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(The Oprah Magazine)   When should parents stop paying for their adult children's dinners and vacati--wait, WHAT? Subby wants parental handouts. WHERE'S MINE? I WANT MINE   (oprahmag.com) divider line
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4026 clicks; posted to Main » on 18 Aug 2019 at 7:37 AM (4 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Copy Link



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rudemix [OhFark]  
Smartest (75)   Funniest (2)  
2019-08-18 7:41:10 AM  
We paid for my then 21 year old son to join us at the beach for a week last year. We've paid for him to join us in a cabin in the woods next month also. What we're enabling is our ability to spend time with him. Oh yeah, we're also enabling him to break away from his barely a living wage job and have a vacation.
 
eKonk  
Smartest (26)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 7:42:42 AM  
If you keep offering to pay, they will keep accepting. It'd be kind of stupid for them not to, doncha think?
 
englaja  
Smartest (6)   Funniest (42)  
2019-08-18 7:44:14 AM  
They brought us into this world without our permission, the least they can do is pay our way through it.
 
durbnpoisn  
Smartest (17)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 7:46:48 AM  
Both of my kids are in college now...  So this question speaks to me...

The general rule is that if they are with us when we eat, we pay for it.  If they go out on their own, they pay for it.
In other words, if we go out as a family, I pay.  But I don't just give them money to go out with their friends.

The only other bill we really have them pay is car insurance and upkeep on the car.  If they want to drive, that's their responsibility.  They also buy their own clothes and stuff.  Because they don't want to go shopping with use anyway.

We do a lot to cover everything else, because while they are in school, they should be doing school work, not working to pay to live.  So as long as they are in school, it will continue on like this.

But once they graduate, they will want to be on their own, and I expect them to be more independent anyway.  They can't just come live at home and have us paying for everything at that point.

All I can say is I hope they don't try to do that.  That would get uncomfortable.
 
no1curr [TotalFark]  
Smartest (26)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 7:47:03 AM  
The correct time to stop is when you can't afford it, don't want to, or generally decide it's time. If you feel generous enough to pay, who am I to judge?

Although I have to fight my dad everytime he wants to pay for my stuff. It's like "dude, I have a job and you're retired. Let me pay for you for once, please!"
 
2019-08-18 7:47:45 AM  
I pay for my mid-thirties son's cell phone bill (and his wife's) by having them on my plan until they're more financially set up.

Occasionally I bring them out to dinner when they visit.

I'll probably help them with a house down payment next year.

I'm going to treat them and their kids to a European vacation in a couple of years.

I also make enough money that I can opt to do that stuff. If I didn't have a good income, they'd get spaghetti. :)
 
Tchernobog  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 7:52:09 AM  
I'm 30 and if I/we (my wife and daughter) go out with my parents they still pay. I also have them over to our house to eat frequently, so meh.
 
freddyV [TotalFark]  
Smartest (12)   Funniest (2)  
2019-08-18 7:52:50 AM  
I'm 50 and my parents are in their upper 70s.

They never let me buy my own dinner when we are out.
It's caused arguments.

They also just send me a check for Christmas instead of any type of gift.

And I just found out, they started me a Roth IRA a decade ago and maxed it out.

I can stand on my own 2 feet, but they continue to do these things. I don't have children, so I don't really understand.
 
2019-08-18 7:54:43 AM  

durbnpoisn: But once they graduate, they will want to be on their own, and I expect them to be more independent anyway. They can't just come live at home and have us paying for everything at that point.

All I can say is I hope they don't try to do that. That would get uncomfortable.


Would you accept if they shared the bills with you at that point?  The idea of young-adult children getting their own apartment etc is a relatively young concept and largely driven by (surprise surprise!) the housing and car industries of north america.

A lot of my younger co-workers live at home for the first couple years, they pay their share of things but certainly less then if they'd had to pay for a whole new place on their own.  So they save much more quickly and have a much stronger footing when they do go for a place of their own.

I did that myself too, stayed with my folks for 3 years after college despite having a good post graduation job.  Saved big money which helped secure a down payment on a house.

/regardless, your kids are lucky to have parents like yourself
 
Tchernobog  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (17)  
2019-08-18 7:54:44 AM  

freddyV: I'm 50 and my parents are in their upper 70s.

They never let me buy my own dinner when we are out.
It's caused arguments.

They also just send me a check for Christmas instead of any type of gift.

