"@mathmom I know you are right-- he does however like living high on the hog - like he wants us to go there for graduation, stay overnight, fly his sister from Missouri and go to a fancy pants restaurant. It will cost us a couple grand! All so he can be a ski bum??? "
I am pointing out that the parents can be as proud as punch of their son’s graduating without flying in his sister, going to a fancy pants restaurant, or indeed, spending so their son can live “high on the hog”.
Their son is choosing to spend his money on a ski vacation. The parents can choose to spend THEIR money fixing the roof or whatever instead of spending it on a graduation weekend. NJ is within driving distance of their son; stay in a Hampton Inn 15 miles from campus to keep costs down, and bring a picnic cooler.
If the son doesn’t go skiing for spring break, is it then okay to fly to graduation, bring the sibling, go out to a fancy restaurant? It doesn’t seem he’s paying for the graduation whether or not he goes on the spring break and it doesn’t seem like he’s asking the parents for any money for the ski trip. Parents are financially in the same place either way. Son is out the money he could have made spring break and out the money for the ski trip, but he knows that.
The parents have to decide how much they want to spend on graduation. I’ve just figured out that next year I’ll go to daughter’s senior night, and then return about 3 weeks later for graduation. $$$
I also know a few people who were ski bums for awhile and then returned to enter a profession either directly or through more school. I also know a couple who went out to Tahoe and stayed, raised kids while running a ski school.
This may just be stress relief. Clearly he craves skiing right now but it would seem he is not planning on moving West.
His girlfriend might want to take ski lessons though. Or start enjoying that lodge.
Haha, you think all of our kids have made optimal choices? Or that WE did in out 20s? Oh, we understand. But he is an adult. And honestly, not the most irresponsible one I can imagine by far.
I have a sib who went to college in CO to be near skiing. He skiied over 100 days a year his last two years of college. And had a couple of ski bum years after, too. He is now 60, married and financially secure with a great kid. Life is long. He isn’t blowing it. But you could blow your relationship with him.
Who knows? Maybe having skiing as a hobby will help him make a connection with a like-minded executive? Or a connection on a chairlift or gondola chat. Such things do happen.
this is so funny to me…well, FWIW, when my brother was in college (and in the 1 or 2 years afterwards) he was a skiing fool!! He even dropped out of school for a semester just to ski! (and we were the opposite of wealthy…it was hard paying tuition at the public university). His girlfriend (a wonderful person) broke up with him…he took 5 1/2 years to get through college. Anyway…let’s zoom ahead to today…we’re both in our fifties…he has helped start 3 companies…sold one of those companies to IBM…and now is on a new start-up outside of LA. He’s married to an great person and they have twin sons and life has turned out pretty darn well. (and he doesn’t ski anymore…doesn’t even miss it).
Correct. He could have a happenstance meeting with someone in the field.
Alternatively, he is only going away for 10 days. Not a big deal. Maybe he fully intends to return after the spring break, pursue an engineering job with the consulting company, and you’ll be able to brag about him. He can have it all.
As I mentioned, we are skiiers. Older s is a passionate skiier. As is his wife. They ski a lot. They have gone heliskiing in Canada. He had a recent business trip to Colorado and then another to Salt Lake City. Skiied on both trips. You can do it all (he is an engineer too). When he was younger, right out of college, he turned down 2 “corporate” engineering jobs to take a riskier one at a small place that went belly up due to the economy back then. It was his choice. And he was happy he made it. Our kids live their own lives, make their own choices. Your son sounds fine. He has passions. He is healthy. This is a good thing.
Re: the graduation celebration. Please plan that without considering what this kid is doing post college graduation. If you planned to have a more expensive celebration with flying sister in…why would,you NOT do this because your kid is doing something different after graduation than you thought.
We made our plans for graduation, including reservations for lodging and dinner…a FULL YEAR before graduation for both of our kids. In both cases…we flew the sibling across country to attend the event. In both cases we had a nice family dinner at a fancy restaurant.
We made our plans without knowing what our kids would,even be doing after graduation…because it was how we wanted to celebrate their college graduations.
In both cases, we were planning to celebrate this way…because we could…not as some reward for our kid getting some job or doing something we expected after graduation.
My brother was a ski bum. Still is. He’s lived in ski towns for 40+ years. He’s EMT certified and could easily get a job as an EMT, but prefers skiing and works construction in the summer. Not a bad life.
In answer to the OP’s title question, no, my wife and I would not be disappointed. (Actually, we would probably be encouraging him!)
Yes, of course we would want to make sure (1) our son’s skiing was not adversely impacting his studies, (2) that his current employer is OK with his taking the time off, (3) that he is fully aware of the expectation that he needs to find a job and ultimately support himself after graduation, and (4) that he has sufficient funds of his own to do this. Oh, and that he didn’t make false promises to his girlfriend and isn’t just leaving her in the lurch unexpectedly. But we would know all of this because we maintain an ongoing open line of two-way non-adversarial communication, and have great trust in our kid.
After that, we would be trying to figure out how WE could break away and go for a ski trip ourselves!
Close friend is a ski junkie. Moved her family out west to ski. Eldest child is a ranked skier. Skiing is as necessary to them as food and shelter. They seem to enjoy life, so I guess it could be worse.
As far as being a kidult (very amusing term), well, I was one I guess. Took me six years to graduate and I never really settled down until I was expecting my first child, tbh. I found a job that enabled me to indulge my passion for travelling while allowing me to work as little as possible. I became a flight attendant. My degree was quite useless on airplanes! I think your son will figure out his life. Not everyone is cut out for the nine to five grind.
I’d say a lot depends on how financially dependent he is on you. Start handing over expenses to him-Pay rent to live at home, pay his own cell phone bill, put money aside for medical insurance, pay car insurance…stuff like that. If he is not responsible for all those things, he has lots of disposable money and you are making it easy for him to think he can afford all the skiing. Didn’t read the whole thread. If he is completely financially independent of you, then what he does is his business.