There are very few parents who would insist on or think their kids would date someone with similar SES, same race, culture…Most of us want our kids to find an equal partner who would support them through all the good and bad in life. I look for little signs in my kid’s relationships to see if their SO could be that for them, just like what the OP is doing.
And you don’t have to married a bum to take 3 weeks off to see a World Cup. My husband, in general, have out earned me, has been supporting with household and child care, the best dad for my kids, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind letting me go somewhere for 3 weeks either. I mean it’s not a feast or famine situation.
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Mc2k, I didn't know that UCLA would be free for kids OOS. It's not clear this kid is from California.
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Yes, it’s clear… They live in Calif. Of course UCLA would not be free to an OOS student. This student is a Calif .
resident.
The opening sentence in the OP…
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D is back home in CA this summer after successfully completing her freshman year at a top university in a large mid-western city.
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I’m sorry, I didn’t read the whole thread, but I just have to say that you may not think you are racist or elitist, but the way you are speaking and acting certainly comes off that way. I don’t want to make comments about you as a person because I don’t know you, but I do think you should carefully consider how what you write, what you say (and how you say it), and how you act comes off to other people. Because I’ve gotten a completely opposite impression of you than the person you think you are (and I’m assuming are hoping to portray to other people), and this quote above did absolutely nothing to assuage that feeling (in fact, it reinforced it). You may want to consider that if the majority of people are feeling a similar way (your daughter included) that the problem may not be with everyone else.
I don’t have much to add to what others have already said, but I will say that I have a really good friend whose parents didn’t like her boyfriend because of his chosen profession and because of his and his family’s much lower socioeconomic status. She dated him for several years, ended up marrying him, and moved to another state. They are doing very well on their own, and while their life is not perfect, she is much, much happier. She no longer speaks to her parents, and they wouldn’t have even been invited to the wedding if she wasn’t worried that it would hurt her parents’ relationship with her brothers (who she did want at the wedding). I’m not saying this is the same as your relationship with your daughter, but hurt feelings can take a long time to heal and even after forgiven they are not easily forgotten. I’m not saying take a back seat when your daughter is clearly in a bad relationship, but be careful about how you approach things and pick your battles. Hurting your relationship with your daughter over petty complaints is not worth it, in my opinion. There may have been, as others have pointed out and you may have realized, better ways to address these concerns.
Yes, I thought it was a cute story, but didn’t see how it bore any relation to being unambitious. Unless it meant he lacked ambition to accompany his wife on the trip.
Don’t listen to your daughter when she says that you are a racist, classist, jerk. You are not. I understand that since you daughter is dating a boy from the “wrong side of town” you are a bit concerned. I would be concerned for my daughter if she was dating someone from a rough neighborhood. Her boyfriend seems nice though. He should offer to clean dishes after dinner though. I think that your daughter should not be lending him money in case she needs the money. Tell your daughter to stop giving silent treatment. I hate silent treatment. It is so childish. But at the end of the day, I think that her boyfriend is a good guy. She is an adult and can date whomever she loves.
-Best of luck
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And you don't have to married a bum to take 3 weeks off to see a World Cup
Yes, I thought it was a cute story, but didn’t see how it bore any relation to being unambitious. Unless it meant he lacked ambition to accompany his wife on the trip.
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I’m still scratching my head over @dstark 's claim that he’s not ambitious! lol Maybe he means he’s not the type to work 60 hour weeks or something. He’s not some sloth. He’s an amazing investor and I hang onto every word he says about money.
@oldfort - Meets full needs does not mean that the school pays for travel, books, etc. just because it is included in the COA. My son goes to one of the most generous schools in the nation. Two trips to school, books, and spending money are factored into the COA. At his meets full need school, my son has a $3,750 summer earnings contribution and $2500 in work study. In addition to that, he has a $2,100 health insurance bill and the taxes he has to pays on his scholarship money. Add those figures together and you are talking about approximately $10,000. IMHO, that might explain why a child from a low-income family who has to help support his family may not be able to attend a meets full needs school. While the cost of my son’s education is much less expensive than the cost for most of the students who attend the university, it isn’t free.
I think your daughter’s boyfriend is worth two of you in the ways that truly count. He seems to be doing his best toget an education while helping his mother. He treats your daughter well. Not helping in the kitchen may be an ethnic thing that your daughter could casually mention to him.
I suspect the real problem is that you do not want your friends to know your daughter is dating a son of an immigrant house cleaner.
Seriously would you rather she be dating a wealthy white kid from a first tier school who treats her like trash?
You asked why you should pay good money to send her to school so she could marry a poor guy of another race and live in poverty. Silly me thought you might be sending her to school because you. Love her. Plenty of women earn more than their husbands these days. Or he might get a good job after graduating fro college.
We may have taught our “child” relatively late on this. But when DS accompanied his GF to the home of her elder brother’s family for a little bit too many days (we were not sure why they had to be in that city for so many days), we reminded him before his trip that he needed to occasionally offer to do dishes after dinners occasionally. Do not laugh at this: we still reminded him of this even though he was mid-twenties! We reminded him because we were not sure whether he would remember to offer this or his GF would remind him. We want her elder brother and her sister-in-law to be on his good side.
We did not know whether he did this in the end. But I heard he (as well as his GF) spent a lot of time being almost a full-time “baby-sitter” to her nephew and niece because they almost “glued” to him and her while they were awake. I heard the children are 5 and 7 years old. Before they had left, their parents had them take their two young kids to the Legoland for half a day. They bonded with each other so well during those days that both kids cried when they had to leave.