And I just found out, they started me a Roth IRA a decade ago and maxed it out.

I can stand on my own 2 feet, but they continue to do these things. I don't have children, so I don't really understand.


If it'll clear your conscience, sigh, I guess I can take the money for you.
 
mrinfoguy  
Smartest (1)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 7:55:09 AM  
I gave my 2nd car to my parents in law because my daughter wanted to purchase her own car.
/happy
 
2019-08-18 7:56:44 AM  
If you're a responsible adult human being you take care of your family if they need it.  The moral question isn't whether someone "deserves" help, it's whether they need help and whether they're part of the group you are legitimately part of the support network for.  This is called "being a human".

You also have a (lesser, but still) responsibility to pay people's way on at least some minimum level when they're going out of their way to do something you want that hurts their bottom line.  Like if they're taking off from their job to visit you for a week, and losing half a paycheck because you wanted to impose on your children for a visit.  Even if they're happy to see you, it's still fundamentally an imposition that harms them in a real way; ergo you can set an extra place at the table.  This is called "being a host".

I mean, I get what the underlying worry is for the original writer of the letter; they're worried that the kids won't come see them when they end up in a home and the kids are paying for them instead of the other way around.  In my experience they don't need to worry about that, generally speaking they'll still visit when you're the dependent because that's also part of "taking care of your family".  The attitude the columninst displays in her response, though, is disgustingly entitled and blindly ignorant of how societies function on a disturbingly basic level, well past the point of being actively immoral in pretty much any moral system short of those designed to intentionally be Evil like Randism.  You shouldn't help your family when they need help paying for food?  What kind of farking monster is writing this?  Did someone clone farking Hitler again?  Goddammit, where's Captain America when you need him?

// I mean, I'm a huge asshole and I still pay for my adult siblings and wee neices and nephews on the occasions I host them.  And my parents when they visit.  And them when I visit.  If this situation wasn't tenable we'd have like a five-second conversation about it and shift who was paying for what like civilized people, no one would have to write in to Mein Kampf weekly for guidance from the physical incarnation of Satan to figure that one out.
 
FatherDale  
Smartest (14)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 7:57:14 AM  

freddyV: I'm 50 and my parents are in their upper 70s.

They never let me buy my own dinner when we are out.
It's caused arguments.

They also just send me a check for Christmas instead of any type of gift.

And I just found out, they started me a Roth IRA a decade ago and maxed it out.

I can stand on my own 2 feet, but they continue to do these things. I don't have children, so I don't really understand.


They love you.
 
2019-08-18 7:58:30 AM  

rudemix: We paid for my then 21 year old son to join us at the beach for a week last year. We've paid for him to join us in a cabin in the woods next month also. What we're enabling is our ability to spend time with him. Oh yeah, we're also enabling him to break away from his barely a living wage job and have a vacation.


Should have encouraged him to get a marketable skill.

I guess his hope is that you live forever.
 
freddyV [TotalFark]  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 7:58:36 AM  

Tchernobog: freddyV: I'm 50 and my parents are in their upper 70s.

They never let me buy my own dinner when we are out.
It's caused arguments.

They also just send me a check for Christmas instead of any type of gift.

And I just found out, they started me a Roth IRA a decade ago and maxed it out.

I can stand on my own 2 feet, but they continue to do these things. I don't have children, so I don't really understand.

If it'll clear your conscience, sigh, I guess I can take the money for you.


My conscience is  not really clear.
They have always paid for dinner and smaller things, the rest mainly started when my brother passed.
 
Opacity [TotalFark] [OhFark]  
Smartest (9)   Funniest (9)  
2019-08-18 8:02:08 AM  
I'll stop letting my in-laws pay for dinner when they stop inviting me to suffer through two hours of their company.
 
Ozarkhawk  
Smartest (11)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:05:41 AM  
When I was 30, if I went out to dinner, I had to look at my account and see if I could cover it.  

At 60, I don't do that.  If I can clear my kid's conscience by paying so they will get together with us without worry, it's well worth it.

Besides, at 60 I realize that I've made some decent decisions, and my money will probably outlast me.  So they either get it now, or get it later.
 
enry [TotalFark]  
Smartest (7)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:12:55 AM  
I'm late 40s and the eldest of 5 and live about 3 hours away from my parents.  My dad still slips me a $20 for gas when we visit.  It's symbolic to the time when he and my mom would drive 6 hours to visit his mom and have all of $5 to their name to pay for gas and tolls to drive back.
 
otherideas  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:13:11 AM  
When I was in college, I came home to visit and my parents and they took me out to Longhorn. When my older, married brother heard, he called my folks and chastised them for not calling him and his wife to come over for a free meal.

