There’s a saying at my house: the one doing the work is the one that’s learning.
If astro goes and registers his daughter for classes, and rides her ass about going to class, rides her ass about studying, who’s learning? Looks like astro is. In fact he’s learned a lot about his daughter. While his daughter is learning about indie bands.
Question for the OP, how does your ex feel about your daughter’s situation? Is she OK with the status quo, or is she fed up with it too?
Even if astro forces her to register, pays for the class, and stands over her every night to make sure she’s doing the coursework well enough to pass, having a degree != readiness, or ability, to become self-sufficient.
She’s got no impetus to search for a job, buy her own food, and pay her own rent when she gets free room and board at Mom’s and can do a few chores for gas money to go visit her band buddies.
At the end of the day, what matters is that she entered into a contract with the OP. She broke that contract, and in the real world, that has consequences. So it’s time to stop paying for her education. Tell her that if she does want to continue her education, she will have to earn the money to pay for it herself and then drop the subject completely.
If it’s something she wants, she’ll find a way. If it’s not… worst case scenario, she’s still a failure to launch, but at least you’ll have an extra $1300 in the bank every month.
Who knows. Maybe once she’s rid of the burden of an education that obviously doesn’t interest or excite her, she’ll feel free to start looking into things that do.
This was my first thought…this is a woman who has no interest in getting this degree. School is not for everyone. Stop throwing money at your dream for her and let everyone get on with their lives.
But she has made progress. Slow to be sure, but progress. He has spent a bunch of money and she’s been slacking way too much it sounds like, but she IS getting there.
IMO it would be silly to stop this close. And remember, I not EVEN saying he pays for the class or rides her ass about going or studying or doing well or even finishing the degree. I’m saying do one little thing to keep his/her options open. I’m no expert, but IME keeping options open is rarely a bad idea.
If she’s been spoiled for years, this one little thing ain’t gonna make a hill of beans one way or another. And even if he does pay for the class, there can still be other serious consequences for what’s recently transpired.
And this isn’t for her. Its for HIM.
Let me throw this made up example out. My Uncle Bob has a serious money management issue. Over the years I’ve shelled out God only knows how much money. I’ve had it. He calls yet again, begging for money. He’s missed his very last house payment. One more and he owns the damn thing free and clear. Otherwise, it’s homeless town or someone’s couch.
I could make my final stand here. But unless I’m willing to now pretend Uncle Bob doesn’t exist AND all my relatives will as well, not saving Uncle Bob is going to impact ME/US. One last money mooch ain’t gonna kill me. This last money mooch ain’t gonna turn Uncle Bob into more of one at this point. NOBODY is going to be better off making the stand right here and now.
Uncle Bob will still be a mooch in need of rehab. But he will be a mooch that at least now owns a house (and now that he owns it, financial strain will be lessened for everybody involved). Same thing with the OP’s daughter finally having that degree actually in hand.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that is the ONLY way to look at it. But I think it is defensible and worth considering.
Just noticed Prince died. Got in the last innocent Prince joke I guess.
Yeah, but he needs to learn about Astro, and what HE’S getting out of never seeing her fall. Until he figures that out he’ll never own his part in this. And it will just continue on, I expect.
Enrol her in summer classes? Sign her to a contract? To what end? She doesn’t keep her word now, a contract won’t change that. Nor does she seriously attend to her schooling, enrolling her in summer courses isn’t going to change that either. These two actions seem to me to only satisfy Dad’s need to do ‘something’, to feel he’s done, ‘all he can!’ Both amount to yet another ‘chance’, and look like just another lap around the track. Everybody will end up in exactly the same spots again, I predict.
Yup. If she’s aged out of Pell Grant assistance, and still hasn’t bothered to finish her undergrad degree, she’s pretty much done with this whole school thing, and either won’t admit it or Dad won’t listen when she does admit it.
It sounds to me like maybe the DJ/sound engineering this is really what she wants to do with her life, and that maybe she should have concentrated her educational efforts on that rather than [not] concentrating on the GIS degree that she doesn’t appear to want.
I know plenty of people (hell, most of my friends) who have pursued careers in the arts, who never finished (or started) college.
One of them has had astounding success - he’s a multi-multi millionaire, and a household name. A handful more have had a reasonable amount of fleeting success, maybe a couple of nationally promoted albums.
A few dozen make a journeyman’s living - owning bars or tattoo shops, running sound for local TV stations, doing set design for a brief period on a hit TV show, or as the music editor for the local paper.
The vast, vast majority end up flipping burgers, tending bar, loading trucks for UPS, or performing whatever menial job they can find that will let them play gigs three nights a week, or go on tour for three months out of the year, or have enough mental energy left at the end of the day so that they can actually work on their art.
And they’re all pretty much happy, fun people. I’d say happier, on average, then most of the office drones that I spend most of my day schlepping with in my meaningless, soul-sucking shit job to justify my own six figure salary and all the material shit that comes with with. Sometimes I’m even a little envious of them. Then again, sometimes they’re probably a little envious of my health insurance and 401k match.
