by May
Finances can be a touchy subject, especially when paying for college. Most parents even start to panic once the time to pay for college tuition comes.
[ ADVERTIsem*nT ]
The cost of tuition can quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars, and that's not even counting room and board! Parents who don't want the burden later would save up by adding money for their children's college funds.
These accounts allow married couples to save money over time and eventually use it to pay for their kid's education. Unfortunately, life happens to some families.
A Redditor named SirProfessional4024 and her husband have been saving college funds for all their children. The financially wise couple started doing so the moment they found out that they were having their first baby.
The couple faithfully adds funds every month to secure the future of their children. They never told their children about the money since they felt it wasn't needed.
Everything was smooth-sailing until the couple found out that their eldest daughter is pregnant. The teenager dropped out of school and started a family with her boyfriend.
The Redditor's daughter now has more kids. They were initially doing fine, but since the global economy is sinking, the daughter found herself borrowing money from her parents.
Their second daughter is entering college, so she already knows about the college funds. It was good and all until the eldest daughter discovered that there was money allocated for her education.
That's when everything started going downhill with this family.
A mother recently had an argument with her daughter who wanted to use her college funds for her wedding.
She decided to ask Reddit if refusing to give her daughter the college fund was a wrong decision.
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.
Her eldest daughter got pregnant as a teenager.
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 original poster's (OP's) daughter started a family early.
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.
Now, the OP's second daughter is going to college. Naturally, she was informed about the college funds.
Katie is a senior and just got accepted into college, we’ve been setting everything up and obviously she knows about the fund now.
The eldest daughter discovers the funds.
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.
The OP's eldest daughter confirmed that college funds were saved for her. Sadly, the mother and daughter got into a fight because of it.
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 daughter is begging to get the money, but the OP refused.
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.
Everyone thinks she's an a-hole for not giving the money.
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, we’re 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?
In an update by the OP, she made up with her daughter in the end. Everything ended well for everyone.
UPDATE: ( I think this is within the rules, please correct me if it’s not) My daughter came over on Thursday and we were able to work things out. We both apologized and had a long discussion. She will be getting her GED and will be going to a trade school in exchange for me giving her whatever money is left over.
She hasn’t decided which one yet, but it will probably be cosmetology. Her fiances family has apologized. We also decided to pay for small wedding ceremony and reception as a gift.
While the final verdict was NTA, redditors had mixed feelings about the OP's issue.
Compromise with the daughter is still the best way to solve the problem.
For this Redditor, both sides had faults.
The fiancé's unreasonable reaction to the OP's decision irks some of the Redditors.
The daughter can always use the fund, provided she uses it for her education.
A Redditor thinks that not talking about the funds is an a-hole move.
For this user, using the money for important things, such as a house, is enough reason for the OP to give the funds to her daughter.
Which is more important for the OP?
OP made it clear that the money is to be used for education.
Since the eldest daughter is already an adult, she should think about the future. Going back to school is one of the practical solutions.
The daughter needs to complete her education first before thinking about buying a home.
This Redditor's advice: Be firm on the decision.
We are just glad that the OP and her daughter settled their differences in the end. On top of that, the 22-year-old also decided to continue her studies, which can help her secure better jobs.
What do you think about the situation? Should the OP have agreed to the daughter's wishes at the beginning?
