Parental pressure horror stories

jessiehl
Fri, 30 Jun 2006 04:23:19 +0000

Opie: I understand now better where you’re coming from. My personal opinion on the issue of parents paying is that parents either should or shouldn’t be willing to pay for college, and shouldn’t use financial power to manipulate the choice of major, but that’s not even really the issue. My real qualm with every situation that I described in my OP is what I consider to be the abusive nature of the situations. Two of the four that I described weren’t even related to paying or not paying based on choice of major - they were kids being harassed about grades. In the case of the other two…you said that if the kids want to do what they please in spite of overbearing parents, they can simply say that they don’t need their parents’ money and make it on their own, but you implied that if such a thing happened with your own kids, you would respect their decision to make it on their own and still have a good relationship with them. That was my point - these kids were being treated badly by their parents before they were cut off, and they were treated badly after they were cut off (and if, as in the case of one of them, you don’t warn them that you’re going to cut them off until their tution bill for next term shows up and they’ve had no chance to prepare, that’s pretty nasty too). Their parents weren’t respectful of their decisions for showing independence and maturity, they were angry because the kids were defying them, because the real purpose was Either You Play My Way Or I Punish You By Making You Come Home. It’s a very different situation from sitting down with your parents and coming to a cordial agreement that in order to be more independent you’ll be responsible for your own tuition.