<p>My daughter has the opportunity to attend a three-day conference in Dubai in March. After much family discussion, we agreed that if she paid the conference registration fee and provided her “fun” money, we would pay for the airfare. I’m visiting her this weekend and told her I’d come with my credit card so she could register online for the conference…she told me she is still undecided, because she feels she’s “asking too much of us.”</p>
<p>The background to this is that for the second time in 5 years, my husband was unemployed for a lengthy period (6 months). He is working again, but things were so bleak here that he ended up taking a job on a one-year contract in WA. He’s living with his brother, and now that he’s working again, we’ll be able to save quite substantially; I fully anticipate that in the year he’s away, I’ll be able to save enough to pay college costs for the balance of this year, our daughter’s junior year, and quite a bit of her senior year too. It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s one we considered carefully, and we willingly decided to go this route (my husband is retired military, so it’s not as if we’re newbies to living apart).</p>
<p>I truly appreciate my daughter’s sensitivity and utter lack of a sense of entitlement. On the other hand, we would never have offered to pay the airfare if it was going to create a financial problem. We also told her when she started college that we would do our best to fund enrichment opportunities, because she receives so much scholarship money that we are paying less than $10K per year for college. I can think of many reasons why my daughter might decide against attending the conference in Dubai, but I hate to see her making a decision based on her perception that we’re making a huge sacrifice (which we’re not). I feel as if our unfortunate job circumstances over the past few years have led to the creation of a “Depression baby”, and I don’t know how (or even if) I can persuade her otherwise. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>The holidays are fast approaching…early gift from Mom and Dad? If her birthday is coming up like my D’s in Nov., could say it’s an early birthday gift.</p>
<p>Two things come to mind: The first is that she doesn’t really, really want to go, or pay the registration fee, so she uses this as an excuse. </p>
<p>The second is that she really does think that it’s too much to ask. My son is like that and it’s hard to get a birthday or christmas suggestion from him because he is always reluctant to ask for too much. While I admire that, it’s harder to find things for him. The other two aren’t like that. So I try to explain that I am very frugal, so if I’m offering, it means we can easily afford it.</p>
<p>I think the real lesson of being fiscally responsible is to invest in oneself. While I can’t assess the value of the conference, as a general rule, failing to invest in oneself is both personally and fiscally irresponsible in the longer term.</p>
<p>Could it also be your daughter knows you better than yourself? </p>
<p>Sometimes we put blinders on to our own situations when it involves our kids. Prehaps your daugther is perceptive about the situation and feels you should be saving money for yourselves at this point. </p>
<p>With alot of folks heading into retirement without the means to retire, maybe she is concerned for you two as chances are you will live 25-30 plus years after you quit working. </p>
<p>I apologize in advance as this post may draw some anger, but more americans are retiring “red” these days than in the black.</p>
<p>I have been to many out-of-town and overseas conferences. I have mostly seen the insides of convention centers and hotels and little of the city or country where the conference was held. If the conference is truly worth attending, a 3-day trip will leave little opportunity to do sight-seeing; it might as well be held next door. If the conference is not so attractive, is it worth spending the money to go to Dubai for sight-seeing purposes?</p>
<p>Thank you all for the replies. I spoke some more with my daughter tonight, and it now seems likely she will not go to the conference. Although she still has concerns about our “sacrifice”, she also decided she’d rather look for an opportunity where she could spend more time doing some sight-seeing (the conference is the week before her winter quarter finals, so she would have to return in a timely manner). I feel better that her decision is based on more than just some vague sense of guilt.</p>
<p>I did make the offer to open a new joint savings account that would become an education/travel/enrichment fund. I’m willing to contribute to it regularly, and she can make contributions if she has savings available (she pays for her own expenses and books). If she wants to use the funds during college, they’ll be there for her; if she doesn’t use them, she’ll have a bit of a nest egg upon graduation. She liked the idea, so I’ll be contacting our credit union tomorrow to set up the fund with a portion of the money we would have spent on airfare for the trip to Dubai. </p>
<p>Thanks to all of you for your comments; they helped me to frame the conversation in such a way that we could get past her Depression-baby mentality.</p>
<p>I just recently got back from Dubai, it’s well worth the trip if you can aford it IMO. It’s a very pleasant and beautiful city; the new projects are jaw dropping and the people are friendly.</p>