You can’t control how your college age son wants to spend his time, and it isn’t worth damaging your good relationship to bring up your discontent with him. You’ve indicated that he is responsible for his own spending money, so it is on him to figure it out if he happens to fall short because he didn’t work enough this summer. I’m in somewhat of the same boat - S22 hasn’t worked much this summer due the limited time he had available (only about 5 weeks) and he knows if he runs short of spending money this year, that is going to be his problem, not ours. He said he plans on getting a job at school so we’ll see.
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Insightful thread with helpful ideas for my family’s decisions too
I try to keep this in mind: One temporary choice our kid makes does not predict future choices or symbolize who they will become. Its just experiential learning!
Overall, our kids are hard-working, honest, kind people with great values. They will end up at the right place in the end.
It helps me remember not to overreact when I think of times my parents did. For example, DH and I made a minor decision about our wedding that they disagreed with. They took it as a sign that we were not like them and our marriage probably wouldn’t last. Here we are, almost 25 years later, happily married, with a relationship that resembles my parents’ marriage in more ways than not!
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so very true. Great advice.
It sounds like you need to figure out why this bothers you so much, and you mentioned upthread that you’re struggling with that. Is it that he’s simply not doing what you want him to do – the change in the relationship? Control? Is it that you feel taken advantage of/for granted? Is it the money? The girlfriend? Envy? Hurt that you’re not the priority? Your own feelings about money?
The answer may be hard to tease out, but it may lead you to a solution.
I love how aware you are of maintaining a good relationship and the importance of it. That doesn’t have to mean saying nothing. You can have a candid conversation with your son about your feelings as you let him do what he wants. You can acknowledge that you know you micromanage and explain why. You can explain that navigating the change in relationship as he matures is probably more challenging for you as a parent. You can explain your concerns for the upcoming year and that his stress is also your stress (not healthy and also soooo common.) Put differently, when you work out what you’re feeling, a conversation with him about it could actually strengthen and advance your relationship with your adult child in a way that having to figure it out on your own won’t. And of course if there are things that really set you off, like being the bank, you can control that. But you also have to let him know those boundaries up front.
Ultimately, you want to have a great relationship with your adult child. Both of you need to adjust how you see and treat each other, recognizing that you’ll always be the parent. It sounds like you’re just transitioning to the next phase.
Good luck!
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I really leaned into unplugging this past week on our family vacation. We had a truly wonderful week together. We also had a good and productive talk with our son. He’s going to his girlfriend’s home next week, but he already has job interviews set up at school for when he returns, and is working day and night (literally) with his lawn care business this week and making quite a bit of money. He ended his unpaid internship with the best possible review and standing job offer. Bottom line, he (independently) sought out the extra work to make up for lost income and already paid my husband back the $100.
He’s a great kid (guy!) and knows how much we love him. Our talk ended with a very long hug. I’m grateful that we have such a good relationship with him. I cherish my relationships with my kids, no matter their age, and I never want to jeopardize that.
I’m also grateful for everyone’s thoughts and for those providing their insight/experience/opinion. Even as my kids become grown and get ready to leave the nest, I’m always looking to expand/challenge my thinking, and become a better parent/person. Appreciate the space here to do that.
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I might say no as in “I will not pay for it, but you’re welcome to use your own money.”
I can’t tell how much if this is about your financial situation and how much is about your feelings about him needing to earn more money because that’s more mature. For me, because we could afford to fully support our kids we were pretty much willing to pay for whatever they wanted in college. We still pay for some things because we can. Like their cell phone. Some vacations etc…. We knew our kids were hardworking and mature. We didn’t need them to prove it to us. Our daughter chose to work extra jobs during COVID even though we offered time and again to provide her with extra money. Because we assumed that’s why she took on a clinic job and a vaccination site job in addition to her hospital job. Finally she said”, I’m just doing it because there’s not enough nurses right now and they need my help.” That’s maturity.
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