Am I Wrong for Wanting D's Relationship to Be Over?

Parent Cafe
141

<<<
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.
<<<

The wealthy Grands are excited for their gdau so likely they will pony-up for law school. The BF doesn’t seem to have law school in his sights, but if he does, it would likely be loans paying. need based free aid isn’t common for law school. Besides, it doesn’t seem like the BF has the drive to become an atty.

@oldfort Yes, most everyone has some classist issues. It’s hard for me to respect able-bodied people who’ve lived off welfare or similar. But, that’s not the case with the OP.


[QUOTE=""]
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.

[/QUOTE]

So true!! Recently, I told a son’s friend who is over a lot (and I feed a lot!) to put together a new Dyson I bought…lol, while son and I were putting together something else.

Aren’t kids taught to “pitch in” when they see others working??? When families go to others’ homes, don’t their parents immediately say, “Can I help with anything?”

142

It’s been interesting to read all the comments.

I don’t think the OP Dad should apologize for his feelings…even if they are racist, classist or sexist. Feelings are just that–feelings. It usually does more harm than good when people try to deny to themselves they have feelings. It’s how you act on the feelings that matters. And yes, expressing those feelings to D in the way he did was wrong of the OP and I think it’s clear he realizes that.

There’s another issue here though. This dad is very close to this child. He is upset that what he has said has damaged their relationship. That’s understandable. Still, at this point in her life, the OP should still be a parent, not a friend. Being a good parent at this stage of his D’s life means still needing to say some unpleasant things to her at times–even if that temporarily disrupts their relationship. If the OP’s remorse is because his D is miffed with him and he dislikes losing her friendship, then I think he should realize that being a good parent involves being more than a friend and ATM.

I see some bad things in this relationship. By “bad” I mean things I personally would worry about. For example, the BF is eating at this family’s 3X a week. Is part of the attraction for this young man from a poor family that this relationship creates a situation in which he has a better meal than he could afford on his own/saves him $ on his food bill? Is there a TV with as many channels at his house…or does the couple hang out at her house so he can watch things he wants to watch? Is D paying for dates for them to do things he could not afford to do on his own and is he the one driving the choice of what they do with her $? Is D driving him to do things he wants to do so he has taxi service without paying for it? I’d be really worried about him borrowing money from her for the housing deposit.

In other words, I’d be a bit worried that he IS a bit of a golddigger. And, I personally don’t see finishing 2 years of college in 4 years while working part time as an earthshattering accomplishment. And, yes, I know a fair number of poor kids, some from immigrant backgrounds.

So, I would set some rules. I’d tell D that we are fine with supporting her, but not her boyfriend. If she wants to give her BF $ for a housing deposit, that’s her business, but she has to earn that money herself–not use $ her parents and grandparents gave her for other purposes. BF is welcome to come to the family home to see her in the evening after, but we want dinner time to be family time, so he isn’t to come to dinner more than once a week. (I would have the same rules for her sisters and guests who are just friends.) When he comes, we expect BOTH of them to help with clean up. I’d try to phrase it to make it clear that it isn’t about the BF personally. We wouldn’t like any other guy who came to dinner 3X a week,never offered to help, hogged our television and living room, and took $ we gave to her to spend on his needs. Since she’s the oldest, we hadn’t come up with these rules in advance, but having lived with this situation we realize now that we’re not happy with it and we need to make some adjustments.

In other words, I think the OP has expressed some feelings that are offensive to many, including yours truly. But I suspect that at least some of the dad’s discontent has to do with legitimate issues.

143

“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.”

It’s entirely possible that this kid WAS able to get into a school “like that”, but that the financials didn’t work out. It’s not a matter of gumption. At D’s HS only one grad from this year’s class is going out of state to college. That isn’t because they didn’t get in anywhere else, it’s because once the true cost of attending a “good” school across the country, including travel is added up, it’s not something the families want to take on. A lot of them go to CC then transfer, others go to directionals, and still other go private but local and live at home. This might seem strange to people who can pay for any school their S/Ds get into, but it’s a reality for many kids in lower income homes. A boy from a previous class DOES go back east for college and he can only afford to come home 2X a year. Maybe this boy and his mom didn’t want that.

I feel sorry for families who turn their noses up at kids who chose CC then a transfer because they weren’t “good enough” to get into the “right schools”. Chances are, that’s not the story at all.

144

To the OP: I completely understand where you are coming from. She is your oldest child so your only realtime experience (and learning curve) is from her. I commend you for having the guts to come onto this forum to assist you…we are a tough group.

My mantra has always been whatever my in laws did and do the opposite. Relax. Trust your daughter, you raised her. She has those values and processed them. No child will follow you blindly…that would be a worse. Trust her and relax.

145

“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”.”

