<p>I would agree with this. If you’ve gone through the numbers with the kids and the answer is still–we want to get married–then get on board with the program and move on. </p>
<p>As for not continuing paying for college, I don’t see it as cutting off funds. I see it as–now you’re an adult and it is now your responsibility to take care of your own bills, including college. It’s all part of treating them as the adults they are.</p>
<p>As for not being able to attend the wedding in the Mormon temple, I’d also get over that. If the kids are devout Mormons, being civilly married and going to the temple later to please non member parents is not going to happen. Give it up. I have been involved with some of these weddings. What the kids have done is to have a very tasteful “ring ceremony” with bride wearing the wedding dress and the groom dressed up also. There is a Mormon bishop there who talks about marriage, just like at a regular wedding, except that instead of pronouncing them man and wife, the bishop will say something like “x and y were married earlier in the day at the temple, but they want to exchange rings now to symbolize blah, blah, blah.” It is very nice and then the reception starts.</p>
<p>My biggest concern is that the bf will turn out to be a longterm layabout. But you just can’t tell about someone at this early date. I know that my father thought that my fiancee was going to be a disaster, but he turned out to be a great husband. </p>
<p>My advice: move on from things you aren’t going to be able to change. Accept this young man as a member of the family, as he soon will be. Be ready to be there if this marriage turns into a disaster. If this marriage works out, then you’ll be dealing with this guy for a long time.</p>
<p>The oddities of this state are almost too wierd to explain. Emeraldkity4’s post about her sister’s celestial marriage and 5 kids starting on the wedding night was a good reminder why I sent my own kids to catholic school here for 12 years and why I’m paying for college on the east coast for DD1 and hopefully DS to follow in 2 years. They are truly brainwashed to think something is wrong with them if they aren’t married at 21 and they have kids immediately. It’s the norm here. All of the campuses here have married dorms. Most people I work with have kids who marry at 18 and are living in the basement because they can’t support themselves. They start popping out kids before they finish their education or get jobs to support them. They buy houses and cars and their incomes never have time to catch up with their lives. We also have the highest bankruptcy stats in the country. I’m grieving along with my friend because a year ago this girl said she would never be so silly to marry young or be brainwashed into this religion. I do agree now with most of the posters that supporting her to finish school is the best thing. She will need it to fall back on. It would be nice if kids came with manuals that told you what they were going to spring on you in the future so you could at least prepare :)</p>
<p>There’s a very good chance this, um, relationship will turn out badly. The odds of it turning out badly could be greatly reduced by any number of actions, none of which are likely to occur. That’s sad, but that’s life. The parents are committed to helping their D achieve the best possible start in life. The D is committed to ignoring parent’s wishes. That’s also sad, but that’s also life. And so I side with oldfort. Pay the girl’s tuition and books. Do it as an act of faith, and love.</p>
<p>Many colleges have married student housing. They are more like apartment buildings–I wouldn’t characterize them as dorms. Mormon colleges don’t have a monopoly on married students.</p>
<p>The whole brainwashing thing–this blanketing stereotyping of all Mormons with this tripe is ridiculous.</p>
<p>I do not mean to bash any religion but more to explain how the culture here affects the decison making process of the people. There are lots of different levels of people who practice their religion here. I am generalizing. Telling them to live together or how it’s awful to have a ceremony that their parents can’t attend just doesn’t work. I’m sure there are married students on other campuses. I’m not sure any state lists their average age of divorce as 20 though. That was a fun fact I learned at a required divorce class when I accompanied a friend who had to take it.</p>
<p>of course some colleges have married student housing, especially if they have grad schools.
Some religions may also encourage young people to wait until they have finished with their education- or until they are in their late 20s and independent to marry.
But the question wasn’t asked about those religions.
While the family not being able to participate in the ceremony may seem like a small deal, it is indicative of a wedge that can push the family apart.
Of course I am just referencing my own experience- I wouldn’t presume to speak for all families.</p>
<p>However- now that I think about it more- if I had a child and I was still considered their guardian, I would happily assist them to finish an undergrad degree.
But.
