Anonymous wrote:Good for her. Hopefully she will start a family and be a happy SAHM.

You are sick.

An uneducated SAHM is not something to aspire to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is her age. The plan is he will work in a trade and she will sell crafts in Etsy, to start. She says she has no interest in school and just wants to start her life.

She doesn't have the greatest relationship with her family so I think she just wants to get away. I wish I could get her to understand that running from her family to this guy is not freedom but it is probably hopeless cause. I just really care for her.

Sigh. Just encourage her to attend community college and try to get an associates degree if she can. She probably just wants to get away from home and her parents ASAP.

She can both get married and attend college as money permits.

LOL like that is easy. It is not.

And her BF making minimum wage she won't be going to college she will get pregnant and be stuck in a crappy life. Then again that is the Project 2025 dream for all women.

This was me. I did my first two years but quit to get married. My (now ex) husband was extremely abusive and I was sucked right in.

My parents just wanted me married off (they are very religious) and I did not have a bond or healthy support system with them.

My aunt told me just a few months ago that when she found out years ago that I was quitting my education plan (I had wanted to be a teacher) that she had cried, that she was sad about that for a while because she just felt like I had so much potential, and would have made a wonderful teacher and that she just felt I was going off track from what a great life for me could've looked like.

I cried when she told me now, but yeah, I do wonder if someone - anyone - had said hey, listen we know you're an adult now but we just want to say _______

And say it. Speak their potential. Speak about opportunities and options and paths and what you see for them hopes & dreams and all.

You don't have much to lose. If the guy isn't great she's kind of gone anyway. But nobody told me, or encouraged me, or mentored me at all. I don't know if it would've affected anything, but sometimes we do need someone else to have our hopes and dreams for us and help us back on track. And some guidance and trust that we CAN do it ourselves.

I mean, this actually doesn’t sound like the worst thing? If he is going into a trade he can support them. Based on ops follow up posts it sounds like there may be good reason she wants to get the heck out of that house. Especially with the parents telling her either college or him. I wonder what her answer would have been if they offered to still fund school?

Op could you maybe suggest community college? You could spin it as taking business classes to help getting her Etsy business underway and that also gives her flexibility to go get a four year degree later if she changes her mind.

Anonymous wrote:Good for her. Hopefully she will start a family and be a happy SAHM.

Yeah…right. You sound like a complete dipshit who would never want their own daughter to get engaged at 18 to some random she just met…or are an actual dipshit and would actually want that.

Good for her. Hopefully she will start a family and be a happy SAHM.

My cousin dropped out of college(on scholarship) freshman year to be with her boyfriend in the military. They got married, he got kicked out and they moved back to the DC area with his parents, along with their newborn. Now a little over 3 years later, instead of a degree, she has a kid and a husband that she wants to divorce. She regrets her decision.

Keep your opinion to yourself and stay out of it.

Lots of college grads are doing low income jobs and are struggling to find a loving relationship, getting a college degree and staying noncommittal is not a guaranteed recipe for success in life.

I worked 45 hours a week 3 months after graduating from high school. I had move to another country on a different continent and never looked back.
While I went back to school finally, it wasn't the degree that made it possible for me to retire early.
She has a chance to do just as well if not better than the ones who do go to college. She will do great if her family is indeed drag on her.
Let her be.

Why expect the worst? May be she'll find what she hopes to find in life. Everyone doesn't have to walk a straight line to a future expected of them.

Anonymous wrote:Tell her the best way for them to build their life together for strong long-term prospects is for her to get a college degree. He can still do his thing, she can do Etsy on the side or whatever, but as a couple they should prioritize increasing her earning potential by her getting the degree. She can do both things: be with him and get her degree. If she’s receptive to data, you can give her some statistics on earnings with and without a college degree, etc.

Also tell her to make sure she’s on solid, reliable birth control because children now would not fit into a good long-term plan “for them.”

My heart would break if this happened to my niece, and I agree with the PP who said anything you say will land differently. But don’t criticize him, don’t criticize her decision, but instead frame everything in a way that emphasizes the positive and the necessity of the path you are suggesting.

I agree with the PP who said the parents should not give her any financial support other than health insurance.

Can you tell us more about the guy?

I don't know much about the guy other than he is her age, and is doing a trade (think plumbing or blacksmith). No college interest/potential on his part. She says he is smart, nice, perfect etc. I am assuming he is just a naive teenager much like herself.

Thanks all. From my conversations with her, she seems very set on doing this. She thinks this kind of love doesn't come around more than once. She thinks she knows exactly what she wants from life and wants to start it now vs wasting time studying something she doesn't care about. I said everything I could about earning potential, about the need to maximize and preserve her options at her age so that she has the tools to help her future family with whatever life throws her way. I told her about statistics of divorce being much lower after 25, of the possibility of keeping the relationship but giving each other room to grow first as individuals. She just has no doubt about her plan. 18 year olds really believe they know it all....

All I could do was give her the last piece of advice of not to get pregnant. She may very well live like this for a year and decide this sucks (I didn't say that part). She says she doesn't plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

And for those asking, this is both a complete shock and I guess not. I have suspected for a long time that her parents parenting style did not work for her and that she was withdrawing from her family. But I guess I didnt think she would have the guts to do something this extreme. I hope my cousin and her DH come around and eventually realize that ultimatums will no longer work. They are used to controlling their kids behaviors through consequences/punishments vs really trying to understand underlying motivations.

1 If you are able to follow through if necessary, tell her that if things don't work out with the guy she can come live with you--creating an additional option to living with him or living with her parents. Don't frame it as "I know things aren't going to work out, so" but "just in case..."

2 Tell her that if she wants to make her Etsy business successful, she needs to know basic business information. For example, does she know how to keep books? How to price the items she is selling? Figure out whether she is making a profit? Develop a business plan?How to market her product? She can find courses like this at her local community college or a night high school. IOW, make her see that getting some additional schooling will help her succeed in fulfilling her own plan.

A generation ago my own cousin's kid got pregnant and married in similar circumstances. Her husband was a journeyman in a union training program, had an idea for a business related to that trade, but knew zilch about how to run a business. She took courses in accounting, marketing, and basic business law at the local community college. I know it's a one in a million story, but they are still married and have grandchildren and these days the company they started in their little apartment is a multimillion dollar corporation. It turned out the guy truly was a good guy and he'll be the first to tell you he would have failed within the first couple of years if his wife hadn't handled the books, correspondence, billing, pricing, etc. for the business. And she did it with a newborn. (She did get one semester of school in before the baby was born, which helped. )

My point is that you should try to sell some sort of schooling to her as helpful in fulfilling her own plans rather than "you should go to college because then you'll realize what a mistake you're making."

GL!!

Anonymous wrote:He is her age. The plan is he will work in a trade and she will sell crafts in Etsy, to start. She says she has no interest in school and just wants to start her life.

She doesn't have the greatest relationship with her family so I think she just wants to get away. I wish I could get her to understand that running from her family to this guy is not freedom but it is probably hopeless cause. I just really care for her.

Sigh. Just encourage her to attend community college and try to get an associates degree if she can. She probably just wants to get away from home and her parents ASAP.

She can both get married and attend college as money permits.