"AITA for telling my daughter a trip for fun was a no-go?"
I 40(F) and husband 42(M) have 4 children, our oldest son 22(M) lives on his own. We have 20(F), 18(M), 10(F) and our two-year-old grandson that live with us. Our 20 year old daughter is currently a single mom in nursing school she lives with us we pay for pretty much all expenses seeing as she is in school and we want to see her succeed.
I also dropped my full time hours at work in order to help with childcare so she can work and attend school. We have had to cut back and money is much tighter but all in all we are able to help her at this time and thankful we can help her as we were also teen parents with not much help we lived on our own worked paid our own bills lived on a tight budget.
Now comes the AITA part, so as stated we pretty much support our daughter and grandson while she is in school. We are also paying for her attorney for child support/custody not something she wanted to do but the father started a legal battle after she tried to work things out civilly.
We have taken all of our children on spring break vacations and summer vacations every year and always paid for these trips. Last summer our daughter decided her and grandson were going to go on a trip to Alaska to visit friends that live there. They would fly out the day we returned from our summer trip. Husband and I kept our mouths shut and let her go.
Now I caught wind she is planning another trip to Alaska when her semester ends in spring. I told her absolutely not as we are financially supporting her and our grandson and also footing thousands in legal fees for an attorney. Her taking a trip and spending that kind of money is disrespectful in my opinion. If she can spend that money than she should be paying her own bills.
I told her although she is an adult and can make her own choices that she lives in our house and those choices come with consequences such as her car, insurance, phone and all other financial support would be over. Essentially this would be the straw that broke the camels back.
As much as I don’t want to see her struggle as a young single mom I’m also not going to let her be disrespectful and take advantage of our willingness to help.
She is upset and says this is no different than her going on spring break or summer vacation with us as a family and that I’m just trying to hold her back and don’t want her to travel or have any fun. That she deserves to travel and go on adventures if she chooses to do so.
So AITA for telling her she will essentially be cut off from help financially if she chooses to take this expensive trip? Do you consider taking a trip as a family and paying the adult child’s expenses different then them taking a trip on their own and spending thousands of dollars when they aren’t supporting themselves.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
MerlinBiggs wrote:
NTA. You've reordered your life and are working to help her and grandson out. Your not doing this so she can party. If she can afford to vacation she can afford to support herself. You've done your child raising. Time to spend your own money on yourself.
OP responded:
Thank you I feel valid in my thoughts but some how still feel guilty. We want the best for both of them but I also don’t want her to have unrealistic expectations of REAL adult life. My husband and I struggled as teen parents living on our own and raising our children while furthering education. It wasn’t fun it was a struggle but we managed to succeed.
That required a strict budget, both of us working, no new phones, no cable tv, using local churches that offered food bundles for cheap to supplement our groceries and also sharing one vehicle between the two of us while working opposite schedules seeing as we didn’t have help with child care. I don’t want her struggle like that but part of me wonders if I’m doing a disservice to her by not letting her struggle.
Mizz3llie wrote:
NTA and it's definitely time to have her start contributing to her and her child's expenses. She obviously doesn't understand financial responsibility because she hasn't had to keep herself afloat. Start charging rent and percentages of her lawyer fees and other bills. If she doesn't like it, they can move out and she can support her own child, for the full cost of living.
OP responded:
I would love to do this however with her full time school schedule it is pretty much impossible that she would be able to afford to support them. She does work as much as she can but this barely covers her car payment which is the one bill she does pay as well as her gas we will help her out here and there with gas but not anything consistent.
chaosrulz0310 wrote:
NTA your grown daughter who has a child has money to go on vacation, but not pay for her own life? She needs to be a grown up and pay her own way. Including helping with household bills. Stop enabling her to act like an irresponsible child. You have cut your hours to help her placing further financial burdens on your household and your younger kids.
My parents would help me in a heartbeat but I would never be so selfish and self centered to allow them to financially support me while I went out and spent my money to have fun. If she has money to go to Alaska (which you should have vetoed the first time) why isn’t she paying for her own lawyer as obviously she has disposable income.
Vegetable-Cow245 wrote:
NAH I feel like this is a situation you need work through. Take a neutral moment and sit your daughter down for a serious conversation. You rearranged your entire life and tightened the family budget in order to support your daughter and your grandson. You have every right to be upset that your daughter spends money on trips she can only afford because she doesn’t have any other expenses.
Herein also lies the issue: she is well taken care of and therefore hasn’t learned to budget. She wants to live it up, travel and have a good time with friends and her son. That’s natural and very understandable. But she also needs to realize that she is responsible for her son and staying afloat. Maybe charge her a little percentage for rent and utilities, her car payment and/or insurance.
On top, maybe she could be responsible for 1 meal a week, including grocery shopping for said meal. I don’t think she means to be disrespectful. It’s just time to end the all inclusive stay at the parent hotel and make her contribute in a way that doesn’t break her, but lets her develop important life skills.