Money is a tricky subject in pretty much every capacity, but it gets even trickier when family's involved. For many parents, one of the biggest challenges is deciding when to ease back on financially supporting their children once they've reached adulthood.
As someone who does not have kids, I don't have any personal experience with this! But I think it depends on family-to-family based on a number of different circumstances. That's why when I saw this thread from Reddit user u/Strict_Limits9377 (or OP; for Original Poster) in the Am I The A-hole subreddit, I immediately clicked.
Basically, OP wants to know if he's wrong for discontinuing financial support for his child — and expecting them to pay their way on a family vacation — a year after they've graduated college. And based on the details of the story, people have LOTS to say about it. Let's dive in.
Here are the full details, according to OP:
"I have several children and their mother is no longer in the picture. While raising them as a single parent, I’ve always told them that I will pay for their college so they won’t graduate with debt, but there are strings attached. The main one is that they have to pick degrees that will support their lifestyle. The other main stipulation is that I will continue to support them for a year, after which they are on their own."
"My eldest graduated last year with a degree with which I whole heartedly disagree. We’ve had heated discussions about their career choice while they were in school but I was unsuccessful at getting this child to change their mind due to their passion for this field. They are now working in a field that pays about $65,000 a year with a career ceiling of approximately $85,000. There is not a path to make more in this career in our city and state."
"I bought them a car as a graduation gift and have been paying for the insurance and maintenance. I’ve also allowed this child to use my account at the grocery store. I’ve also been paying my child’s $5,000 a month apartment rent and utilities since last year, and now their lease is coming up and they want to resign it."
"When they came to me a couple of days ago, I reminded them it’s been a year and now they’re on their own. We got into a heated discussion which boils down to they can’t afford to live in the city while working at their jobs. They would have to move so far out that they’ll have to find another job during a time when the market is not great. I refused to budge as they knew this was coming and I wanted to make sure my other kids know I’m serious about them earning their own way through life."
"During our discussion, I dropped the other shoe that they’re responsible to pay their own way from now on which includes our family reunion vacation next summer. They argued there’s no way they can afford to pay for everything including a two week vacation in Europe on their salary and begged me to reconsider. I refused."
OP's kid isn't pleased. "This child called their grandparents, aunts, and uncles (my parents, sisters, and brothers) to try to get them to change my mind. My other kids are staying out of it, but the rest of the family is even split. Half thinks I should continue to pay since I can easily afford to, while the other half agrees with my sink or swim decision. Am I being too strict?"
Obviously, there's a lot to unpack here, and that's exactly what people did in the comments. To start, people were absolutely GOBSMACKED that OP pays $5,000 a month for their child's apartment, and felt he was wrong to doing that in the first place:
'Well, honestly, who rents a $5,000 apartment for their kid? Part of the issue is the parent."
"Every city has apartments for less that $5,000. It looks to me like OP set his child up for a fall in order to drive home the point that their beloved field isn't lucrative enough.
"They're only getting $3,500 a month after taxes. The $5,000 rent was never something they could afford. If they wanted to be super lean they could have saved $2,500 a month — however, that still won’t be a enough for the kind of lifestyle they're living. She needs roommates and a cheaper area to live in.
Dad needed to ease his kids into the real world and NEVER should have been paying $5,000 monthly in rent."
But the real kicker is the vacation. Some felt that although OP is justified in no longer paying rent and other expenses, he should still cover the vacation for his child since it seems like he can comfortably afford it:
"I’d say pay for the family vacation if family is important to you. Vacations are a luxury, and so is family time with your adult kids. Your generation has significantly better earnings than your children‘s generation. If the point of a family vacation is family time, shouldn’t you want your kids to be able to come? Is it really family time if some of the family gets left behind when you can easily bring them? (Side note, my parents did well financially, and they still pay for my sister and I to join on family vacations because we weren’t as lucky as they were. I’m turning 40 this year. My parents believe the point of family vacations is for us to be together, and we’d be very limited on where we could go and for how long if my sister and I were paying our own way."
"I agree here. You're [not the A-hole] but I do think you need to look at how realistic a two week vacation is for anyone who is just a year out of graduating from any profession. Funding her life should be on her, but if you plan on keeping a relationship with her you really need to rethink how you treat her."
"If OP has been paying $5,000 a month in rent, it is safe to assume he is quite wealthy and I suspect his vacation reflects that. Makes sense to end help around living expenses but if you want your kid on your vacation, you gotta subsidize it for them."
However, others questioned why OP's child shouldn't be able to afford the vacation on their own, considering that OP has covered pretty much all of their expenses for the last year.
"Their whole life has been paid for up until this moment. If they couldn't manage to scrape together the funds for a vacation, there is a serious problem going on. I agree with helping your kids succeed, but it sounds like this particular 'adult' was given so much help that they never learned how to be independent and provide for themselves."
"They have been making $65,000 for a year! OP was paying all their core expenses, rent, food, insurance, etc. How do they not have at least $25,000 saved from the past year of salary? They had practically zero expenses and after taxes, around $50,000 coming into their account over the past year! It makes no sense."
Overall, people have big problems with how this whole situation has been handled, but can't seem to land on how where most of the blame should go:
"[You're the A-hole] for not teaching this person how to function on their own and for paying for everything for all this time. But [not the a-hole] for cutting the purse strings now. You must do that and I think it’s the most irresponsible thing wealthy people do to their children, not teach them how to finance their own lives without their parents’ money."
"I mean there is some truth to that, but failures by the parents have a tendency to compound problems. It's clear that he didn't seem to prepare the kid for being on their own and then he just shuts it off. Giving them no time to learn.
Honestly, he should have spent the last year dropping his support slowly so they can be picking up the slack and figuring out how to budget.
But also, they should not have been living at a $5,000 a month apartment. Like, what is that?"