19 year old Daughter driving with no insurance! Advice?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Tell your wife that I know someone who is 27 who is still doing this kind of stuff because she wasn’t forced to act responsibly at 19. Not my family, I’m happy to say.

I’d tell her she had 3 options:

  • start working more to pay the insurance and rent. I hope you make her do chores to help out with the house, stuff like cooking once or twice a week.
  • give up her keys
  • get reported. If the police aren’t cooperative, I’d check the motor vehicles bureau, which might suspend her registration when they find out.
    If this doesn’t work, out she goes, but you had better be prepared for tearful and frequent pleas for money, just this once for a real emergency.
    Giving help to a kid is fine, but only if they are making a best effort. She isn’t. From what I’ve seen, things can get a lot worse if you don’t act now.
42

She may be 19 but she’s acting like she is 12, so I think paternalistic remedies should be on the table.

43

Speaking as someone who has been hit TWICE by uninsured drivers, I vote for making a call to DMV–if they haven’t caught up with her yet.

44

If you can’t get her mom on board, then you can’t kick her out (even though that is what she really needs). Almost certainly she has friends that would let her crash on their couch while she concentrates on working more hours and saving up for a deposit on her own place (even if she goes in with roommates, which everyone at that age has to do if they want to move out anyway). That’s honestly your best option–30 days notice (or whatever the legal minimum tenant-removal notice is in your jurisdiction), pack her up, ship her out.

But again, if mom’s not down for that, then she’s doing your daughter a massive disservice. If that’s the case, then you and your wife need to have a series of very long talks about what your daughter can be expected to accomplish in life when mom is letting her sleaze her way through it. Your daughter needs to be told: if she causes an accident without insurance, her paychecks will be getting garnished for the rest of her natural life. She’ll never forgive herself for that particular brand of youthful stupidity. She might even blame you and her mom for not preparing her properly for those consequences–and she’ll have a point, because you haven’t.

If your wife will not be convinced to make her precious snowflake grow up, take your daughter aside and explain in straight terms that she’s fucking her life up big time, and if she cares about her mother at all, this is what she’ll do: work more, save up, move out, pay rent, pay insurance, and pay her utility bills. Then at least you can sleep better, knowing you’ve said your piece. But it’s 100% for certain that you can’t force her to move out if your wife isn’t on your side. Really the only alternative solution at that point, after you’ve talked and if she still won’t change her mind, is couples counseling. And down the line, maybe even divorce (which I’m not advocating). But if your wife won’t man up and treat her daughter like an adult (for whom life choices have consequences), this is an option you may end up facing.

I’m friendly with a 30-year-old co-worker who is working at a pretty decent-paying job (I’d wager she’s up around $15 an hour). She caused a wreck in her early 20s while uninsured. And now, she can’t even afford to get her own place, because fully a quarter of every paycheck she takes home is garnished to pay back the other car’s insurance company (and probably will be for years). No bullshit, this happens to irresponsible people every day. I’m not sure why your daughter doesn’t think it can happen to her.

45

An astute observation.

Anyway, I go with #1: do nothing.

46

Seriously? Did you read the OP?

These people have let her live, rent free, feed her, pay her car insurance, loan her money she doesn’t repay and so on.

And to the advice that he should grow a pair, and act in his child’s best interest, as in deliver some actual consequences for her actions, he replies, that, “Garsh the missus won’t hear of it!” And still you can’t connect the dots, and comprehend why she thinks it can’t happen to her.

The advice on how he can avoid feeling like a mean old Dad leaves me mystified. He’s a father, his job is to do what’s required not what makes him feel good.

And, by the way, it’s called tough love, not because it’s tough on the kids. It’s tough on the parents who are sometimes getting their first dose of the hard part of love and how it’s not all about making you feel good all the time.

Parents like this seem exceedingly unlikely to take any such wise advice, as this thread has served up. More the types who finally get the kid out, by buying her a condo, or paying her rent. Or paying off her credit card debt when she’s in her 30’s, or saving her ass endlessly, in one form or other until they are old and she’s robbing them of their nest egg and now they sure wish she could understand what ‘no’ actually means.

I am always surprised that intelligent and caring Dopers can’t see that parents, with kids like these, can’t hear the message for a reason, that’s how they made this kid, they are why she’s that way. If they were actually capable of doing as you suggest, they wouldn’t have a kid like this.

47

If it’s been lapsed that long, the state’s going to find out pretty soon. Your daughter will receive notice that her license has been suspended. And she better hope that her insurer will take her back and won’t charge her up the wazoo.

I have first-hand experience with this in New Jersey.

You’re raising someone who has much bigger problems than insurance. You’re enabling her. Stop.