Presented or not, these are statements of fact. OP was not preparing a brief or a complaint, he was posting on a parents’ internet forum. Instead of skipping over these facts as irrelevant, multiple posters here latched onto them and interpreted these as OP’s expression of classism and racism. Hmmmm…

Here is a message for the OP: please have someone, preferably a female close to your D, have a talk with her about the importance of health exams. If she has not had an OB/GYN checkup lately, she needs to have one to establish the baseline of her sexual health. She also needs to undergo complete testing for all possible STDs. Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe that a sexually active young man would abstain from casual sex for 9 months while his girl is away at school, no matter how rich or poor he is or what cultural and ethnic background he comes from. Your D could be at risk of picking up something even if the man uses condoms - they do not offer adequate protection from many things. 20-25% of population are infected with HSV-2, and up to 80% of females have been infected with at least one type of HPV (there are about 100 of them, and her vaccine, if she had it, protects only against several most nasty ones). Sadly, there is no data on HPV prevalence in males, because there is no approved clinical test for males, but we know that men carry HPV, too, and can spread it.

146

I believe Jonri makes some very valid points. Meals, transportation, lending him money etc. and he isn’t pitching in! I don’t think so!!
If this kid was busting his backside working, extremely respectful and helpful in the OP’s home then maybe he is appreciated for his efforts and given some latitude. There seems to be no reciprocity taking place with the BF and that would concern me greatly.
I would have a tactful but direct conversation with my daughter inquiring about characteristics he has that are meaningful to her. First boy who has shown her attention? First sexual partner? She would be assured that she is loved and supported and she would be told what aspects of their relationship are unacceptable.
Our daughter has widened my eyes in positive ways I could never have imagined and she is an exceptionally bright young woman. That doesn’t mean that there are not aspects of our world that I am not far more knowledgable about. I am her Father and she would know how I feel and why I have those feelings. She and I could disagree and our relationship may temporarily suffer a bit but given the way she is loved and was raised she would not doubt for a moment that I did not have her best interests in mind.

147

^^^ Important point about the STDs.

148

As I recall, that is a work of fiction.

149

My guy abstained. So did I.

I started dating a guy two years older than me the summer before college. We were on different campuses during the academic year for the first two years of our relationship. Neither of us had sex with other people.

That doesn’t mean that the guy being discussed in this thread (or for that matter, the young woman being discussed in this thread) didn’t have casual sex during the times when they were apart in the last year. They might have. I’m just pointing out that some people don’t do it.

150

Oh yay, we’re back to yet another thread where some assume that men can’t keep it in their pants. How fun.

Yes, get your D tested for STIs because it’s smart for ALL sexually active people to do. I’m an HIV/STI counselor and I’ve heard every possible horror story you can imagine. I get tested once a year as part of my physical because it’s something I’ve been doing since I was 15 and it’s habit- not because I don’t trust my partner.

What about the D? Why is it hard to believe that he didn’t abstain but she did? Personally, I know in my relationship one of us could go that long without blinking an eye… and it sure as heck ain’t me!

151

He sounds like a moocher not a gold digger, but if I have a young man comes over to my house for three years, I know my garden will be done sooner.

152

Al Gore says it was about him.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/14/us/author-of-love-story-disputes-a-gore-story.html

153

@ DrGoogle, I’ll accept the correction. The word moocher is more accurate than my “a bit of a golddigger.”

154

“Oh yay, we’re back to yet another thread where some assume that men can’t keep it in their pants. How fun.”

Sorry romani, have to disagree. Only 15 or so percent of men identify themselves as monogamous. It is not a baseless assumption; it is statistics.

155

Haha @dadx, is there anything that is not about Al Gore?

156

Where do you get that statistic from, BB? Google isn’t turning up anything and the recent statistics I"m aware of say that women are as likely to cheat as men.

157

When my girls were young I told them, half jokingly, the old saying, “It’s just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one.” We want the best for our kids, and financial stability is quite high on the list. There is truth in that old saying, but it doesn’t mean the man’s parents must be rich, he just needs to be the kind of man who has the potential to provide financial security for the family.

I realize some might think this is sexist but I don’t care. A couple has more choices when both can be providers.

158

Yes, of course. I just meant that it was a (fictional) example of a situation in which a parent objected to his son’s relationship with a young woman who came from a poorer background and who had a different ethnic heritage.

At the time when the book and movie came out, people seemed to find its plot realistic. I don’t remember people saying, “Love Story is unconvincing because a parent wouldn’t react that way to his son’s relationship with a poorer girl, although he might react that way if he had a daughter who fell in love with a poorer man.”

I think today’s version is “It’s just as easy to love a nurse or an accountant as someone whose job can only be done in one part of the country.” With today’s two-career couples, things can be tough if one partner’s job imposes severe geographic restrictions. So watch out for those people whose careers can only be pursued in Washington, DC or Silicon Valley.

159

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.

160

I do think that if the boyfriend-not-helping was a point of contention - and I absolutely see how it could be - the OP might do well to remember that sometimes you simply have to ask for what you want. “Hey buddy, you’re welcome to have dinner here, but here we all pitch in to clear the table.” Or, alternatively, “Sweetie, your boyfriend is welcome to dinner, but it bothers me when you both sit there and don’t offer to help clear the table / when you see we are coming in with grocery bags and you’re watching a movie and you don’t bother to jump up and help get them in the house / etc.”

There have been other posts by the OP that suggest that it tends to be a family in which people don’t necessarily voice their true feelings to one another but rather hold them in and hope that other people will catch them by osmosis. I sympathize - but sometimes you just have to come out and say it.