I guess I am confused as it sounds like it does bother you a lot. I have friends, and my s’s have friends who took time off after college to travel the world with a backpack and little else. This is not unusual. How long was his winter break that he spent skiing? 2 weeks? 6 weeks? Did his employer close down at all for the holidays?
Companies these days are getting more and more willing to give extreme amounts of time off. This may not be true for part time college students, but it is becoming a more common trend with many big employers. Some companies offer unlimited vacation time (again, for fulltime employees).
Is your DH divorced or widowed? If divorced, what does his bio mom think about all this? Is she providing any funding to her bio kids? How many of the kids are yours vs his? Do you have an ex contributing to your kids’ school costs? I am not meaning to pry, but trying to understand the family logistics, as you also mentioned you have younger ones in the pipeline.
But why does it bother his dad? Is he afraid he won’t get a job after college? Or that he’ll get a good one and leave it? We can advise our adult children but sometimes we just have to let them live with their choices. Your stepson seems to have longterm plans and they don’t sound horrible, so I don’t understand why your husband would begrudge him a few ski trips.
Is your husband planning to skip his son’s graduation? Will he attend but refuse to pay for the siblings to go? Or will he pay for everyone to go, but refuse to take him out for dinner afterward? I’m not sure how your husband is envisioning the graduation playing out, but he needs to make some decisions. If he waits too long, hotels will fill up and restaurant reservations will be hard to come by.
“he actually has a friend that LEFT a lucrative career in engineering to live in a van and ski all the time oye.”
So? That engineering career and degree will always be there. YOLO and YOYO as they say. Life’s too short to march lockstep on some path from cradle to grave without exploring some interests and enjoying the planet we’re on. As long as it isn’t harming others and as long as a person can find the means to do it, more power to them. Who’s he hurting? Doesn’t it sound at least a little bit fun and cool?
I’ve long been a fan of lemming cartoons as someone who has an independent streak.
His mother is uninvolved - emotionally and financially, long ugly story… I do think most people would be less than happy to see their college educated adult son live in a van!
My husband and I foot all the bills for both sets of kids, no child support from the exes - we both got a good shaft by the legal system - but oh well.
And no his employer didn’t close down for the holidays. He came home for the actual holiday and then went out west from Dec 26 until the first day of class (Jan 10 or so).
@austinmshauri I am not sure yet what he will do, but we have a hotel (I travel for work, so did points for THAT part) and a dinner reservation already so if we decide to go ahead and travel there etc. we are set. I suspect my husband will cool off over it and it will be all a go, sometimes he just has to huff and puff a bit! But we will see I guess.
With xmas and new years falling on a Sunday this past year, many companies worked only a half day on the Friday before each (closed early), and were then closed on the Monday after, so some people taking off from Dec 23- Jan 8 really took only 8 days of actual vacation (Dec 27,28,29, Jan 3,4,5,6 and the half days Dec 23 and 30). If they were closed all day Dec 23 and 30, then the 17 days off is really only 7 vacation days. That still may seem like a lot, especially for a part time employee, but it may bot be as bad as it seems. Just a thought.
Absolutely @jym626, with Christmas being on a weekend this year my kids got a nice little vacation without taking off too many days. D works in a office (not a factory which never closes) and no one was in the office this year. I think she went in one day and no one was there. She really didn’t have any work.
My H and S’s fiancé both work in industry which is 24/7. They had call around the holidays while D and S took all that time off.
OP, I hope your H cools down. His S is a normal 22 yo. To not go to graduation over this would be a shame. My D, and my S to a lesser extent were not the nicest around graduation. They were super stressed out, it’s a big step. Not every kid handles things perfectly.
Also S is not great about communication. He tells us what he wants us to know. I’ve learned to let him go as he’s a good kid. I don’t know everything but that’s ok.
Instead of worrying about number of days he is skiing and not working or if he will have a job, why not have an adult conversation with him about what he should expect from you after graduation. Knowing you won’t be subsidizing him once he graduates may be a great motivator for him to take his future more seriously. At the end of day, that’s all you can say or do. If he wants to focus on skiing for a year or two and he is not taking anything from you then there isn’t much you could do about it. You could be disappointed all you want, but he is got to be the one that wants it (whatever that “it” is).
I am doing exactly that with D2, except in her case is about working in a more lucrative career or following her dream. I told her I was fine with it as long as she was willing to live within her means. It has been hard for me not to be more generous with her. This past year has been a good life lesson for her. She knows the cost of health care, food, utilities, and how little is left for entertainment after all that’s paid. She was shocked at cost of drink could equal her hourly rate, or a dress she wants could cost a quarter of her monthly salary. She recently said to me if she has to work so hard she wants to get paid for it.
And yes, this is a first world problem, but once your ss is settled in his engineering career, he will likely be financially secure and the gift of cash will be less meaningful. Wait for that day !
My son is crazy at playing basketball. He even plays in the rain or snow. It annoys me. I told him that since he’s unlikely to be much taller than 6’ he might want to go to a D3 school to keep playing in college. He said no and he’s not going to college doing sports. I guess people know what they want and do whatever for a reason. No use for parents to worry.
