Oh my, if these responses are indicative of post-religious America, we’re in trouble.
The problem is that many of these responses are viewing morality as transactional in nature. ‘X happened to me, so Y should be my response.’ ‘This extenuating circumstance causes me to feel Z.’ ‘My obligation due to Action AA should be BB.’ Transactional morality is a dead end filled with bookkeeping, mis-valuations and destroyed relationships.
The equation is much simpler. The father needs money, she has money. That’s pretty much all that needs to be said. The only real sticking point is that the money she has isn’t really hers, it’s a gift. As a gift, the wishes of the giver enter into the equation, so the ‘right’ thing to do is ask the mother if she can use some of the money to pay off the dad’s debt. If she says “No.” The moral misdeed is on the mother and the daughter has done what she can. The money was given to her and one should presume that gifts come with stipulations. If the mother says “Yes” then a reasonable amount should be offered on the debt. It doesn’t mean that all of the money should go towards it. We don’t have to donate ourselves into penury, but being generous with money regardless of the extenuating circumstances or relationship drama is a morally good thing.
First, what the heck does this have to do with religion?
Second, I strenuously disagree that gifts come with stipulations. Hell no. Contracts come with stipulations. Business agreements come with stipulations. Favors come with stipulations. Gifts do not.
Third, this is not about the mother in any way, since the mother and father have separated their lives. It is not her business if the daughter and father come to an agreement on how the daughter wishes to use her money (if she does indeed take any money, which seems to be a question).
Of course it is. Gifts are certainly allowed to come with stipulations and they often do. More accurately though, the use of a gift should make the giver happy and if its use hurts the giver, then I would posit that except in rare circumstance that use would be immoral.
If my late-religious grandmother had given me a thousand dollars because she knew I was having trouble with my bills, it would likely hurt her if I went out and spent it on hookers and blow. If my mother were to knit me a winter scarf and I used it to wipe my butt, she would be hurt. Now no one is questioning whether I have a ‘right’ to wipe my butt on my mom’s handiwork, but it’s not a ‘good’ thing to do. It’s causing an act that they did for an ostensibly good reason and hurting them with it.
[Emphasis mine.] No, that’s not what the word “gift” means. Giving something with strings attached isn’t a gift. I don’t know if there’s a word for it, but it’s not a gift. And unless the mother has explicitly said that she has to approve whatever Joan does with the money, or that it can’t be given to dad (facts not in evidence here in this thread), there’s no reason Joan should feel that her mother has any say in the matter. If she has reason to believe that mom might withhold future installments if she gives money to dad, then that might enter into her thinking.
But I don’t believe that Joan has any obligation regarding her mother’s wishes, or that, in general, any recipient of a gift has to consider the wishes of the giver, absent an explicit condition to that effect.
I see I’ve been ninja’ed, but I’ll let this stand as my support of Telemark and Ravenman.
I wouldn’t consider the first example of giving money to cover one’s bills to be a “gift” in any sense. Lunch money given to kids isn’t a gift. It’s lunch money. Money for rent isn’t a gift, it’s money for rent. I think it’s pretty clear given the circumstances given that the inheritance being passed through the mother to the daughter isn’t being given with the intention of covering a particular bill or whatnot – so that would actually be a gift.
If you get a scarf from your mother and pass it on to her estranged sister who is without winter clothing, and your mother takes umbrage at this act of charity, then the mother is the one with a problem.
I’m referring to going to an expensive school when she had a free ride to a local place that wouldn’t cost anything. She doesnt seem to care that her dad is suffering financially as a result.
We’re arguing semantics. A gift can certainly be given with stipulations. If you give a gift to your university to endow a scholarship, it doesn’t cease to be a gift simply because you gave it for a purpose. Regardless, let’s pretend that gifts truly must come with no stipulations. I still wouldn’t say that it’s OK to do something against the wishes of the giver. Let’s say that your pro-animal rights grandmother gives you 1000 dollars because she loves you. I would posit that it wouldn’t be morally right for you to use that money to go on a Big Game Hunting expedition. You’re hurting the giver and causing hurt is generally immoral.
Of course it’s a gift. If your mom gives you money for your rent, you wouldn’t call that a gift? What is that then? A right? It’s a gift.
“Merry Christmas, son! Here’s money for your rent!” “Geeze, Mom why didn’t you get me any gifts this year?”
You’re completely correct. It’s your mom’s problem. She’s a jerk and I would claim morally remiss. At the same time, you should have asked her first before giving it away. In the example, if Joan’s Mom says ‘No.’ Joan’s Mom has a problem. She’s acting in an immoral way. Joan though is not and that’s the question being asked.
So if your mom bought you a new video game, that’s not a gift since you can’t freely exchange that video game for hookers? It’s only a gift if it’s exactly what you want when you want it? An interesting definition. Personally, if my Mom said, here’s 50 bucks, take your wife out to dinner, I’d be grateful for her gift, not sullen that I can’t ‘light it on fire.’
