acquaintance’s daughter’s house–I wouldn’t be surprised if she were not the only person living in it. She may already have roommates. Maybe she is actually renting the house, or a room in the house, from another party. Maybe she runs a business from the house, or works from home, and doesn’t want to worry about accommodating the needs or whims or poor housekeeping of another person.</p>
<p>The parents are under no obligation to give details of their d’s domestic situation to any one else.</p>
<p>Especially as the girls themselves don’t seem to have any relationship themselves–as an above poster pointed out, who knows the real nature of their relationship in the past?</p>
<p>Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
Benjamin Franklin</p>
<p>That said, I can’t figure out why your daughter didn’t do the asking since she’s acquainted with the girl.</p>
<p>I see that the additional views I’m receiving here are echoing the ones I’ve received already. I suppose that’s a very strong hint for me to “let it go”, so I’ll (try to) do so. </p>
<p>I don’t think it would be a good idea for my daughter to ask the other mother’s daughter directly now, since her mother has already said no. But she can ask the other young woman for suggestions and housing ideas in the city, so I appreciate that idea.</p>
<p>We will also look into short-term rentals, thank you also for that idea - but I’ll still keep my eye open for a housing situation where we know the person who owns the home. Here in my area it’s not that unusual to have someone asking to and receiving permission for staying in a home or guest home for a period of time. Maybe not for job reasons - perhaps it’s termed house-sitting or something else (I’ll give an example - a friend has recently loaned her vacation house, for a few months, to another friend’s child who is writing a book). So I didn’t think this idea was out of the norm, but I see that I may need to confine the search or requests of this type to those with a closer connection to us. I’ll also encourage my daughter to be more proactive in contacting friends and acquaintances in her search (I confess, because she is already quite busy, I was taking the lead on this.)</p>
<p>I understand that moving to Los Angeles to begin a career in a crowded field may seem like a whim to some, but, like moving to New York or Paris, it’s a whim young people indulge all the time. I don’t think my daughter is all that unusual for doing so. I thank you for your input, which will be helpful going forward.</p>
<p>sorry, I deleted to make corrections. it would have been just before op’s response.</p>
<p>If I felt I was the right person to tackle this, not my kid, I would have written a note, somewhere including that Susie would be moving to the area in (month,) that she hoped to have interviews set up by then, and, “I hope the girls will have a chance to get together.” That opens the door, but doesn’t blindside. The ball is then in the other guy’s court, to say, oh, I hope we can help. Or not. (I might include that she hopes to find shared living and is open to tips or suggestions. I suspect DH wouldn’t even go that far.)</p>
<p>The proverbial everyone in LA wants a job in film or tv. Chances of landing an offer in a month-- the chances of even setting up an interview in advance- well… The entry level things, even if one has experience, are low. It’s a huge city and, though some businesses are congregated near each other, there are multiple centers of action. </p>
<p>Send the other family a holiday card, with some note, if you wish to keep up the acquaintance. Or, an update note sooner, if there’s good news. Good luck to your D.</p>