Anyway, astro, it sounds like you had a plan for your daughter, and that your plan was not necessarily her plan. It also sounds like for whatever reason, she hasn’t been able to tell you that your plan isn’t making her happy.
I’m curious: I know nothing about the types of jobs a GIS degree would get someone. Likely to be hired, if you’re 30 with absolutely no prior experience?
Because in most of the fields I’m familiar with, being in school for 10+ years with no relevant experience during that time would be the Kiss Of Death for getting hired. For just about any position (even clerical). So at this point I’m not really sure what completing that degree is going to do for her…
I would like to echo the "sink or swim "advice given by some here, with one caveat; it doesn’t have to be permanent. If she sinks for 1 year or 2, maybe she will become a much more responsible/proactive person and then you can give her financial assistance like before, but with her now being much more prudent about things.
I’m of a couple of minds about this. The first is to wonder whose idea college was. My parents pretty much decided I was going to college. I spent five years getting a degree I really didn’t care about, and haven’t used, except for jobs that required a BA, and didn’t particularly care in what. I picked my major because I thought it would be easy (it was). I ended up doing something unrelated that I trained for separately as my first major job out of college.
So if college was your idea and not hers, that could be part of the problem.
I’m also wondering if she has some kind of issue like depression or ADHD. Has she ever been evaluated for anything? I’ve known several people who flunked out of college, got treatment for depression, got readmitted, this time taking medication, and suddenly made all As and Bs. One ended up getting a Ph.D.
But in the final analysis, whether there is a mental health issue behind it or not, I think she is scared about what happens next. I was. I sure as hell didn’t want to go to grad school when I finished college, but I actually considered it, because being a student was what I knew. Being a student and sponging off or you is what she knows. I’m tending to think that the people who are saying “stop supporting her” are right, but if you can’t do that-- if you really want to see if she can get that one last class, I would make your continued support conditional on a few things. One of them would be therapy, and the other would be letting you kibbitz. If you are supporting her, you should be able to tell her she can’t go be a weekend groupie. You should be able to get progress reports on this last class. No, it isn’t typical that a parent butts into a college student’s life like that, but she seems to need it.
What kind of relationship do you have with your ex? because none of this will work if your ex picks up the slack, and you become the bad guy who walked out on her. I would start with a serious talk with your ex before you do anything else.
I agree. Surely any employer is going to see an adult who has achieved little in 10 years and expects the world on a plate:
“Ms Astro, why have you been in college for 10 years?”
“Gee, it’s so difficult passing classes.”
“Ms Astro, how have you managed financially for 10 years - part-time work?”
“Oh no, my parents provide everything for me - house, food, car, school fees, health fees.”
“Ms Astro, why do you want this job?”
“Oh I just want to get my father off my back. Am I hired now?!”
Bad:
What have you been doing for the past 10 years?
Working on my GIS degree. Just finished it.
Worse:
What have you been doing for the past 10 years?
Working on my GIS degree.
Well, given your resume’, we can’t really give you anything other than a very entry level position that pays peanuts. But if you know your stuff and do good work, you can advance. Just fill out this paperwork. We will need X, Y, and Z and of course your transcript and proof of a diploma from Slacker U.
I didn’t finish my degree.
Crickets.
Taking forever to do something is one thing. Taking forever but not finishing is another. Taking forever and not finishing when its only one tiny bit left to do is IMO SO much worse that the other 2.
Bad:
What have you been doing for the past 10 years?
Working on my GIS degree. Just finished it.
Worse:
What have you been doing for the past 10 years?
Working on my GIS degree.
Well, given your resume’, we can’t really give you anything other than a very entry level position that pays peanuts. But if you know your stuff and do good work, you can advance. Just fill out this paperwork. We will need X, Y, and Z and of course your transcript and proof of a diploma from Slacker U.
I didn’t finish my degree.
Crickets.
Taking forever to do something is one thing. Taking forever but not finishing is another. Taking forever and not finishing when its only one tiny bit left to do is IMO SO much worse that the other 2.
I’d be rather gunshy about telling someone about not finishing a degree. I’d need a court order before telling anyone that mattered that I was only one class away (barring some world class excuse maybe).
And that’s on daughter, not on dad. Daughter’s had ten years to finish her degree, and daughter is the one who has to face the consequences. (Or not, if her parents continue to choose to enable her.) If she really wants to take that final class, she knows darn well how to register for it. It’s really not dad’s problem anymore.
You must be reading a different OP than me, because I see nothing that looks like progress in his daughter’s climb to adulthood. Progress would be getting a job so that tuition isn’t draining her parents dry. Progress would be taking her studies seriously enough that she wouldn’t be failing classes her last year. Progress would be owning her mistakes and admitting that she’d been dropping the ball without the truth having to be pried out of her after its too late to rectify the problem. Progress would be moving out of her mom’s house a long ass time ago or at least paying rent. Doesn’t sound like she’s done any of this.
What you’re calling progress, I call rolling along like a hoopty ride that doesn’t move under its own power but rather needs two people to manually push it up every incline no matter how small. Absent this pushing, the car just sits. Your recommendation is to keep pushing this car one more mile so it reaches a particular destination, as if that’s going to somehow make the car more drivable than it is now. As if the decision to stop pushing the car means it will somehow put the person who has been pushing it in a worst place. I think that’s crazy.