That was decades ago. Nowadays when the family gets together we all fight over the bill.
 
wxboy  
Smartest (5)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:13:25 AM  
If your adult child still wants to spend time with you, free or not, cherish it.

But no, don't pay for their vacations that you aren't part of.
 
tpmchris  
Smartest (1)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:14:40 AM  
When they get a TF subscription.
 
TomTudbury  
Smartest (8)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:17:34 AM  
Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.
~Robert A Heinlein
 
2019-08-18 8:18:12 AM  
Geez some of you have been quite lucky. My parents will pay for dinners out but that's it. I'm in my 30s and basically do everything on my own.  I'm sure if I was in a substantial bind my parents would help me out, but let's hope it doesn't get to that ever.
 
DarkVader  
Smartest (3)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:18:33 AM  
So you're dragging them along to dinner where you want, and vacations where you want to go?  And they're fresh out of college and probably have big student loans because it's literally impossible to pay your way through college even with a full time minimum wage job any more?

You pay until they make more money than you do and they're picking the restaurants and vacation spots.
 
MythDragon  
Smartest (2)   Funniest (15)  
2019-08-18 8:20:02 AM  
Its not a handout, its reparations. For 18 years of forced labor vacuuming floors, taking out garbage, and mowing the lawn. I was taken to my parents house without my consent when I was just a baby. And from there I was forced to work once I was old enough, under a strict set of rules that took away my basic rights. Like the right to stay up until 4am playijg video games on a school night.

So yeah, parents owe us.
We shall overcome.
 
RottenEggs [BareFark]  
Smartest (3)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:22:29 AM  
Rich people problems .
 
2019-08-18 8:28:04 AM  
I encounter this a lot with my "prosperity gospel" type friends.  "They'll never learn financial independence if you buy them dinner" seems to be a useful shield against the fact they they are such jerks, the kids actually don't want to be them socially.  Being poor and miserable is not a lesson you have to learn, and preventing your kids from learning it if you are in a position to do so is the responsible thing to do.
 
Riche  
Smartest (3)   Funniest (1)  
2019-08-18 8:32:02 AM  
I'm almost 50. My elderly parents are paying most of my bills until Social Security disability payments come online. It's a damn slow process.

This is not the proudest moment of my life. But I have a kid, so pride is sometimes an unaffordable luxury.

Nobody is denying I meet the criteria for disabled. That said my (very successful and wealthy) brother has made it abundantly clear what a horrible and useless person I am. Just an utterly disgusting parasite. And by "abundantly clear" I mean him literally shouting it in my face.
 
2019-08-18 8:33:20 AM  
This kind of stuff has helped fuel Canada's housing bubble.  Most people's biggest asset is their house, and a lot of people in their 50s+ have it paid off.   House prices go way up, kids can't afford houses, so the parents take a mortgage on their place to give the downpayment to their kids so the kids can pay the higher prices (with a mortgage, naturally), which puts more upwards pressure on prices.

Note that the kids can 'pay' the higher price, not necessarily 'afford'.  It cuts into stuff like the ability to save for retirement, and weather other minor financial mishaps that inevitably occur.  So all that stuff gets put onto home equity lines of credit (Canada has 3 million HELOCs with an average *balance* of $70,000, and something like half of HELOC holders are only paying the interest each month).

I have been expecting it all to end in years for over 6 years now, and I have been wrong, so who knows how it's all going to unwind.
 
2019-08-18 8:41:49 AM  
You are free to spend your money as you see fit.
 
munkkiniemi  
Smartest (12)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:52:25 AM  

Riche: I'm almost 50. My elderly parents are paying most of my bills until Social Security disability payments come online. It's a damn slow process.

This is not the proudest moment of my life. But I have a kid, so pride is sometimes an unaffordable luxury.

Nobody is denying I meet the criteria for disabled. That said my (very successful and wealthy) brother has made it abundantly clear what a horrible and useless person I am. Just an utterly disgusting parasite. And by "abundantly clear" I mean him literally shouting it in my face.


Your brother is an idiot.
There is (should) be no shame in accepting help from your family or the state if you need it.
 
