When this dad is annoyed with her son and concerned about her parenting, she asks Reddit:
AITA for forcing my son (18m) to go college instead of letting him follow his “dream”? My Son has always been a smart kid achieving a 4.0 GPA and has been accepted to some of the best colleges in the country.
He’s never outright told us (my wife and I) what he wants to do but we’ve always expect him to go into medicine and he always expressed interest so that’s what he applied to do.
Recently he has told us that he never wanted to go to college and that he instead wants to live a simple life where he travels around the world in a camper van exploring different countries and become a professional parkourist (He already performs at a high level).
I told him that it isnt a viable career option as it won’t make him much money at all, which he responded saying he doesn’t care about money and that he just wants to live life the way he wants too since he only gets to live once so he doesn’t want to waste time doing things he doesn’t wish to do.
I told him he was being stupid and to forget about his “dream” and go to college so he can have a proper life. I told my wife and she agrees with me so we both explained to him how he wasn’t thinking about his future and told him if he doesn’t go to college we won’t support him and it would be a waste of all the money we spent on his education.
He stormed out of the room without saying anything and now isn’t speaking to either of us. I feel like I did something wrong and that I might be an asshole for stopping his dream and telling him we wouldn’t support him.
But then again I feel he would be wasting his potential in life (and our money) he if goes through with living his “dream”(which is basically him being homeless). AITA?
knittedbanana writes:
NTA but you handled it poorly. You should not tell him 'you have to go to college'. You should tell him something like 'if you attend college and get at least z grades, you will have y support from us.
If you do not attend college or hold a full time job you will not be allowed to live here, you will not receive financial support from us, etc.' His dream is the kind of delusional thinking that 18 year olds have, but you need to lay out the consequences of his available choices and then let him make those choices.
At this point he's an adult and you have to hope you've raised him well.
cinekat writes:
NAH. You're not wrong for wanting your kid to get an education (though perhaps not in the fiend you envision). He's not wrong for wanting to try something new before he's weighed down by adult obligations.
Why not defer college for a year? Let him try a gap year - he may succeed in finding a non-traditional career path, and if it doesn't work out the way he hoped, college isn't going anywhere. He may end up doing better at his studies after the experience and be grateful for the opportunity.
toastyspan writes:
I'm split, I think YTA for forcing college upon him, NTA for wanting to lookout for him. Parkour & Travel are good hobbies but rarely good professions. as a teen myself I feel for the son because I want to go into the art field but my parents know the financial difficulties I might face. So I'd say let him explore a little, telling him to forget his dream is too harsh.