I came home every weekend for the first two years of college. I pretended it was for work but it was really to see bf. I don’t think I failed college.
That’s a fair point. If she jumped up and helped and he sat there, that’s very different. Maybe the OP can clarify?
There’s also one more subtlety to the chore thing. The OP’s daughter lives in a household where all the kids are girls, and she’s the oldest, so probably the first to have a steady boyfriend. She may not understand what her parents’ expectations of a male guest who spends a lot of time in the household would be, even if she or her sisters have had female friends who spent a lot of time at her family’s house.
It’s not just the boyfriend’s family that might have some traditional sex-role expectations. I think all of us do to some extent. It’s just that the extent varies from household to household and individual to individual.
I think everybody’s exaggerating the need for expanded horizons (especially in the boyfriend/girlfriend realm) during college. But I guess that’s just me.
My kids have very clear expectations, husband brings home half of the bacon, but do most of the clean up. Wife cooks the bacon.
I just can’t shake the feeling that if this was poor woman and rich man that there would be some different responses- either by the OP or others.
And for the life of me, I still can’t figure out why it’s fine for the OP’s D to major in PoliSci but not him. Or why she’s going to end up in a shack if she stays with the poor man. Is she not capable of earning a salary? Why is her future financial success dependent on his? Has he proven to be irresponsible with money?
Amen. I mean, if they were getting degrees in something more… idk, real, it would help. Yes, other posters, please jump on me and explain that PoliSci is a fine degree and how your kid, cousin, or great-nephew is doing just fine with their PoliSci degree. It might give some good ideas for OP’s D and BF to make a living after they graduate.
I think, OP has the money or GPs money to pay for law school. Not sure if BFs family falls in this category. I don’t know anything about financial aid for law school.
If someone spent that much time in my household over a 3 year period, I’d have started assigning tasks a long time ago. If OP and his wife haven’t done that (with his DD or the BF), they are part of the problem.
Also, it sounds like the conversation OP had with DD was the result of years of pent-up frustration coming out, including frustration from other family members’ expectations that OP would “deal with” the situation. If you’ve ever been around someone who keeps his feelings to himself until he is so angry he can’t hold it in, and then really lets loose, you get the idea. If the DD had never heard a word of complaint, and then suddenly was flooded with complaints, it probably shocked and hurt her.
So the question is where to go from here. It sounds like setting some ground rules about visitors, for this DD and her sisters is in order. And then, admit that you can provide plenty of opportunities for your offspring, but they are going to grow up to be adults and there is only so much of their lives that you can control. Watch with love and wonderment, set a good example, offer advice only with caution and only when asked, and hope for the best.
And as far as the DD having plans for law school…Now that all my kids’ friends are at least 4 years out of high school, I have a much better appreciation for the old wisdom that man plans and God laughs.
It is quite understandable that most parents want their kids to date people from the same SES, cultural, racial and religious background but not many dare to admit it on CC. So the disappointed OP is trying to find (non-existent?) blemishes on the BF who do not match his expectations. I am wondering what the BF’s mother is saying to him about his relationship with OP’s daughter.
This thread made me thinking. My daughter is the same age as OP’s daughter and also an upcoming sophomore in a private college. But from this point the tables are reversed. She is telling me that in her group of college friends she represents the cultural, SES and religious diversity (she is an immigrant’s daughter on finaid) although she is white and not poor (she thinks she is poor because I tell her that $5 coffee is expensive). She now has a college boyfriend from a “good” family from the South that I have never met (they might have met my daughter, I am not sure) There is even a possibility that his father is a lawyer. I would assume that backgrounds of our families are pretty different. Very interesting what will happen when parents finally meet and how this relationship will evolve. When we meet I may fail the “inspection”. By the way in our culture women do the dishes.
The biggest mistake the OP made was bringing this issue to CC so that everyone could jump down his throat- especially those who have never been parents and have no idea what they would do in the same situation.
The OP says in one post that the D wasn’t helping either. So perhaps instead of the D being brought down to the boy’s level, HE is following HER lead and not helping. Maybe she helps when he isn’t there but would rather be on the couch with him when he is. If that’s the case, blame is being incorrectly placed. Also, since I do work with families like his, I’ve seen that it takes some time-like a whole generation, for cultural norms to be replaced.If the boy is from a culture where boys are not expected to do housework, it really might not occur to him to help.
For those saying the dad is just concerned and not racist/classist, I doubt it. He goes on about the wrong side of town, living near an ethnic restaurant (?), mentions the kid’s income level, the mom’s menial job, and makes a point of saying he’s a different race. If none of these things mattered to him, he wouldn’t have mentioned them. They DO matter, and his D called him on it. He got offended.
Op,
I haven’t read all of the posts, but pages 1-3 were great so far.
