Well, all of you who chimed in with agreement on this point are most likely wrong.
Imagine how I’d feel if I made a gift of my land to some organization, with the condition that they keep it natural and wooded, only to have the organization turn around and start selling lumber from the trees and strip-mining the hills.
There is such a thing, legally, as a conditional gift: a gift to someone else with certain terms, such that that if the terms are not met the gift goes back to the person who gave it or to a third party.
There are all sorts of technical terms that I vaguely recall, such as determinable fee simple subject to a condition subsequent, and the Rule Against Perpetuities (the conditions can’t last forever), and if someone who has studied this more recently than 1984 would like to chime in, that’d be great. But I’m pretty darn sure that a gift can be made with conditions, and the faliure to meet those conditions can cause title to revert to the gift-giver.
Sorry.
For what it’s worth, I think the approach suggested bu Juniper2000 is the best bet. But if it were me, I’d ultimately refuse - gracefully - a gift with such conditions attached.
I know about the rainbow stickers and such, but beads? I have a few strands of different colored Mardi Gras beads hanging from my review mirror (from a drunken night on Fremont Street in Vegas with Zette which is a subject worthy of its own thread, but anyways. . . ).
Have I been unknowingly telling people that I am lesbian (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
If it was my parents giving me a car, they’d say “no stickers” because they just plain don’t like putting stickers on their cars. For justification, see any car that’s still got Gore/Lieberman 2000 plastered on the bumper.
Honestly, it can be in certain situations. Luckily I’ve gotten along pretty good with my parents since age ~15 so I never had to do this but it is absolutely appropriate for certain people to tell their parents to shove it at certain times. Especially when you’re turning 21 and they still can’t accept the person they raised.
In fact, I know several people that would be a lot more mature right now if they would have told their parents to shove it a couple of years ago.
(No offense to your parents Andygirl, but you have to understand that the one thing I know about them is negative :))
Diane: not necessarily. Now, if you had one string that had the 5 or 6 major colors of the rainbow on it, in rainbow order, well, let’s just say it would be a little less subtle. Hell, I’ve got mardi gras beads (purple) hanging from my mirror too (and yes, I’m straight).
Take the car, leave the stickers off. What you’re contemplating is an extremely minor battle in the long run, and the car will benefit you much more than the tiny principle you’ll establish.
To everyone who’s turning this into a battle of principles: you’re way overstating the importance of this episode. If Andy decides to refuse the car to assert her right to sticker it however she wants, she’s refusing a car and damaging her relationship with her parents for a very small dose of self-righteousness. Everything you’ve said is correct and irrelevant.
To be clear, the principle I’m talking about is Andy asserting her right to assert her sexual orientation in a particular way, namely stickers on the car. As she said, her parents are generally okay with her the way she is. But they’re human, too, and being marginally less than 100% queer-positive isn’t that bad, all things considered.
I suspect strongly it’s a case of “Mom and Dad protecting Daughter from the trouble she can get herself into from gaybashers” – but I don’t know.
Neither do any of the rest of us, including andygirl – though she no doubt has the best handle on their motivations, being the only one among us who’s spent eighteen years or so living with them.
Only they know why they said what they said.
So andy should ask them, nonconfrontationally, just to get their POV. (IIRC, they’re fairly accepting of her sexuality, so I suspect it’s more the protective motive than the “don’t embarrass us” or the “it’s a phase you’ll get over” motive or any of the other stuff that parents might come up with.)
I know I’m getting hung up on principles. Call me an idealist.
I’m writing them a letter explaining how I feel about it. Written it about six times… when I’m happy with it I’ll send it to them and see what happens.
I’m definitely coming at this from a different perspective; I don’t see this as a tiny principle but as the much larger principle that the parents of 21 year olds shouldn’t be trying to exercise this level of control over an adult child. Those sound like the kind of conditions parents put on a gift of a car for a 16 year old, not a 21 year old.
To me, this sounds like a perfect time for andygirl to exercise her independence and politely decline the “gift.” As an adult, we make decisions and live with the consequences all the time; if andy decides that she doesn’t want to accept a gift with these strings attached, and is willing to live with the consequences, that sounds like a perfectly adult decision to me.
I agree–it’s just that I detect a note of “your conditions are unreasonable, so you should give me the car anyway, without being jerks about it.”
I just think the stickers issue is a very small issue on which to make a stand, when things are otherwise pretty damn good (by Andy’s description). I think she should save her mojo for more important issues–how do her parents feel when she brings a girl home for Christmas dinner? Not every issue should be a battlefield, and making this one a fight looks a bit strident. If Andy will bend on something that makes her parents happy, it gives her more cred, not less, when she stands up for a really important issue.
There’s more at stake here than her identity as a lesbian, and if you recognize that, Andy, it makes a compromise a lot more palatable.
Hmm, interesting points, hansel. I wasn’t looking at this issue as a fight, simply that I wouldn’t accept the car with strings attached and that would be the end of it. If they wanted to change their minds after, that would be fine, but if they didn’t, that would be fine too.
You make a good point about choosing where to make a stand. That’s a part of being an adult that I’ve had problems with - being very independent, I’m inclined to balk at any hint of control. I’m seeing this as an opportunity for andygirl to make an important point with her parents and set a precedent for future interactions with them (ie, I’m not a little girl any more, so please don’t treat me like a child).
So, on the one hand, we have the opportunity for andy to make a point with her parents, and on the other, we have what really is a small deal, since andy wasn’t planning to put stickers on anyway, and will get a car out of the deal. Tough call.
Don’t abandon your preferred actions out of spite. You were going to try for good grades(I assume) and weren’t planning on putting stickers on anyway so the conditions should be meaningless to you.
If their stance really bothers you, feel free to bring it up. Tell them you accept the conditions because you were planning to follow them anyway but that you are worried about why they would impose the rainbow ban.
No need to be all or nothing.
I suppose its a matter of how badly you’d need a car.
When I was eighteen, the only places I could get a job required that I had a car (to get there and back within a reasonable amount of time). My parents said they’d provide me with a vehicle provided that I cut my hair (I had very long hair at the time) and keep it short.
This gave me pause. On one hand, I enjoyed having long hair. On the other hand, I hadn’t been able to find a job for the 2 odd years I was legally able to work. I had a license, and a car could help faciliate a job in addition to all sorts of other conveniences.
In the end, I had my mane of hair cropped and got a car out of it. Not long after that, I got a job! They never threatened to take the car back if I tried to grow my hair out again, but by then I had enough respect for their request that I kept it short myself.
I think it’s important to find out exactly why the parents don’t want the car “gayed up”. It could just be that they’re worried something will happen to the car, or even worse to andygirl, as a result of prominant gayitude. (This is the reason there are neither rainbow decorations nor Pagan decorations on my Ivory Destrier – just static cling stickers of Strong Bad and Homestar in my rear window and some go-faster flame magnets.)
If there’s another motivation for this condition, then it could be a sign of a deeper problem that needs to be worked out. If, for example, the parents don’t want a rainbow-clad car sitting in their driveway when andygirl visits, for fear of what people will think … then yeah, Danger Will Robinson.
I would thank them for the kind offer and tell them what a nice gesture it was, but that because of the conditions placed upon the gift I had decided not to accept it, but thanks anyhow. And keep on smiling.
Chances are good that amicable conversation will continue, and could include an acknowledgement that yeah, it would be really nice to have the car. And a solution you can all live with may come out of it (probably one that mosty favors what you want in the first place: you get the car and the decision of whether or not to put decals on it is strictly up to you).
