Mom asks if she's wrong to not let daughter use college fund if she's not in school.
In a post on Reddit a woman asked if she's wrong to insist the college fund is only for college, even though the money was for her daughter and that daughter chose a different path. Here's her story.
Backstory: I (43f) have 4 kids. El (22f) Katie (17f) cam(15m) Isla (5f) and I'm also currently pregnant.
Me and my husband (50m) started adding to college funds every month for each of our kids pretty much as soon as we found out we were pregnant. I won't say the exact amount but my husband has an excellent job so it's more than most.
We never told our kids because it just didn't feel necessary.
El got pregnant when she was 16 and ended up dropping out of school. I was very disappointed but I understood. However I was under the impression she would return later, but she has no plans to.
The dad stuck around and now they have 1 more kid (3) and one on the way. They are engaged but don't plan to marry until they can afford it.
They were doing okay financially for a while but due to the market right now they've been struggling because El can't get a job since she doesn't have a diploma so we've been loaning them money.
Katie is a senior and just got accepted into college, we've been setting everything up and obviously she knows about the fund now.
Katie and El were talking and she was telling El about the school and El asked how she was planning on paying for it, Katie responded 'my college fund' I was in the room while they were talking and this made me panic. We had just planned on splitting it between the remaining four since we knew they were going to college.
El asked me if they all had one and I wasn't going to lie, so I said yes. She got really excited and went to call her fiance and tell him the good news. I was confused and told her she couldn't have the money, she asked why and I said it's for school. She got upset and left my house.
The next day I get a call from El, she was crying and begging me to let her have the funds so she could finally afford a down payment and maybe even a wedding.
I told her she could have the money if she went back to school and whatever money was left over she could use for whatever she wanted. She got super mad and started yelling at me and saying it's her money. I told her that it was MY money and those were my conditions and she hung up.
Now we are being harassed by her fiances family (they aren't as fortunate as us) calling us assholes and a lot of other names. Saying it's all gonna go to waste if she doesn't use it, were setting her up for failure, etc..
Now I'm wondering if I'm the asshole because my dad said we should give her the money as we 'saved it for her after all'.
So am I the asshole?
Here's what people thought in the comments:
space-cyborg says:
NTA. You’ve prioritized your kids’ education and made sure you had savings for it. Presumably you’d help her if she wanted to go to technical or trade school, right? After the kids are grown up she will still need a career, and she can go for job retraining then, and use these funds.
The idea that she’s entitled to your money to pay for her wedding is pretty mind-blowing.
You’re generous to help out with loans, but you might want to rethink that, as they may never be able to repay you.
SirProfessional4024 OP's response:
I'm not too concerned if they can't pay back the loans.
prairieislander says:
ESH. Should she feel automatically entitled to the money? No. But that’s about the only way she’s an AH. There’s a whole flock of reasons you are.
You speak dismissively about the committed man who’s stuck by her side through teenage pregnancy, another child and has asked her to marry him.
You speak as if she’s less than because of a mistake she made in high school. You say you’re under the impression she would return later, but she didn’t know about the education fund.
So do you think maybe her lack of funding would have influenced her decision to not go back when she had a baby at home? You are also under an assumption that all your remaining children will decide on further education. That’s a pretty silly assumption.
It’s your money. You can do what you want with it. But as a grandmother, you think you’d be happy that your daughter wants to give her children a home and two married parents.
Edit: to everyone coming at me, check out a few more of OPs comments. It’s not about money or education. It’s about control.
FoolMe1nceShameOnU says:
NTA
It is not 'her money' - it never was - and it was never a trust fund. It was money set aside to fund an education for her, and you have made it clear that it is still very generously available to her to do exactly that.
angeloMain9661 says:
Find a middle ground. She can’t move forward in life without a GED. So set some conditions around that. Once she completes her GED you will give her a certain % of the money. Once she completes an associates or certificate program you will give her the remaining amount. She should also qualify for financial aid.