Being slightly cynical, my biggest concern would be wondering if your D is mainly drawn to the “rescuing” part of the relationship more than her BF himself? This can be a common psychological issue for women and it would be good for her to at least realize that this might be a thought pattern for some women, analyze it in her own situation, and see if it applies to her or not.
My second concern is that she has lent him money. I hope that this is due to a special circumstance and does not become a pattern of him constantly borrowing money or using her like an ATM machine. I basically just would want to make sure that BF is not “using” her.
If he is around the house so often, you all should basically start treating him like family, which includes:
- Frankly telling him how to help out with chores
- Hanging out watching TV all together
- BF talks and interacts with the sisters
- Having conversations whereby he learns about the bigger world around him
- Mentoring him in his JC/college/job choices
- Teach him to drive and help him get his driver’s license (even if you are poor, it’s weird to live in CA without a driver’s license. He could help drive her car).
It will be very rare indeed for this long distance relationship to last 3 more years. But 1-6 would make the ride much more pleasant and enriching for everyone involved.
Lastly, you are being sexist. If your D was a boy and the BF was a girl, would you have as much of a problem with the situation?
Please apologize and find some way to take back your words.
Small edit: read a few posts about BF mom’s car. Our cleaning lady in CA takes the bus. So many cleaning ladies do not have cars.
Maybe he would. Remember Love Story?
Albert, I think the “expand your horizons” can be a value of attending college. I think the colleges are also on board with this by trying to assemble a diverse student body, having broad general education requirements ( so students are exposed to different academic subjects no matter what they major in), foreign language requirements and making study abroad programs available. I understand that how much someone wishes to broaden their horizons is a personal choice.
My “bias” for doing this in college comes from the perspective of being a wife and mom and I see the difference between broadening my horizons now and when I was a single college student. It isn’t easy to take a class, or a trip, or try to meet new people when your day is focused on being available to pick up the kids, or having to cancel your plans to so something to sit in the pediatrician’s office because your kid has a sore throat.
This is one reason why I would urge college students to take advantage of the opportunities they have because at this stage of their lives, it is not as complicated to do so. I recognize that for some students, this could be an economic challenge, but many colleges have scholarship funds for some opportunities that they can apply for, and it is still more affordable to travel, see a play, take a class, as a college student than as a mom who would need to find a sitter to do these things.
From the perspective of a college student, I can relate to wanting to skype with my boyfriend ( if we had skype then) but if I was a parent of a child in Chicago, I’d be wishing she’d be spending her free time at a show,a museum, listening to a debate on campus, spending time with friends from different places or backgrounds, or taking an interesting class, because if her plans are to also be a wife and mom one day, and the relationship is solid, there will still be time to be with that guy, but less time to see that play or take a class. Still, I recognize that a student may or may not have the same point of view about this.
I wonder if the OP would think differently about it if she had met the boyfriend at U of Chicago. There’s a part of me that thinks it would be a heck of a lot easier to “accept” someone from that kind of background if they had the gumption to get to a school like that.
How did D and BF originally meet? Did OP not send D to private high school?
It is my observation that at DS’s college and at his current school, it is very unlikely to meet somebody who grew up from such an extremely disadvantaged background. In my wild educated guess, there may be at least 40% of full pay students at his college, and at least 20% full pay students at his current school. (The former school has much more “social engineering” by means of need-based financial aid to the students.)
DS met his GF at the same school. But I think that, in terms of SES, our family is likely lower than her family (e.g., being a $$ public school kid vs a $$$$ private school kid before college.) Hopefully, he could get some “bonus points” because of attending the same school. However, in the back of my mind, the notion of “a marriage is a union of two families rather than just a union of two individuals” (which I learned of from the Internet) still makes me wonder whether there is still some hurdle for them to overcome there.
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I am with OP on this one. I don’t believe he thinks the bf is not right for his daughter because he is poor.
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That may be so, but he goofed by including points that just sounded classist and racist.
He’s an atty…and a well-paid one. He should know better than to step on his point.
Correction…he didn’t just step on his point, he outright crushed it.
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How did D and BF originally meet? Did OP not send D to private high school? <<<<
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I don’t think so…not unless the Grands paid for that. The dad says that they met in HS. I think they went to public.
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The biggest mistake the OP made was bringing this issue to CC so that everyone could jump down his throat- especially those who have never been parents and have no idea what they would do in the same situation. <<<
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I disagree. The mistake was not presenting the best facts…he seems directionless, he seems not to be very ambitious, he seems to be a follower, he seems to be a bit lazy, and anything else that is relevant when choosing a life partner.
MoWC…you’re an atty as well. you know better than to distract from the issue at hand and mention irrelevant things like “lives near an ethnic restaurant” and “mom is low income and cleans homes”.
I would say almost everyone is classist in their own way, but just afraid to say it. Some may look down on rich people, and some may look down on poor people. The best people in the world are people just like us.