Rattrap007  
Smartest (9)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 8:54:10 AM  
I'm 40. My parents and i go out to eat once a week. They pay. But if they need something done around their house like changing ceiling lights, fixing minor computer problems, getting seasonal clothes out from storage under the bed, setting up shelf decorations, christmas tree stuff, etc. then i stop and help. Any other bills i have i pay. Any other time i eat out i pay.
 
2019-08-18 8:54:52 AM  
Pushing 40, and my MIL buys our meals anytime we're with her and pays for a family vacation once a year.  My Neutral alignment gets very annoyed at the imbalance of not letting us pay sometimes.  Her pension is more than my spouse & I make combined, though we're no slouches.  Love her, but goddamn boomers got a nice deal.
 
Gramma  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (1)  
2019-08-18 8:58:22 AM  
My parents stopped paying for me at 16.  They still let me live in their house, but clothes, car expenses, school expenses and some food were mine to pay. Vacations?  There were no vacations. Dining out usually involved White Castle or, for special occasions, pizza.

Now I have a 21 year old granddaughter and I'm just starting to make her pay for things.  She's paying for her own clothes, gas, and food. If we go out together, I pay.  She doesn't have a great earning potential so I imagine I'll be on the hook forever.
 
Gramma  
Smartest (8)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:02:29 AM  

Riche: I'm almost 50. My elderly parents are paying most of my bills until Social Security disability payments come online. It's a damn slow process.

This is not the proudest moment of my life. But I have a kid, so pride is sometimes an unaffordable luxury.

Nobody is denying I meet the criteria for disabled. That said my (very successful and wealthy) brother has made it abundantly clear what a horrible and useless person I am. Just an utterly disgusting parasite. And by "abundantly clear" I mean him literally shouting it in my face.


Sorry your brother is an ass.  It took 2 1/2 years to get social security disability for my husband. I hope yours comes through faster.
 
2019-08-18 9:04:01 AM  
Depends on the parent, depends on the kid looking at it as temporary kindness or a permanent entitlement.

One of my prouder moments as a son was when I was finally -- thanks to years of sacrifice by my parents helping me out when they could -- able to start paying for their meals and able to take my Dad to Alaska and my Mom to Las Vegas on first-class trips. (They were still married but always had very different ideas of what a vacation was).

That being said, right up until the end my Dad would insist on paying for family dinners. I imagine I'll be the same with my kid.

/ripping yarn, old bean
 
jtown  
Smartest (3)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:04:50 AM  
When your kids (or grandkids) visit, you feed them.  That's the deal for life.  If they come home, you feed them.  If you take them out to dinner, you pay.  Doesn't matter if they're 25 or 55.  If you resent feeding your kids, there's something wrong with you.  Having said that, now that I'm far better off financially than dad's ever been, we usually go dutch when I visit.  Very occasionally, I can manage to pick up the entire bill but not often.

My dad paid for me to fly up for a visit once even tho I was technically a self-sustaining adult in my early 20s.  But it was his idea and he knew I wasn't in a position to just throw down $500 on a whim to fly up and I didn't have a vehicle reliable enough to drive that far.  It's not like he paid for me to backpack around Europe for a year.  Since then, we've paid our own ways when we met up on a few vacations and I've covered a vacation so I think we're pretty even by any measure.
 
NoahFenze  
Smartest (5)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:11:07 AM  
I'm fortunate to have parents with well paying jobs. They came from nothing and both worked their way to being wealthy. They paid for my college, and pay anytime we go out to eat, with the exception that myself or one of my siblings snag the bill prior. Growing up, they weren't always wealthy, and did what they could, keeping us kiddos not knowing they were struggling.

CSB: My dad dropped out of college and went straight into an "I.T" position, which took job to work for American Airlines and he worked his way up form there. My mom (never went to college) worked at an office where she was getting $8 an hour doing admin work.. she then noticed this little thing called SAP that she thought would be a big thing in any business.. so my dad encouraged her to take training classes.. turns out my mom was a genius as that is now used widely, and she ended up training big businesses on how to use it.

They will also loan money with the understanding we will pay back.. I'm currently selling my house, but in preparation they lent me money to get the interior and exterior painted.. I'm grateful for that, but hate being in debt to them, as I know they have already given me a lot. But they also know that I do my best to do everything on my own, and rarely ask for assistance.