If they felt that they were independent enough to marry- which is a huge step, I would feel it would be inappropriate to continue to pay for the education to the same extent, because that would be usurping their status as being independent adults.</p>
<p>16 years ago, my H’s cousin married a woman who was old enough to be his mother and had two kids that were not that many years younger than he was. He was in college when he met the woman, and his parents immediately refused to pay a cent more if he should get married. So he quit college, got married and is now still happily married with a beautiful daughter.</p>
<p>Sometimes the strangest relationships work. I would not be happy if any of my kids wanted to get married in college because they just do not seem mature enough for such responsibilities and decisions. However, I am very much aware that they may choose to do so anyways, and I can be nasty about it or gracious. I don’t have to agree with their decisions, nor do I have to put myself way out for them as such a decision is truly a declaration of independence. I would not want to heap more challenges onto their situation. Life is difficult enough without making it more miserable.</p>
<p>I was skeptical of the claim about Utah’s average divorce age was 20, so I checked on the web. The sites I found said the average age of marriage for Utah women is around 21, for men, 23. The median age of divorce for women is 29, for men, 31. (Sorry, don’t know how to link here, but you too can use teh Google.)</p>
<p>Utah’s marriage rate is much higher than that of other states.</p>
<p>If I could afford it, I would pay for my child to finish school. I would also urge them to go to pre-marriage counseling. I googled Utah marriage and it looks like there’s a govt agency that provides pre-marriage classes (online too), even offering a class called “How To Avoid Falling In Love With a Jerk.”</p>
<p>I believe as parents it is our job to let our children know about our opinion and what experience in life had taught us about this particular issue. But they should be able to make their own judgement and decision. However, I always told them that you are free to make your own decision, if you think that you wouldn’t regret it no matter what.</p>
<p>It’s a rough situation. Get the whole family, including the fiance, into counseling to “smooth things out” and pray the fiance says or does something horrific in counseling that motivates the daughter to put the wedding off for a bit. The one thing I know is that however miserable the parents are now, they will be even worse off if their relationship with the daughter is permanently damaged.</p>
<p>My dear friend and her family are LDS members, and both of her children attend BYU. By the way, my friend even kind of rolls her eyes when talking about the culture at BYU being very, very “mormon”. It’s evidently pretty much understood that guys who are there in school after returning from their two year mission are looking for a wife. Her youngest child attending there is a girl and is a music/dance/theater major and really does not want to marry early…she wants a career first. We will see! My friend is kind of holding her breath on that, I think.</p>
<p>Her older child, a son, did almost exactly what they OP talked about: he and his (now) wife married after their second year in college. They had known each other for a long time, though, and just “found” each other during college. The parents of the wife are great people and also friends of ours, but they chose to not help their daughter at all with tuition after the marriage. The young couple seem not to resent it at all, but the guy’s parents are still paying his tuition as they would have if he were still single. This kid plans to attend dental school (which HE will pay for), and his wife has had to drop out and work at whatever she could to make ends meet. </p>
<p>These kids are wonderful together and seem supremely happy. I personally think that it’s a shame the girl’s parents are not supporting their daughter’s education as I would want my daughter to finish school, regardless. </p>
<p>And I think it’s a shame to bash the LDS church for their beliefs and practices. All in all, I have great respect for them. They do huge amounts of community work and support, and every single thing in that church is done on a volunteer basis. They are not about “brainwashing”…they just hold firm to their beliefs, IMO. </p>
<p>So I would advise these parents to get out of the business of holding their support of their daughter’s education hostage so their daughter will do what they think she should do. As many have said, they are in real danger of ruining their relationship with their child.</p>
<p>I don’t see not paying for a married offspring’s education as trying to get him/her to do what the parents think he/she should. I see it as respecting that offspring’s adulthood. Full-grown adults pay their own way, manage their own lives, own their decisions and responsibilities. To believe the offspring needs my help strikes me as pretty disrespectful to that person; I’d rather demonstrate my confidence that the new couple can manage. Sure, there will be mistakes and stumbling blocks, but then, there are for everyone of whatever age when they make a major change. I’d trust that they will learn as they go along. I’d be sympathetic when difficulties arose, but let them know that I’m sure they will be able to solve/deal with them.</p>
<p>Owlice–You’re a better human being than me if you can honestly and straight-faced say “I’m not cutting you off for *my *needs and wishes–it’s all about my respect for you!” --cheerfully. It’d be BS if I said that. That kind of dispassionate “yup, there are no other issues here–have a great life” outlook seems predicated on ignoring the ramifications and underlying truths–that cutting 'em off means hardship, that they’re going to see it as personal despite all remonstrations to the contrary etc.</p>
<p>Parents help their married kids all the time–getting down payments together, grad school, help with things for grandkids. I’ve never seen that called disrespect before, certainly not on CC where those kinds of help are often refered to. My FIL wanted to see his son in medicine, so he helped pay–H wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise. He also lent us money for a down payment many years ago. And if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been for personal reasons–they were offers without strings. I still felt like a grown up.</p>
<p>Personally, if I was the kids, I’d rather hear"we hate that loser so we’re not paying for school" rather than “Oh, gosh, it’s a sign of our *respect *for you.”</p>
<p>Overall, I agree with those who say, look at the big picture–what’s better, her being educated and not saddled with loans, or the converse? Control is never pretty.</p>
<p>I guess I grew up differently. Once we were married we were totally responsible for our finances and I would never even think of asking for my parents for money. We got married right after we graduated from undergrad, but paid for our own grad school, cars, house, etc. We just waited longer to get those things. Do you think it is just different today becuase so many parents do so much more for their children? I am pretty sure that if I had decided to marry during undergrad, I would have known I was responsible for all my costs, tuition and all.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a matter of asking. It’s a matter of offering, or not. I’m guessing Soozie didn’t ask her parents to keep paying for college; they offered to. H certainly didn’t “ask” his father to help with med school expenses (on top of our six figure loans), FIL offered to. Didn’t ask for the loan of down payment–FIL offered. Maybe he had ulterior motives, wouldn’t have had “My son, the doctor”, grandkids would still live over a pizzeria, but the facts were–he saw he could help, and offered. There were no expectations, just family helping family. When he was ailing, it sure was helpful for his doc son to make an eight hour round trip to help oversee his medical care, on an almost weekly basis. But that’s not why he did it. Family helping family–mutual respect.</p>