Anonymous wrote:Mom of a mid 20s Barista who uses that job (and another part time job) to pay his life expenses while in school. He is a late starter due to mental health issues. I say this just to let people know that it is really hard to lose a job as a Barista. It's not a popular or well paying job and it takes a lot of training to become proficient. So employers tolerate a lot. I think it's only fair that other posters realize that OP's child likely does have issues beyond stealing if she can't hold onto a job that is hard to lose.

As far as what to do, I get that you are angry. But, if you involve the police, the result will be a police record. The only thing they can do is press charges for stealing. And, since you gave her the credit card at some point to use, it's not so clear cut that she did commit a crime. It will be her word that she had permission to use against yours that she did not. Even if you are believed, all you do is create a record for her which will follow her for a very long time, if not forever, and make adulting all that much harder for her.

I think those who said to report your card stolen and get a new one are right. But I'd go further. Sometimes credit card companies will honor cards that they shut down so I may completely conclude my business relationship with the credit card company or, at the very least, report that there are no other authorized users on the account. I'd discuss the problem with your credit card company and see exactly what they offer in this regard.

One other thing. Capital One messages me every single time my credit card is used. If that service is available to you, I'd opt in. That way if it's not something you did or authorized, you can stop it immediately and you won't lose the money. I'm sure other banks have a similar service, but I don't know because I'm a long term Capital One customer.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. No, we NEVER gave her permission to use our credit card. We weren't even aware that she knew the CC number until now, but apparently she wrote down my CC number when she was back home from winter break last year without me noticing. See how much of a sneaky, entitled person she is?

Re: college. She was an English major at a SLAC known for entitled, whiny students (similar to Oberlin/Wesleyan). She started off as pre-med/Bio at an HYPS school, but she left the school after her freshman year due to "mental health issues" (which I now realize are just depression and loneliness due to how insufferable she is to be around). She took 1 year off of college back in 2021 and then transferred to this progressive SLAC (similar in rankings/political reputation to an Oberlin/Vassar type school) because she wanted to "pursue her creative ambitions."

She lives with a college friend in a different part of the country, and pays $600/month in rent. She Venmo'd the person $3k from MY bank account (the audacity!) because she wanted to "front-load" rent for January-May. Insane.

She wants to use the extra $1k for Delta plane tickets to visit her FRIEND's FAMILY (not us, but her roommate's parents!) over winter break because "she never wants to see us again." This is despite the fact that she's 23 and on our health insurance and phone plan. Insane.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is a failure to launch. She graduated college back in May and has been unemployed since then. I found out last week that she stole $4k from us (she doesn't live with us, she pays rent in another city) because we found that our credit card had been venmo'd to her roommate for rent money, and we saw that she spent $1k on Delta plane tickets.

HELP! We tried to file a fraudulent dispute claim with the company, but I'm not sure if it'll work out. Should we file a police report against her so she doesn't pull this insanity again?

Call the police. Problem solved.

OP here. We called the police but it's hard to press charges against her; she's currently claiming that we gave her "verbal permission to use our card" when that's not the case. So it's essentially our word vs. hers, which hopefully a lawyer will resolve (but still hard).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. No, we NEVER gave her permission to use our credit card. We weren't even aware that she knew the CC number until now, but apparently she wrote down my CC number when she was back home from winter break last year without me noticing. See how much of a sneaky, entitled person she is?

Re: college. She was an English major at a SLAC known for entitled, whiny students (similar to Oberlin/Wesleyan). She started off as pre-med/Bio at an HYPS school, but she left the school after her freshman year due to "mental health issues" (which I now realize are just depression and loneliness due to how insufferable she is to be around). She took 1 year off of college back in 2021 and then transferred to this progressive SLAC (similar in rankings/political reputation to an Oberlin/Vassar type school) because she wanted to "pursue her creative ambitions."

She lives with a college friend in a different part of the country, and pays $600/month in rent. She Venmo'd the person $3k from MY bank account (the audacity!) because she wanted to "front-load" rent for January-May. Insane.

She wants to use the extra $1k for Delta plane tickets to visit her FRIEND's FAMILY (not us, but her roommate's parents!) over winter break because "she never wants to see us again." This is despite the fact that she's 23 and on our health insurance and phone plan. Insane.

Thank you for answering, that helps paint a more detailed picture, and I think I remember another post from you about the challenges you’ve been having — and ultimately, that your DD is struggling with. Cumulatively, it sounds incredibly stressful, and I’m sure by now you’re at your wit’s end.

If you haven’t yet spoken with an individual therapist for yourself, it might be worth considering a few sessions, given your daughter’s current behavior. While it sounds like you have a plan for dealing with this latest issue, a therapist can be a strong resource and support for yourself, and potentially make some recommendations for communicating your limits (even more) clearly and firmly with DD.