It is perfectly reasonable for astro to draw a line in the sand and say “I’m not pushing you anymore. This is it for me. If you want this degree, you will find a way to get it done. I’m too old to be breaking my back trying to move a near-30 year old. Power your own way from here on out.”
Facts from a book aren’t the education she has needed.
My dad could never quite bring himself to let my sister face the music. She spends money like water, but every time she would get herself into more debt than she could handle, he would bail her out. Now he is dead, and my wife and I are wondering how long it will be before she runs through her half of the inheritance and comes to us for help. Help she will not receive. And then, finally, she will have to face consequences, with no one to help her.
I sympathize with my dad. I really do. My daughter is 11, and I hope I never have to make that call. I don’t know if I would do the right thing or not.
I thought I’d look at it from the 29 year old daughter’s point of view.
She has free:
In order to keep getting this all she has to do is:
What a wonderful life - it’s like a combination of ‘Ferris Bueller’, ‘Animal House’ and ‘Clueless’. :eek::smack:
Background info on my situation. TLDR version: Two of my adult siblings are dependent on my mother. I’ll put the longer story a spoiler to not clutter up the thread.
[spoiler]I have two siblings who have never become self supporting adults because of mential issues. My sister and her partner manage by living in an apartment my mother owns, and the SSDI payments they both receive.
My younger brother has been homeless for more than 10 years, refuses to go the medication route and won’t apply for government assistance such as disability (which he could easily get, he’s the craziest person I know). My mother gives him money monthly which he sometimes uses to get his junker of the month running and insured. He eats at homeless centers and food banks for food.
I don’t mind the help my mother gives my sister because she at least tries. My younger brother is a different story.
I also tried to help by brother. I offered to pay him if he did volunteer work. He would only have to show up, work whatever he was capable of doing that day and I’d pay him. It didn’t matter if it was only 10 minutes or three hours. He wouldn’t do it.
I also talked myself blue trying to get my mother to understand. We finally did get her to take the step of kicking him out of the house, but she’ll never stop enabling him.
I really don’t think that she understands that the more she kept enabling him, the less incentive he had to find his way. She probably does understand it intellectually, but just believes if she does a little more, he’s going to bet better, against all evidence to the contrary.[/spoiler]
A few thoughts from dealing with my siblings as well as problem child employees in Japan where you can’t simply fire them, without going through a long hassle.
Sorry to break the bad news to you, but you didn’t actually have a deal with you and your daughter. As you noted yourself, she simply lies about these things. She may have said that she agreed, but she really didn’t. Or she wasn’t really committed to it. Or she said what she figured you would want to hear in order to keep the money rolling in and preserve her lifestyle, which she apparently doesn’t want to change.
It doesn’t matter. She’s simply proven (probably yet again) that her word is meaningless, and you are simply setting yourself up for more failure and heartache if you make other deals 'cuz she ain’t gonna change.
There’s a great book about parenting children called Parenting with Love and Logic, and it’s all about setting up consequences for the children without threats or punishments. Here’s a handout which covers it. When I say no punishments, it really means that you don’t give the benefit which they need to perform in order to receive it.
It looks like your daughter has learned that there really aren’t any consequences for not performing.
It sucks, but she doesn’t have the same ambition for her life that you would like her to have. She wants to be a sound tech for a garage band and you want her to have a real job. I don’t see anyway of magically bestowing ambition on her, especially with parents who have been enabling her to have her lifestyle without consequences.
If she really wants to be a sound tech for a garage band, then let her be one, on her own dime, like all the other half-assed sound techs out there. People who do that live in crummy apartments with lousy roommates and bum rids from others. Let her see if she really wants to do that.
Don’t pay for the car or dental and certainly not the cell phone. Stop that shit. She wants one, let her pay for it.
It sounds like she tunes you out when you try to talk to her, so giving lectures isn’t effective.
Her mother will probably continue to enable her, but that isn’t your problem anymore.
My mother had to come to terms with the fact that younger brother may die on the streets without us knowing. It sucks but at some point you have to let go.
Others have given excellent advice, but I would add that the OP seems to think that this will all be over as soon as she gets that last course in to finish her degree. It will not. (Think: Gee, the job market is really rough, Dad!).
The problem, I believe, is that the OP has not allowed his daughter to move into adulthood. Paying for ten years of school?!? My parents agreed to pay for 4 years. If I screwed up or wanted a graduate degree, better sign those loan papers, son.
When I was younger, I went to school for 3 years and dropped out because there was big money to be made in the dot com boom. When I was 32, I went back to school to finish my last year. I was married and had a child at the time, so I did not ask my parents for a dime. My father, in a rare moment of not being a hardass about this, offered to pay for my books for that final year.
However, unbeknownst to him, the cost for books in 2008 was more than tuition in 1994. 
Anyways, the point is that once a kid turns 18, any support that you give is charity. A modest amount of that can give your child the tools and the direction to succeed in life. Too much of that can make your child perpetually a child. I’m afraid the OP is very much doing the latter.