I can't keep subsidizing DS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, had NO plan for how to pay for college

That's simply not true and quite frankly I am offended that she would even suggest that I am too poor to pay for college. You do not know how much DH and I make in a year, nor if we had a college savings plan lined up.

The fact of the matter is our child LIED to us and continues to be lazy and reject any semblance of applying to schools or getting a job. We are at our wits end but don't know what to do. He cannot afford to live in this area, but we cannot continue to subsidize him, especially since our incomes have been impacted by Covid-19.

I am asking for help on what to do, not asking you to make snap judgments and silly comments about my perceived inability to pay for college.

Me and DH have a combined HHI of $150,000/year. Of course we could pay for college.

First of all, he is probably embarrassed -- I would be if my mom wrote ME and DH. (This grates me wrong. I am usually ok with errors, but should be DH and I have..)

Second, if you have not saved for college, you are not paying for it on a 150K income. A private school is 1/2 your family income, and is not deductible. You can borrow though.

As for your kid, I am assuming the 3.75 is UW. If that is the case, it is good enough for VT, but not UVA. And definitely not HYPS. If it is weighted, JMU (assuming you are VA) may be a reach. But the thread is not about the kid's grades. Rather it is his attitude.

You need to lay down the law: he has to do something: Work, school (Community college is fine), or military. If he works, you charge him a minimal amount of rent.

It could be he is clueless as to what he wants to do. It could be he is depressed. Or it could be substance issues. Or all of the above. If it is depression, he needs to get that treated first. Both meds and therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, had NO plan for how to pay for college

That's simply not true and quite frankly I am offended that she would even suggest that I am too poor to pay for college. You do not know how much DH and I make in a year, nor if we had a college savings plan lined up.

The fact of the matter is our child LIED to us and continues to be lazy and reject any semblance of applying to schools or getting a job. We are at our wits end but don't know what to do. He cannot afford to live in this area, but we cannot continue to subsidize him, especially since our incomes have been impacted by Covid-19.

I am asking for help on what to do, not asking you to make snap judgments and silly comments about my perceived inability to pay for college.

Me and DH have a combined HHI of $150,000/year. Of course we could pay for college.

For some perspective, this sounds like me my senior year. My dad' "encouraged" me to apply to Harvard, Georgetown, etc., despite my 3.75 GPA (mediocre by Harvard's standards), and I just couldn't do it because I didn't want to seem like a failure when I didn't get in. I think my dad applied on my behalf and, of course, I got rejected. It took years for me to really understand who I was and what I wanted, and equally long for my dad to accept that. Just keep that in mind when you set expectations for your son. That said, it is completely valid for you to have expectations that he do *something* other than sit around a play games: he should be working, going to school, joining the military, or something.

[Anonymous]

This is a parent fail. Delusional on Ivies and financial aid. Not enough saved or none perhaps? Of course the child could apply to state school or CC. But that needs money as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a parent fail. Delusional on Ivies and financial aid. Not enough saved or none perhaps? Of course the child could apply to state school or CC. But that needs money as well.

I think the above is valid. OP, did you discuss the financial aspect of college with your son about 2 years ago? Do you have college savings? A HHI of $150,000 would be difficult for a state school and no college savings. Retirement should be your priority if it hadn’t been, btw. With that HHI there is no way you could pay for a Harvard and your son does not have the GPA to get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 19-year-old son refuses to look for a job and he doesn’t want to go to college. Should I continue supporting him or make him leave the house?

He had a 3.75 GPA out of high school, and yet he refused to apply to any university. If he wanted to, he probably could have gotten into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UVA or any school that he wanted to.

Instead he sits around all day, playing video games, talking on Snapchat and just being lazy. He refuses to work and is generally starting to get on all of our nerves (Covid-19 made it worse with the quartining).

so where do we go from here? What is the end game and should we just cut all ties and kick him out or be mindful and continue to support him?

OP- first, I would get your DS into therapy. It's really "off" for a kid with a high GPA not to consider college or plans for the next step. The fact that your DS does have a strong GPA suggests that he was considering his future at one point, but is stuck.

I hope you aren't projecting the Ivies on him-- even kids who blow the roof off in every respect still find it difficult and highly competitive to get into those schools.

After your DS is in therapy, I would take the therapists advice- my worry is that your DS is depressed and anxious. Kicking him out could be the making or breaking of him--I think you need more information to make that decision. Your DS's continued presence in your house without a plan should be contingent on working with a therapist and making/ following a plan. Also, keep in mind that covid has caused mental health issues for a lot of kids. My DS is younger (fourteen)- with DL, he went from As and Bs to Cs and Ds. He felt completely disconnected from learning, friends, life. Getting him back at school was a godsend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 19-year-old son refuses to look for a job and he doesn’t want to go to college. Should I continue supporting him or make him leave the house?

He had a 3.75 GPA out of high school, and yet he refused to apply to any university. If he wanted to, he probably could have gotten into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UVA or any school that he wanted to.

Instead he sits around all day, playing video games, talking on Snapchat and just being lazy. He refuses to work and is generally starting to get on all of our nerves (Covid-19 made it worse with the quartining).

so where do we go from here? What is the end game and should we just cut all ties and kick him out or be mindful and continue to support him?

OP- first, I would get your DS into therapy. It's really "off" for a kid with a high GPA not to consider college or plans for the next step. The fact that your DS does have a strong GPA suggests that he was considering his future at one point, but is stuck.