This goes back to my original point that your ethics are transactional in nature. The point of morality is not a tit for tat game. If you are treating a gift the same way you treat a salary, you’ve lost sight of your ethical north star. Gifts by their nature aren’t transactional in nature. You’ve done nothing to earn it and so how you treat it is very different than a mere transaction. Your employer is giving you a salary out of obligation, so what you do with it is your business. Your mother is giving a gift hopefully out of love, so how you treat it should keep that in mind.
It sucks that Joan is in this situation. The dad got screwed in the divorce, at least in the sense that he’s had to foot 50% of the college tuition despite earning half what his ex-wife makes. Made worse by the apparent fact that the ex-wife has access to family money. The right thing to do would be for mom here to gift some of this inheritance to her ex-husband and leave Joan out of this squabble.
If that doesn’t happen, and it sounds like it’s not, I’d agree with others here that Joan should assume the debt.
Uh, no, if I’m given a video game as a gift, I’m definitely exchanging it for something else. I haven’t played a video game in years.
I would contend that giving things to people that are purported to be gifts, but actually have hidden restrictions on them, is generally an act of control and not generosity. I would also say that your system of “all gifts have strings” is actually the more manipulative system, and I question the ethics of people who give gifts and are then offended that people do with them what they please.
If Joan’s father is struggling financially and her school debt is a burden impacting his quality of life significantly more than it would affect Joan now that she has extra money, then I’d relieve him of his prior promise to pay it.
My view on the situation would change if he had largely been an absentee father and carrying this debt was the only decent act of parenting he’d even done. But that doesn’t sound like this is the case if they have a close relationship.
What is irrelevant in the calculus is what Joan’s mother would want her to do with the money. A gift is a gift and once the money is turned over to Joan, the mom loses the right to dictate how it’s used.
I don’t know how divorce agreements work, did Joan’s dad get any say in where she goes to college, or was he on the hook for wherever she (and her mom) decides, minus school financial aid? Because, my (married) dad made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would not take out personal loans in his name for my college, and he was not dipping into his hard-earned retirement fund, or our house, even if some colleges cut it that way when they made aid offers. And it did affect where I went to school - and I don’t really blame him either, because I still went to a real good school.
I guess maybe if my dad had gambled and drank away all his money I would feel differently, but I would not put a bad divorce and loosing out in the housing crisis to be nearly the same category of financial irresponsibility.
Joan’s dad is paying back loans he took to pay for my college education. I now have an income that would enable her to relieve him of that burden with relatively minimal impact to her. Des she:
A) let dad know and offer to cover some/all of the outstanding debt in some way or
B) let dad know about her change in income but make no offer, or
C) keep her income a secret for the rest of my life so that he never learns that she had the ability to take responsibility for some of the cost of her education in the first place.
Option C is immoral. It’s being intentionally deceptive about her income in order to ensure that dad thinks something is true that is not true.
Option B is moral, but then she should be prepared if dad says, “hey, now that you’ve increased your annual revenue by X%, and I’m really struggling here, do you think you could help me with some of your college expenses?” The moral answer would be “yes, let’s figure something out.”
Option A is, of course, moral as well.
Agreements with family are not the same as business relationships. Contracts don’t dictate these relationships; family arrangements are usually made with the assumption that all the people involved have the best interests of the family and the relationships at heart. Hiding money and/or feeling that you don’t have an obligation to look to your family members’ happiness because “that wasn’t part of the deal” is not an acceptable way to interact with family.
Completely ignoring the ethical questions, how old is Joan’s dad, does he have any other kids, and does he have anything in the way of retirement savings? If Joan is likely to end up caring for her dad in his old age, she should consider whether paying off the college loan would enable him (however belatedly) to save for retirement and otherwise get his financial house in order. If he trusts her and would listen to her on the topic, she could even sit down with her dad and a financial planner and say, “Dad, I want to pay off this loan and relieve you of the burder of making payments, but in return I want you to start putting $X [an amount a little smaller than his loan payments] monthly into investments on Finanicial Planner’s advice, so I can stop worrying about what you’ll live on when you’re retired.” This might result in long-term savings for her, if what he’d be living off would otherwise be ‘Social Security and Joan’s charity’.
If she doesn’t trust him to actually keep putting the money in retirement savings, is there a way she could help him financially other than paying off the loan? Could she invest it in a retirement account in his name, or deal with a financial need he’s been putting off because of the debts (for example, buy him a new car outright, if his car is in disrepair and he can’t get approved for a good car loan)?
Given that Dad doesn’t seem to be good with money in general - the stolen $500 stinks of desperation - I don’t think Joan should ever give her dad control of the money. If she uses it on his behalf, it needs to go directly to the loan in the form of a check made out to the loan company.
Hey PunditLisa, the father still owes $30K on his share of the college loan, but how much has to be paid off each year?
If it’s $5000, say, she could tell her dad that she’s going to cover this year’s payments to give him a break from that obligation, and that still leaves Joan and her hubby $25K to put towards the mix of baby-related expenses, newer car, and down payment on a house. Then she can do the same next year. And maybe by the third or fourth year, she’ll be in a position to just pay off the balance.