I think DS has definitely done his fare share of “chores” while he was there (for almost a week.) I also heard he took their whole family out for a dinner one time even though his family is more well-to-do than him.
However, in my educated guess, his GF may pay more than he does in their date, mostly because of the apparent differences in SES in general.
Somehow I think that his GF intentionally introduced DS to her family members one after another, likely because she wanted him to “win” her family member’s “approval”. This tells me that her family is likely very important to her. (This is not a bad thing, I think.)
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I suspect the real problem is that you do not want your friends to know your daughter is dating a son of an immigrant house cleaner.
Seriously would you rather she be dating a wealthy white kid from a first tier school who treats her like trash?
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lol…well, it’s not as if there are only two groups of men out there…poor immigrants and affluent a-holes.
Maybe he’d prefer she be dating a wealthy white kid from a first tier school who treats her with love and respect. It’s not like all wealthy kids are jerks.
That said, when I married my DH, he had nothing, absolutely nothing but a high IQ, a very strong work ethic, a degree from a third tier school, and tons of ambition. He is now a wonderful father, husband, and successful businessman.
My mother once told me “I want you to marry for love; marry a really nice guy. But I hope you fall in love with a very nice rich guy.”
When I told her about my new BF (now DH), however, the first thing she asked was “How does he treat his mother? His grandmother?” She felt like that would say more about him than anything else.
There’s a possible interesting side issue that may come up at some point…
Last fall, I think I recall the OP saying that the Grands can be manipulative with their money… If so, there may be a financial ultimatum brewing…
Can’t read 13 pages but I’m not going to beat you up at all. I understand your feelings and you are entitled to them.
You sound like my loving dad and mom did almost 40 years ago before I married my H. They were worried for me for unfounded reasons. It was one of the very few times that a line got drawn in the sand since I really did know better than they did. Don’t ruin your relationship with your D. Your words hurt deeply. You’ve been accepting and are now rejection. My dad changed his tune when he knew the battle was lost but it took a while to get back on common loving ground.
My concern wouldn’t be that D picked a bad match–the match hasn’t been made. And if the match has been made, then he probably provides what your D needs to be happy in a relationship. I would only be pointing out that she’s still young and to not close herself off from meeting and dating others if only for comparison.
Grandparents don’t get a vote. Nobody gets to vote.
Don’t judge as best you can–my sister married a wonderful, very talented guy with not a lot of “etiquette” training.And yes, parents complained about that too which was never helpful. Never knew what to do in a lot of social situations (including offer help with dishes) But he’s learned and they’re happy still after 30 years.
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There's a possible interesting side issue that may come up at some point....
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Last fall, I think I recall the OP saying that the Grands can be manipulative with their money… If so, there may be a financial ultimatum brewing…
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Ok…I went back and looked at the backstory with these Grands. This post was before last fall.
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That's [the grandparents'] M.O. There always will be strings attached to any "gift." (Case in point: when ex and I got married, they made a "gift" to help us with a down payment on a house, but when the divorce happened, suddenly the "gift" was really a loan and they sued me for repayment.) They want to be in a position to dangle the $ to get the strokes they want and if they don't get them, they want to be able to cut you off.
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And these same Grands financed their daughter’s divorce and custody battle which drove the OP into bankruptcy.
BTW…the Grands net worth is more than $20 million. Oh, and the Grands play favorites and indicated that they will only help with this GDau’s college, because she is their very obvious favorite. The other 2 GDau’s (who are their blood), get the short end of the stick.
Anyone wanna bet that if this BF/GF relationship keeps going, the Grands are going to play the Money Card?
“I think the Heinz guy who died in a plane crash and his wife is now Kerry’s wife must be in this category. She is from South America and he is a heir to a soup company.”
?? Teresa Heinz was from a relatively affluent family before she married the Heinz heir. Neither of them were from the wrong side of the tracks.
She is a daughter of a doctor but I think her family 's wealth in South America probably not as rich as her husband’s wealth from USA. Not wrong side of the tracks. But standard of living is different from country to country.
Interesting, I’m not reading this as the girl is white. In my neighborhood, the girl would be Asian and the guy is white, have you heard of European house cleaner, I have business card stuck outside of my door advertising this, so I’m not making it up.
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I’m not reading this as the girl is white.
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do you mean the OP’s DD? Yes, she is white.
The mother of the OP’s BF does not speak English, but I don’t know what his ethnicity is.
I am a little bit slow today and I do not get it. Could someone explain this to me? (Why would the girl be Asian and the guy be white in DrGoogle’s neighborhood? Is the white the richer one or the Asian the richer one?)
One of my coworkers is white and his wife is Asian. I heard they currently live in the house of the wife’s parents. The coworker occasionally complained that their in-laws treated them “like children”, insisting on doing many things for them - things that they totally can handle by themselves years ago when they were still college students. It seems they are very eager to move out as soon as they can. (It seems somewhat funny that they choose not to tell the inlaws they plan to move out but they think the inlaws may have known about their plan but both sides do not want to bring up this topic.)
Not speaking English does not automatically imply the family is poor these days. In recent years, I happen to know a few families who barely speak English but are relatively wealthy. They have made money in their home country before they immigrate to US (that is why they, rather than those poorer families in their home country, have the financial means to immigrate here.)