48

The Oompa-Loompas told me that!

Except that, some kids seem to have an inner drive to become independent, functioning adults; and the same upbringing that spoils one kid produces a healthy, well-adjusted, productive member of society in another. We’ve had these sorts of discussions before, as in the “Mindset of Parents accepting a lazy kid” thread.

49

For true?

Got any evidence? Because I, for one, would love to see that.

50

I’m sure your daughter correctly figures that if she gets in an accident, y’all will pay for whatever needs paying for, including mortgaging the house or whatever. Why would she believe otherwise? You’ve created and support this dream world she’s living in. I’m guessing she pretty much plans on living with… er, off you forever.

51

I’m going to toss out the notion of weekly payments, just as something for you to chew on.
“Hey, look, on payday, I expect you to give me the amount your insurance has cost us during the most recent pay period. If not, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to move.”

I’m assuming, of course, that pay periods are weekly here, but you get the notion.
Lots of other folks have had good ideas. This is just an idea that beats the status quo.

52

Most families with multiple children can produce all the examples you’d need. :dubious:

Anyway, the OP and wife need to either suck it up and baby their little girl, or lay down some rules. I’m all for the rules bit, but half-assed measures aren’t going to work. And if mom doesn’t wanna go along with it, the OP, I think, is screwed, unless he lays down his own laws with mom. Which…probably won’t end well either.

53

My family would be a good example of this. I fought tooth and nail to get my parents to let me be independent even when I was 12 or 13 years old. I flipped out on my mom several times for waking me up even though I had an alarm clock and I did my own laundry and such from a very early age. When I graduated from college I moved back in with my parents just long enough to find an apartment and get the hell out.

My brother, on the other hand, just moved out of their house yesterday after having been graduated for 2 years. He worked part time and applied for 1 full time job in the entire time he lived there (that luckily kept his resume on file and hired him more than a year after he first applied) and did nothing but drink. He ended up with a DUI and my parents spent about $8,000 on a legal defense for him before he finally admitted that he flat out told the cop, on camera no less, that he was really drunk so no judge would find in his favor. He adopted a dog and then left it with my parents while he drank all night and day with his friends down by the lake so they ended up with a third dog that has now been taken from her pack/family to go live in his new place with him. I believe he will eventually straighten up and become a responsible person, especially now that my parents are paying to feed and shelter him any more, but he has a long way to go before that happens.

54

Absolutely. Four of us: three were hard working, independent and self sufficient. One had to be bribed with cars and stuff to finish college and always asked for more.

55

I’m not agreeing with elbows, but I feel the need to point out that the same 2 parents may not apply the same upbringing to all of their children. Bad parents may have favorites, or simply treat their children differently for other reasons–take my aunt, who I suspect is an unconscious misogynist. She treated her daughter like shit, while her son could do no wrong. Is it really any surprise her son is a moderately successful adult, whereas her daughter ran away and had three kids (that my aunt is now taking care of) and has been in and out of jail for theft and drug problems? But it wouldn’t be at all fair to say my cousins were raised in the same way as each other.

Some other examples: older parents may be a lot more laissez-faire and indulgent with their surprise baby (because now they have more wisdom and money) than they were with their first couple kids 20 years ago. Or, different children may have different medical needs, and may gain differing levels of attention and care from their parents. Another example: my sister had a mild heart murmur and one febrile seizure as a child (nothing serious, but my mom was a complete hypochondriac). So, she spent a good deal of her childhood indoors. I was the one washing dishes and mowing the lawn and planting flowers because my mom fell the fuck apart after her divorce, clasped her dying (not really) baby to her bosom, and made me be the man of the house during the years until she met my stepdad.

You dig?

56

Start charging her room and board equivalent to the insurance payments. If she can’t afford the room and board, she has to move out.

It is time for her to grow up, and it’s time for you to stop enabling her in not growing up.
mmm

57

Hell, I know several examples personally. Same parents, one kid’s driven, one’s a bum.

58

My state requires that the insurance company notify the DMV regarding the status of insurance on your vehicle. If you let your insurance lapse, your registration is revoked. If you get caught driving a car with a revoked registration, it’s all about the tow truck, the impound yard and cash money + a valid insurance policy to reclaim your vehicle. It could be a very expensive mistake.

59

Put an adheisive For Sale sign in the car window giving your number. If she takes it out, advertise it on Craig’s List. If you get a good offer, sell it, and if there are any proceeds, buy her a 1 month bus pass with your compliments.

60

Marriage counseling? You guys need to be on the same page.

My mother kept supporting my brother until well into his 40s. Hell, she’s probably still doing it now, but just keeping it secret from me.