Best to you.

OP here. I've been in WAY too many therapy sessions (family therapy was required in the DBT program my daughter was in). It was actively harmful.

What I struggle with in terms of therapy (whether that’s DD’s individual therapist or a family therapist) is that there isn’t any focus on RESILIENCE. Like there’s no emphasis on the fact that living with family means that you need to tolerate some things about others that are unpleasant. It’s all just focusing on what we’re doing wrong as parents, and I don’t like that therapists don’t acknowledge that a parent-child relationship is a two-way street.

For example, we made college funding for DD contingent on going to a local church every Sunday. We told her that if she didn’t go to church (and we could check using Life360), we wouldn’t pay her tuition. The family therapist kept trying to get us to drop this requirement, but we told her that because DD is financially dependent on us, she needs to play by OUR rules. There’s just no acknowledgement of what WE want as parents.

When DD was in the intensive DBT program a couple of years ago, we were told to always “validate” whatever crazy BS she said. The problem is that anxiety and depression, by their nature, cause distortions of thinking. Therapy used to be about challenging these distortions and helping people see relationships, etc. clearly. Now, therapists sit in a bubble and hear only the patient’s assertions and expects the world to mold around those. It is fine to try to understand where someone is coming from, but making my daughter feel that only her perceptions and feelings are legitimate is a recipe for problems.

My daughter also has zero appreciation for my strengths as a parent (which are many!), and dwells upon minor indignations she feels she suffered as a child. I walk on eggshells, because when they are older you only see them at the kid’s discretion. We talk once a week on the phone. I wish I could call her more often (keep in mind she’s on OUR phone plan and we pay for everything including her phone), but she says she “doesn’t want to call us more because she hates hearing the sound of our voice.” I don’t even think she realized how painful that statement was to hear.

I think the therapy fed into her self-absorbent, and she began ranting to us about how we “weren’t meeting her emotional needs” because we did a few things in her childhood that made her angry, even though we were paying for her ENTIRE college tuition + room and board. Apparently the DBT therapist told DD that we have a “dysfunctional family.”

When I asked him why he thought this was the case (our family is loving and warm, as are most families where the parents are paying for the kid’s college), the DBT therapist told us that he can’t tell us that much due to HIPPA release, but that “EVERYONE has a role to play in the family dysfunction.” When I asked DD’s therapist to give us specific examples of ways that we’ve allegedly “fed into this family dysfunction”, her therapist simply responded that he can’t say anymore due to HIPPA violations. You can’t claim that we’re responsible for family dysfunction and then not tell us why… because the obvious answer is that DH and I were objectively amazing parents.

I have a DS (2 years older than DD), and he's the total opposite of DD. Grateful, appreciative, kind, and totally self-sufficient (he works in a tech job in SF).

Anonymous wrote:


Guys, no need to respond. This is a troll. They started another thread on the same subject.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. No, we NEVER gave her permission to use our credit card. We weren't even aware that she knew the CC number until now, but apparently she wrote down my CC number when she was back home from winter break last year without me noticing. See how much of a sneaky, entitled person she is?

Re: college. She was an English major at a SLAC known for entitled, whiny students (similar to Oberlin/Wesleyan). She started off as pre-med/Bio at an HYPS school, but she left the school after her freshman year due to "mental health issues" (which I now realize are just depression and loneliness due to how insufferable she is to be around). She took 1 year off of college back in 2021 and then transferred to this progressive SLAC (similar in rankings/political reputation to an Oberlin/Vassar type school) because she wanted to "pursue her creative ambitions."

She lives with a college friend in a different part of the country, and pays $600/month in rent. She Venmo'd the person $3k from MY bank account (the audacity!) because she wanted to "front-load" rent for January-May. Insane.

She wants to use the extra $1k for Delta plane tickets to visit her FRIEND's FAMILY (not us, but her roommate's parents!) over winter break because "she never wants to see us again." This is despite the fact that she's 23 and on our health insurance and phone plan. Insane.

Thank you for answering, that helps paint a more detailed picture, and I think I remember another post from you about the challenges you’ve been having — and ultimately, that your DD is struggling with. Cumulatively, it sounds incredibly stressful, and I’m sure by now you’re at your wit’s end.

If you haven’t yet spoken with an individual therapist for yourself, it might be worth considering a few sessions, given your daughter’s current behavior. While it sounds like you have a plan for dealing with this latest issue, a therapist can be a strong resource and support for yourself, and potentially make some recommendations for communicating your limits (even more) clearly and firmly with DD.

Best to you.

Anonymous wrote:This is a family matter not a police matter. Not being able to find a stable job some months after graduation is NOT failure to launch. I am so glad I didn't have parents like you.