'AITA for sacrificing my daughter's college fund because her sister just had her 4th child?'
"AITA for sacrificing my daughter's college fund because her sister just gave birth to her 4th child?"
My (48F) older daughter (24F) gave birth to her 4th child six months ago. She used to work as a dishwasher, but due to health issues stemming from her 2nd child (chronic back pain) and then her 3rd child (after effects of broken tailbone and more chronic pain that made standing and moving around hard), she can no longer work.
She tried her best, getting an office temp job but after about a week the woman supervising her said "This isn't working out."
She was a very uptight woman who claims just because it always took her 3 days max to train everybody else to the data entry work that she can't just be a good person and accommodate slower learners. That woman likely caused her to get a bad reputation at the temp agency and she didn't get hired elsewhere.
My daughter's boyfriend (28M) works at Walmart. He had much more hours when she was pregnant, but since then his hours have ebbed and flowed. He said he will take a day in the future to look for jobs, but it's the holidays and he's busy with family.
I feel a lot of empathy for my daughter and her boyfriend and wish I could help them out more but I myself and a single mom working for a nursing home where I struggle to get full time hours and my ex ran up a lot of debt in both our names and is now living in another country.
My younger daughter (17F) has a college fund. The amount in it would be enough to pay a large amount of a 2 year community college tuition ( given the scholarships/ grants she would likely get).
She's applied to 4 year universities with the understanding that she'd be taking out loans and working, so she's deciding between 4 years and community college. The other shoe dropped after my older daughter's landlord found out that they were having her boyfriend's brother and girlfriend living in their one bedroom in exchange for them helping with the rent and they got evicted.
My daughter agrees it was wrong to lie to the landlord, and both parents are depressed because her boyfriend got a job offer one state away and they would have to move from their support network.
They came to me asking for help so they could have more time to find financial stability here. I was torn but seeing my grandkids I knew my duty was to care for the most vulnerable in the family.
So I will be making calls to liquidate my daughter's college fund, saying yes to understanding the penalties, and told my daughter this. She got very cold and said "You always brag about having a good memory- I hope you remember this moment then."
She has not spoken to me since. Spent Thanksgiving inquiring at with family friends to see if hospitals are keen to hire college students for kitchen or reception or anything.
Made some cryptic posts about how she hopes she'll be grateful one day that she won't have the privilege of studying anything outside of something technical because she needs something where she'll always be able to find a job in. AITA?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
brittdre16 said:
YTA. Your older daughter is immature and so is her boyfriend. So you turn around and support their bad decisions at the expense of your younger daughter?
Lost-and-dumbfound said:
So your oldest daughter could barely afford 3 kids, has chronic pain, no job....and decided a 4th child would be a great idea? And then you thought the best solution was to piss off your other daughter and f with her future? When there was an option of them moving so they could get more money? Of course YTA!
Mobile_Prune_3207 said:
YTA. This is such a blatant act of favouritism - you have made your youngest daughter's future harder due to no fault of her own, because of your oldest daughter's poor life choices.
Frankly, she should not have four children she cannot afford. Your duty of care is to your minor child, not your adult child who thinks it's easier on the body to run around after four children than to get a job.
UltraCandid said:
YTA. With that one action you sacrificed your relationship with your youngest daughter as well. Poor thing. Tell your older daughter's boyfriend to get a vasectomy for the holiday season.
Savings_Summer2608 said:
YTA- Your youngest daughter is the only one suffering the consequences of your older daughter's mistakes…
Puzzleheaded_Bet3455 said:
Yta you're screwing your youngest by helping your oldest. Boyfriend can't get a job bc family and holiday. Oldest is a "slow learner." Must be why she doesn't understand 4 kids with no job b4 24 is too many. Prepare for no contact from your youngest bc you'll be crawling back to her to help all you out.
So? No offense but no-one put a gun to their heads and forced them to have children they could not afford. They should be doing absolutely any and everything to make sure they are in employment.
That does not mean depriving your other child so you can make up for their failures. They are broke because they had 4 kids on a low income. They are homeless because they allowed 2 people to live in their former residence, knowing it was against the agreement with their landlord.
At what point are these people gonna grow the f^%$ up?
Throwaway23fw OP responded:
They would have been homeless anyway (a lot sooner too) because they needed the boyfriend's brother's income to help pay their rent due and he'd only give it to them in exchange for a place to live.
YTA. Why does your daughter have four kids if she can’t support any of them? They should be using birth control and you should not be coddling them.
Now you are sacrificing your younger daughter’s future because her older sister can’t find a co^%$m.
Throwaway23fw OP responded:
They do use protection. I feel badly because my kids grew up around a lot of strict religious people and me leaving that community was what caused my ex to leave me. But they still feel that abortion is wrong and I feel it's my duty to not berate them and treat their kids like they are blessings.
So your oldest daughter could barely afford 3 kids, has chronic pain, no job....and decided a 4th child would be a great idea?
And then you thought the best solution was to piss off your other daughter and f^%$ with her future? When there was an option of them moving so they could get more money? Of course YTA!
Throwaway23fw OP responded:
It was a conditional job offer ( said something about paid probation period) and not the most glamorous- essentially just manual labor so her boyfriend would likely have to move out there without them first or they would have to find short term housing unless he wants to keep Walmart on a back burner and somewhere transfer over there, working two jobs.
A lot of stress when he's also needed to help with the older two kids especially.