I love my parents.
 
enry [TotalFark]  
Smartest (2)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:11:26 AM  

LurkerAtTheGate: Pushing 40, and my MIL buys our meals anytime we're with her and pays for a family vacation once a year.  My Neutral alignment gets very annoyed at the imbalance of not letting us pay sometimes.  Her pension is more than my spouse & I make combined, though we're no slouches.  Love her, but goddamn boomers got a nice deal.


My dad retired at 55 and got a kick-ass pension.  Supplemented with consulting work he did after that and he and my mom are set.  There's no way I'm retiring before late 60s.
 
Bonzo_1116  
Smartest (9)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:12:10 AM  

freddyV: Tchernobog: freddyV: I'm 50 and my parents are in their upper 70s.

They never let me buy my own dinner when we are out.
It's caused arguments.

They also just send me a check for Christmas instead of any type of gift.

And I just found out, they started me a Roth IRA a decade ago and maxed it out.

I can stand on my own 2 feet, but they continue to do these things. I don't have children, so I don't really understand.

If it'll clear your conscience, sigh, I guess I can take the money for you.

My conscience is  not really clear.
They have always paid for dinner and smaller things, the rest mainly started when my brother passed.


They're giving you your inheritance in dribs dnd drabs now while they can still enjoy watching you use it.
 
FatherDale  
Smartest (4)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:12:47 AM  

Rattrap007: I'm 40. My parents and i go out to eat once a week. They pay. But if they need something done around their house like changing ceiling lights, fixing minor computer problems, getting seasonal clothes out from storage under the bed, setting up shelf decorations, christmas tree stuff, etc. then i stop and help. Any other bills i have i pay. Any other time i eat out i pay.


My 93 year old mother demands to pay for every meal we eat in a restaurant. While she can afford it, so can we, so we often override her insistence. We do let her pay now and then because it's mean to laugh at her when she pouts.
When I was stationed overseas, we flew our stateside children to wherever we were. Why? Because we love them, and we could afford it - they couldn't. It was money well spent.
 
Gramma  
Smartest (6)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:15:11 AM  

jtown: When your kids (or grandkids) visit, you feed them.  That's the deal for life.  If they come home, you feed them.  If you take them out to dinner, you pay.  Doesn't matter if they're 25 or 55.  If you resent feeding your kids, there's something wrong with you.  Having said that, now that I'm far better off financially than dad's ever been, we usually go dutch when I visit.  Very occasionally, I can manage to pick up the entire bill but not often.

My dad paid for me to fly up for a visit once even tho I was technically a self-sustaining adult in my early 20s.  But it was his idea and he knew I wasn't in a position to just throw down $500 on a whim to fly up and I didn't have a vehicle reliable enough to drive that far.  It's not like he paid for me to backpack around Europe for a year.  Since then, we've paid our own ways when we met up on a few vacations and I've covered a vacation so I think we're pretty even by any measure.



I think it comes down to who has the means.  As a kid fresh out of college in the late 70's, my income at my first job was over twice what my parents made. Engineer vs janitor.
After I got married and moved away, we had two engineer salaries vs one janitor paycheck.  No chance in hell I would have let them pay for anything. They were barely scraping by.
 
rudemix [OhFark]  
Smartest (23)   Funniest (1)  
2019-08-18 9:17:33 AM  

PapermonkeyExpress: rudemix: We paid for my then 21 year old son to join us at the beach for a week last year. We've paid for him to join us in a cabin in the woods next month also. What we're enabling is our ability to spend time with him. Oh yeah, we're also enabling him to break away from his barely a living wage job and have a vacation.

Should have encouraged him to get a marketable skill.

I guess his hope is that you live forever.


What's funny about your foolish assumption is that I did. He expressed an interest in a trade after taking classes in high school. I encouraged him to do it and he jumped into the local juco after graduating and got his electrician certification in 1.5 years. He then joined the local program for his apprenticeship where he has to work 5,000 hours and attend classes to become a journeyman where he'll begin to make decent money.

Until then he's a 21 year old kid at the mercy of employers who contract with his apprenticeship program to employ him so he can get his 5,000 hours and finish the classes. They pay these apprentices the lowest they can and when they're lucky they actually let them do real work and not just dig ditches and haul shiat around. He's toughed out some petty hot and dirty jobs under bullies and assholes longer than I would have because he wants this, and he's willing to suffer for it.

