'AITA for not giving my daughter money for food since she won’t talk to the college desk to fix her food card?

"AITA for not giving my daughter money to buy food since she won’t talk to the college desk to fix her food card?"

Edit: I can't believe I have to say this...I can't force an adult to do anything. I don't have that power. Also please read comments before an info, it probably has been answered

So, my daughter recently started college in person and part of her expenses is covered by a meal plan. She is 19 and her first year of college was commuting because of her anxiety. She decided to go to college in person this year and is staying in the dorms.

The problem is her food card isn't working. It’s something that can easily be fixed by contacting the college dining services, but she refuses to go talk to them. She needs to get a new one since this one is bent.

My daughter has pretty bad anxiety, especially around making phone calls and talking to people in authority. I’ve told her repeatedly that all she needs to do is go to the dining services office, but she won’t do it. As a result, she’s been skipping meals and calling me, upset that she’s hungry. I have expressed multiple time that she needs to handle this and go talk to the people.

I’ve refused to step in and handle it for her. I got a call today asking me to give her some money to buy food at Walmart. I told her no and told her to go talk to the people. This resulted in an argument and she thinks I am being a huge AH. My spouse thinks I’m being too harsh and send money or fix it for her.

The internet had plenty of thoughts about the situation.

Active-Anteater1884 wrote:

OK, you're in a tough situation. On the one hand, you can't let your daughter starve, obviously. :) On the other hand, what is she going to do? She needs to be able to make a phone call. She needs to be able to deal with people. I don't have a judgment for this. I can only wish you guys the best.

OP responded:

Idk what she is going to do, she has been there for two weeks already and it is an issue.

She can’t not talk to people, it’s already an issue.

Nikkian42 wrote:

She needs to find what mental health services are available to her. When I was her age this would have seemed like an impossibly daunting task. My father asked me to take out a book from my college library for him and I refused because I was too scared to do so.

If she is skipping meals rather than go ask for help what she needs to do is not as easy as you think. Is there an email address for dining services? Maybe contacting them that way would be better, and once they tell her to come in maybe she’d be able to do that.

OP responded:

She was in therapy has a kid, medication doesn’t work well for her. Tbh it wasn’t super bad until the lockdown year. Almost a whole year of not interacting with people.

Neutral_Guy_9 wrote:

NTA.

A college degree won’t matter if your daughter can’t manage very minor confrontations. If she can’t talk to somebody at a desk I wouldn’t waste tuition money on her let alone give her extra food money.

B3Gay_DoCr1mes wrote:

She clearly needs therapy now. As you said, any progress she made as a child was completely undone by the lockdowns. I hate to say this, but you may have to intervene, get the card fixed, and get her set up with a new counselor.

However, take her along when you do these things so she can see first hand that as she is now an adult you can't do anything for her without her direct consent, that there's no version of fixing this without her direct involvement on some level.

Essentially, what I am suggesting is the compromise point between what you are doing and what your daughter and husband want done. This is not enabling, this is acknowledging the reality that all the progress she made once is gone and you are all essentially starting over.

runrunpuppets wrote:

Reading this entire thread makes me feel as if we are doomed as a species.

It's a bent dining hall card.

...Holy literal f.

T_G_A_H wrote:

NTA. Can you role play the conversation with her? Ask her to call you and pretend it’s to the people she needs to call? Or as someone else mentioned, there may be a way to email about it, or go to an office there in person. She’s got to solve this one herself or she won’t make it through this year. Things come up all the time where she’ll have to advocate for herself.

OP responded:

Tbh I don’t even think I can do that, I don’t know what they are going to ask. I don’t know the process that needs to happen

Kinda hard to roll play when you have no idea what they will ask or need I would have to take off work so that’s a no to going. I don’t know if they have an email.

deefop wrote:

Nta. No offense, but what a pathetic situation. We live in a period of time where life is easier than it's ever been. Your daughter is attending an educational institution where her meals are already covered on a plan, and she can get a magical card that will get her food, and she's refusing to do this? I can think of about 100 billion humans in history that would have loved a magic card that gave them food.

If your daughter can't handle talking to the freaking college admins to fix this issue, she's gonna have an extremely difficult time in the real world. Does she think we hire people who can't handle talking to other human beings because "anxiety"? No, we laugh and move on to another candidate.