I would not be at all disappointed. In fact, I like to see that my college student is taking advantage of the full college experience, including having breaks that can be used for skiing, beach vacations or whatever interests her. When I was in college, I couldn’t afford to do fun things, and I worked multiple jobs and took heavy credit loads to graduate early for financial reasons, and I missed out on a lot. Once I graduated and started working full time, there wasn’t time for all those fun things I could suddenly afford to do. So I’m really happy that my kids can take advantage of breaks and do the things they enjoy during their college years. Of course, I also like to see that my child is looking for a permanent job, and I have definitely done a little nagging about searching for jobs early and taking advantage of networking opportunities, career fairs and the like, but I certainly don’t expect her to job hunt during her breaks. There are plenty of non-break times for that.
Unless you know that his part time employer does not want him to leave for break and that skiing instead of working during spring break will adversely affect his permanent employment chances, I wouldn’t worry about that. A lot of employers expect college students to not be available during school break and don’t care at all. Presumably your son has a better handle on that than you do. And if he knows that going skiing over break will harm his permanent job prospects with this employer and chooses to go anyway, then perhaps it’s not the right job for him going forward. Same thing with the girlfriend - it’s their relationship and they have to work things out on their own.
As long as he is paying for his skiing himself, and you and your husband have been clear on the support (or lack thereof) your son can expect from you following graduation, I would not get involved in this at all. His skiing and lack of a permanent job should also have no bearing on the graduation celebration. If your husband doesn’t want to spend money to fly his sister in or have a fancy dinner, that’s fine, but his accomplishment in graduating from college has nothing to do with skiing or whether he has a job, so to make the celebration contingent on any of that doesn’t seem appropriate.
Nobody else has commented on this. I’m divorced and on bad terms with my exH and despise my offspring’s stepmother. So, yes, I’m biased. But is this for real? Unless this is limited to immediate family, I think this is a really dumb idea. High school and college graduations shouldn’t be equated. The way they should be celebrated is very different. I doubt your stepson sees a party to celebrate his stepsister’s high school graduation as equally a party to celebrate his college graduation. Is your D inviting her friends? If so, I’m sure your stepson is thrilled about partying with high school kids. He probably sees attending as a favor to you and his dad.
We did neither the catered affair for HS graduations nor the big blowout in a fancy restaurant for the college graduations so I’m a poor judge of these things. But-- nobody should spend money they can’t afford, or don’t feel like spending, on something they don’t want to fund.
We told our kids that a debt free start to their adult lives was our “graduation celebration”, and we always made a fuss at home with a cake with a cheesy plastic decoration of a kid in a mortarboard. We were proud as punch of the kids accomplishments- but didn’t feel that we had to pay a caterer or a restaurant to show our pride.
On the subject of siblings- we are a pretty close family (siblings and cousins and cousins of cousins) but we made it clear that there was no such thing as a command performance. Our kids have done us proud during funerals, weddings, and other major life cycle events by showing up on their own dime and taking time off from work. They’ve been there for ill grandparents, and have been there for cousins and aunts and uncles going through tough times. They’ve given up vacation time to help out family members, and they’ve arranged and cooked meals when someone is in need. To me- this is family.
Flying out for a graduation in the middle of your own finals? This I don’t get. I’d suggest to the D that she focus on her own schoolwork for now, and find a way during the summer to celebrate with her brother.
@toomanyteens I can relate to your frustration. It might just be a generational thing. When I was growing up many of us worked a part time job in HS and then even while in college. Now with so many generous parents, kids just do not seem to work that much.
My son runs XC and Track in HS and wants to continue in College. He is fast enough to make a team but not fast enough to get any scholarship money. To me it is a distraction that times time away from potentially working for money. That being said, I am not actually convinced he would work anyhow. Kids just do not seem to be working that much anymore.
I never never even considered the possibility that my kids would not work when I planned future budgets. I just figured they would want money and would work like I did. Nope! Big mistake on my part.
I can understand your frustration with your child and his sport. On the one hand it is nice he has found his passion. Many parents wish their children had a passion for something. That should be commended.
The question now is it right for you to pick his passion or is he free to pick it? Should he be allowed to find his way in life or will you pick it for him?
Personally I think he will move on soon once the cash crunch hits him. Skiing is very expensive and he will have to find a way to fund it. That is where the full-time work comes in.
My husband decided to keep the original plans regardless of what he does… so sister is coming, my kids will come if they can (one has prom and lacrosse so perhaps not) and we will have a nice dinner. It has been made clear to him that we are not funding anything for him past July 1 including his cell phone. So he is going to have to figure that out.
@MassDaD68 This is the thing with him and the skiing. He tends to irresponsible and reckless – it isn’t JUST that he goes. For this trip he has NO PLACE to stay, he has an older vehicle and he and an acquaintance from high school are driving his car across country to Utah. They apparently intend to sleep in the car (which I am sure won’t be legal anywhere). Honestly my husband is a bit worried he will get himself arrested. He came close on OUR wedding day when he decided to ‘stop’ on the way with his friend and crash a ski area that wasn’t open yet. And he once got a reckless driving charge for passing a police officer on a snowy road (with all our daughters in the car) because he wanted to get there quicker to get ONE MORE RUN in that day. I swear I cannot make this stuff up.
I guess when he said he wanted to be a ski bum, he meant the true meaning of it. You do not get closer to a bum than sleeping in your car on a cold mountain in the winter. Does he have a gun? He might need some protection.
