I'm a SAHM and my husband won't let me send money to my teen son. Who's right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be grateful your husband is a single-earner paying for your son to go to college.

Anonymous wrote:Is your DH also paying for him to go to college? I am on his side, assuming there isn’t more to the story. If you want me to send him, you should figure out a way to earn it. A student in a dorm with a meal plan doesn’t need much spending money.

DH does not pay for his tuition or r&b. But DS is on DH's medical insurance and family cell phone plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be grateful your husband is a single-earner paying for your son to go to college.

+1
Not to be harsh, but this.

False assumption. DH does not pay for DS's college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He can get a job. I worked all through college and I went to a very hard school.

He also needs a holiday job while he is home on break.

FFS. The world is way more competitive now. Wasting time on a campus job for beer money is so short sighted.

I earned my "beer money" as a copy editor, desk editor, reporter and ultimately managing editor at my college paper. That led to a newspaper internship which led to gainful employment as a freelance writer and (ultimately) a communications director at two major universities.

You are the one who is short-sighted. Not every college job involves asking people if they want fries; and even those jobs can open doors if the kid is talented, polite and hard-working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He can get a job. I worked all through college and I went to a very hard school.

He also needs a holiday job while he is home on break.

I'm OP. I worked all through college too and it was awful! We have a comfortable HHI, I really don't want my son working during freshman year and it's created tension in our house because I'm a SAHM without my own revenue stream and would like to send him a $100 or $200 here and there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He can get a job. I worked all through college and I went to a very hard school.

He also needs a holiday job while he is home on break.

I'm OP. I worked all through college too and it was awful! We have a comfortable HHI, I really don't want my son working during freshman year and it's created tension in our house because I'm a SAHM without my own revenue stream and would like to send him a $100 or $200 here and there.

You have a college degree but you became a SAHM knowing you would be financially dependent, including for your older child? Why didn’t you set aside money for him before you remarried, or discussed with your DH before you became SAH? You also didn’t answer my question of where DS’ father is in all this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He can get a job. I worked all through college and I went to a very hard school.

He also needs a holiday job while he is home on break.

FFS. The world is way more competitive now. Wasting time on a campus job for beer money is so short sighted.

I earned my "beer money" as a copy editor, desk editor, reporter and ultimately managing editor at my college paper. That led to a newspaper internship which led to gainful employment as a freelance writer and (ultimately) a communications director at two major universities.

You are the one who is short-sighted. Not every college job involves asking people if they want fries; and even those jobs can open doors if the kid is talented, polite and hard-working.

All due respect, your college experience is digressing from my topic. This is about a SAHM and step-father disagreeing on family finances for a SAHM's biological son. With regard to your experience, that sounds as if it was 20 plus years ago. Also, I didn't see a mention of a fellowship, which could provide $ and a bigger resume booster than the crummy jobs you're [I guess?] implying your parents made you pursue. Fellowships are competitive, requiring top grades and recs.

[Anonymous]

Your husband sounds like an ass. Put the little ones in day care, get a job and send your son a few hundred a month. Problem solved. If Dad is paying for college, there is no reason why you cannot send him $200 a month and him work summers for some extra money.

[Anonymous]

Your H is being an a-hole.

You are f'd if you have to ask your H ever time you want to spend $100.

You really, really, really need to get a job since your H is so unreasonable and this could end badly.

Does your ex-H send him money?

[Anonymous]

There are two different situations here:

1. Your son needs spending money (and I think he should work for it).

2. Your husband not "letting" you, which I don't think is OK. Does he restrict your spending in any other way?

[Anonymous]

I’m really shocked by the number of people who think a college freshman should be self-sufficient when it comes to spending money. I think OP is right for wanting her son to focus on academics, especially the first year.

What exactly is your husband’s objection and could your household afford to send your son money?

[Anonymous]

Who cares who's right in this. The issue is how to get on the same page as your DH. It does not sound as though your DH is providing some support - health insurance and cell phone. But, he isn't going to budge on the spending money. The only way I can see to reconcile it is that your son get's a job for spending money, you son has no spending money or that is that you use your discretionary money (ie, the money you would use for Starbucks, buying yourself things, going out with friends) to send to your son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He can get a job. I worked all through college and I went to a very hard school.

He also needs a holiday job while he is home on break.

FFS. The world is way more competitive now. Wasting time on a campus job for beer money is so short sighted.

I earned my "beer money" as a copy editor, desk editor, reporter and ultimately managing editor at my college paper. That led to a newspaper internship which led to gainful employment as a freelance writer and (ultimately) a communications director at two major universities.

You are the one who is short-sighted. Not every college job involves asking people if they want fries; and even those jobs can open doors if the kid is talented, polite and hard-working.

+1 My first job was at the library where a coworker left to take a better job at the IT help center, and helped me get hired. That's where I learned enough marketable skills to get attractive job offers upon graduation, where I stayed productively employed until leaving to get a full scholarship to a master's degree program at an Ivy League school. When I was a student, I was jealous of kids who didn't have to worry about their work study jobs. When I graduated, I pitied many of those kids. They were just learning work place survival skills and marketable job skills and often seemed aimless, since they didn't know enough about the working world to know what they wanted to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He can get a job. I worked all through college and I went to a very hard school.

He also needs a holiday job while he is home on break.

FFS. The world is way more competitive now. Wasting time on a campus job for beer money is so short sighted.

I earned my "beer money" as a copy editor, desk editor, reporter and ultimately managing editor at my college paper. That led to a newspaper internship which led to gainful employment as a freelance writer and (ultimately) a communications director at two major universities.

You are the one who is short-sighted. Not every college job involves asking people if they want fries; and even those jobs can open doors if the kid is talented, polite and hard-working.

All due respect, your college experience is digressing from my topic. This is about a SAHM and step-father disagreeing on family finances for a SAHM's biological son. With regard to your experience, that sounds as if it was 20 plus years ago. Also, I didn't see a mention of a fellowship, which could provide $ and a bigger resume booster than the crummy jobs you're [I guess?] implying your parents made you pursue. Fellowships are competitive, requiring top grades and recs.

Um, my parents never "made" me pursue anything. They paid for my college, but didn't give me extra money. If I wanted money for extra clothes, parties, etc., it was on me.

I looked around and saw that successful college students and young grads were the ones getting jobs, internships and other EXPERIENCE that they could put on a resume. If you do nothing but study and earn a 4.0 you are not going to stand out in the job market. Sorry. If you have a 3.5 but have a few industry-related things on your resume, you'll be in a much better position to get a job after graduation.

Anyway, OP's husband sounds like he knows that a college job or some type of experience will benefit OP's son.

It's sad and ironic, really. Jobless woman who has limited power in her own life wants her son to remain jobless, too.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter who is right or what DCUM thinks, actually. He has all the money, and all the power, apparently.

If I were in your shoes, I would tell him, "I think it is important to send Timmy $XXX a month so he can have some flexibility and be able to focus on his studies. Since you won't pay for that, I'm going to go back to work. Once I have an offer, we can talk about how much it will be to send Larla and Zach to before- and after-care."

[Anonymous]

I had several interesting jobs at college including working at the university itself. Also got top grades good enough to be paid to do my PhD. And had a social life.

But then again, I didn’t arrive at college with an entitlement attitude. I was prepared to work and had started doing so at high school (first gen college).

Sounds like OP should have prepared her kid better for life.