But in the meantime, as his father and friend, I think the kid deserves a week away from it all once a year. He has his own place, pays his bills, never asks for a dime, and will be at my place at the drop of a hat to get manual on any problem I have as a homeowner because I have zero manual skills. Another reason I'm so proud of him. I like to spend Ike with my son, and if shelling out the extra grand for a week to enable this is the price to pay, I'm glad to pay it.

Thanks for your response though. Initially I had a nice go fark yourself for you to finish this off, but in the disabusing of your stupid notion I got that nice prideful and happy feeling I get when pondering what a solid young man I helped raise.
 
Aquapope  
Smartest (6)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:17:50 AM  
My parents paid for a lot of things for me when I was in my 20s.  Now I'm 53 and I pay for their dinner every time we go out (or sometimes I make dinner for them).  And once in a while I send them off to Branson or Vegas or to see my sister.  That's how it works.  If you can, you do for your family, young or old.  It's the natural socialism built into social creatures like humans.
 
ltnor  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:21:14 AM  
The oldest is 26, makes more than either of us, lives in a van when not working and the wife was insisting on pay for some stuff for him. I had to put my foot down. Her other one is 20, works at a vet clinic, taking classes to be a vet tech and is engaged to a guy that is doing super for himself. I think by next year he will have a bachelors and got work to pay for most of not all of it. The are getting married next week. I told her no more on that too. If she wants to throw money at someone, a grandbaby will be showing up in October and that is where she can throw her money at. It just sucks that we are half way across the country from them.
 
Gramma  
Smartest (2)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:23:11 AM  

BumpInTheNight: A lot of my younger co-workers live at home for the first couple years, they pay their share of things but certainly less then if they'd had to pay for a whole new place on their own.  So they save much more quickly and have a much stronger footing when they do go for a place of their own.


I see that a lot with my coworkers as well.  They stay home for a few years and build a nice nest egg. The last 3 of them went from living with parents to home ownership. They probably couldn't have done that if they'd spent those years in an apartment.
 
2019-08-18 9:25:13 AM  

rudemix: PapermonkeyExpress: rudemix: We paid for my then 21 year old son to join us at the beach for a week last year. We've paid for him to join us in a cabin in the woods next month also. What we're enabling is our ability to spend time with him. Oh yeah, we're also enabling him to break away from his barely a living wage job and have a vacation.

Should have encouraged him to get a marketable skill.

I guess his hope is that you live forever.

What's funny about your foolish assumption is that I did. He expressed an interest in a trade after taking classes in high school. I encouraged him to do it and he jumped into the local juco after graduating and got his electrician certification in 1.5 years. He then joined the local program for his apprenticeship where he has to work 5,000 hours and attend classes to become a journeyman where he'll begin to make decent money.

Until then he's a 21 year old kid at the mercy of employers who contract with his apprenticeship program to employ him so he can get his 5,000 hours and finish the classes. They pay these apprentices the lowest they can and when they're lucky they actually let them do real work and not just dig ditches and haul shiat around. He's toughed out some petty hot and dirty jobs under bullies and assholes longer than I would have because he wants this, and he's willing to suffer for it.

But in the meantime, as his father and friend, I think the kid deserves a week away from it all once a year. He has his own place, pays his bills, never asks for a dime, and will be at my place at the drop of a hat to get manual on any problem I have as a homeowner because I have zero manual skills. Another reason I'm so proud of him. I like to spend Ike with my son, and if shelling out the extra grand for a week to enable this is the price to pay, I'm glad to pay it.

Thanks for your response though. Initially I had a nice go fark yourself for you to finish this off, but in the disabusing of your stupid notion I got that nice prideful and happy feeling I get when pondering what a solid young man I helped raise.


"as his father andfriend"

I think I've spotted the issue.

Good luck to your son.
 
2019-08-18 9:32:50 AM  
In a 2018 Millennial Money Study, Fidelity Investments reported that 47 percent of millennials (in this case, defined as people born after 1980) surveyed said their parents have helped them pay for everything from groceries and clothing to their cell phone, cable, and TV bills-even rent.

I find that extremely hard to believe.
 
grokca [TotalFark]  
Smartest (1)   Funniest (3)  
2019-08-18 9:33:26 AM  
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You shouldn't pay, be smart and make the taxpayers pay.
 
Gramma  
Smartest (12)   Funniest (0)  
2019-08-18 9:37:45 AM  

PapermonkeyExpress: "as his father andfriend"

I think I've spotted the issue.

Good luck to your son.


Being a friend, once they're grown, is a good thing.
 
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