I hope you aren't projecting the Ivies on him-- even kids who blow the roof off in every respect still find it difficult and highly competitive to get into those schools.

After your DS is in therapy, I would take the therapists advice- my worry is that your DS is depressed and anxious. Kicking him out could be the making or breaking of him--I think you need more information to make that decision. Your DS's continued presence in your house without a plan should be contingent on working with a therapist and making/ following a plan. Also, keep in mind that covid has caused mental health issues for a lot of kids. My DS is younger (fourteen)- with DL, he went from As and Bs to Cs and Ds. He felt completely disconnected from learning, friends, life. Getting him back at school was a godsend.

Also, OP, ignore the meaner posts. There is some evidence that boys struggle with executive functioning and maturity as young adults (not all, but quite a few if my friends with sons are to be believed). We live in a complex world right now with a lot uncertainty--ff your DS is stuck, he may not have the tools to dig his way out. This is where sessions with an objective therapist could help or provide insight.

[Anonymous]

I think you can do something right down the middle - not kicking him to the curb, but not coddling. The goal is not to alienate him as much as light a fire under him to become self-sufficient. So you sit down. Ask him what he thinks has worked well/not worked during the past few months. This opens the door for all of you to express your concerns. Then you tell him finances in the home are dramatically different in these times and you are no longer able to have him loafing around with no end goal. (If he knows you are both still working you can say things like taxes, retirement funding, emergency savings, etc are affecting your bottom line) Remind him that he is an adult and has to take some control for his future. Give him a deadline of Dec 1. He can secure a full time job and contribute to his living expenses at home, find a job and move out if he doesn't not want to contribute, or he can enroll in community college or technical program. Suggest that you will apply some savings towards these with the expectation that his earning potential will be higher as an end result. You can check in and if he isn't finding something by Dec. 1 you can at least acknowledge if there has been good effort and see if expectations need to be adjusted.

In the meantime, definitely make home life less cozy. If you are woking from home, keep a business-like atmosphere from 8am-6pm with no tv, radio, etc. No late mornings, lazy days, late nights for him. Certainly there are home chores - painting, cleaning, pressure washing, etc - that he can be doing for you or for someone else. Stop buying snacks and easy foods that make it seem like vacation around the house.

What is his financial situation? If he has spending money then make sure he's paying his own gas, meals out if he does that, and misc. expenses.

[Anonymous]

Come up with a plan with options and a reasonable deadline that works. Email it to him so that there is documentation that there is an end date to doing nothing.

If you are paying for extras. Warn that those are ending by the end of November.

Warn that food & shelter will end in 6 months unless he enrolled full time in school, or working and paying rent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, drop the "Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UVA" line of thinking. That just makes you sound clueless. We need to know more about *why* you didn't insist on applications --- last year.

There's a story there ~ I'll bet you wouldn't pay.

Op here...I encouraged him to apply to all of those schools and he said he would and I thought he did. My income and/or will to pay is not of discussion in this conversation. He lied to me and DH when he said he would apply and didn't.

You are a parental fail if you relationship with your kid is so shitty that you don’t even know if he applied to college.

I was literally raised by abusive, uneducated wolves who didn’t graduate high school and had no clue about education or how to succeed in life and they at least knew enough to sit at the kitchen table with me and go through my applications and discuss how I’d get there and how we’d get it paid for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, had NO plan for how to pay for college

That's simply not true and quite frankly I am offended that she would even suggest that I am too poor to pay for college. You do not know how much DH and I make in a year, nor if we had a college savings plan lined up.

The fact of the matter is our child LIED to us and continues to be lazy and reject any semblance of applying to schools or getting a job. We are at our wits end but don't know what to do. He cannot afford to live in this area, but we cannot continue to subsidize him, especially since our incomes have been impacted by Covid-19.

I am asking for help on what to do, not asking you to make snap judgments and silly comments about my perceived inability to pay for college.

Me and DH have a combined HHI of $150,000/year. Of course we could pay for college.

Clearly you haven’t saved a dime for his college—if you had, you’d have given a crap if he actually went.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to burst your bubble but he wasn't getting into any school he wanted with a GPA of 3.75. Sit down with him and tell him he gets a job, joins the military, or you sit down together and have him apply to a community college.

+1 Help him make a plan. The military would be a good one. He would have good pay, a roof over his head, 3 square meals a day, on-the-job training, and he will be eligible for the GI Bill to pay for college if he wants.

[Anonymous]

I’m confused about how your child lied to you about applying to college. If he doesn’t have a job now, presumably he didn’t have a job in high school. Which means that you would have had to pay the application fee. How did you not realize he hadn’t applied?

You seem to have very unrealistic expectations. As others have said, 3.75 is not going to get you into Harvard or Yale. A $150,000 HHI is not enough to pay for either of those schools, and maybe not even a state school. You strike me as someone who really does not understand how the real world works, and didn’t prepare her child for it either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Percy I don't see anything wrong with your child's behavior. All of these "hard ass" parents here probably have miserable kids who secretly hate them because they were too hard on them growing up.

There is nothing wrong with your child, let him be.

... says another parent of losers.

[Anonymous]

Was he supposed to pay for his college applications on his own because if not and you were paying how could you not know that he never submitted them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was he supposed to pay for his college applications on his own because if not and you were paying how could you not know that he never submitted them?

I am astounded anyone could be THIS divorced from the college application process. The delusion about the GPA is just the start. Never filled out a FAFSA? Never reviewed an essay? Provided a credit card? Toured schools? Met with a counselor? NONE of those things happened?