Huge row with daughter home from university

[Missparentmisery]

My 20 year old daughter is home from uni. The first 2 weeks were ok because basically she was on holiday with friends. We are due to go away tomorrow but have just had an almighty row.

The way she talks to me is awful and is really upsetting especially as I give her money for uni every month, gave her cash for her holiday & basically try and do the best I can. As a family we suffer because we give her money & have nothing left.

My DH gives her money every month too which means we can’t afford to do stuff around the house like replace the kitchen or buy a new hoover. She said our kitchen was worse than a student house and laughed because the hoover is held together with sellotape even though I explained it’s because we have no spare cash.

The row started because she asked me a question and I replied with a bored fed up tone. She then shouted “watch your tone missy”. I told her not to speak to me like that and she said she’d speak to me how she wanted. I told her to treat me with respect she said why should she & it basically escalated from there.

Yes my tone wasn’t great but I told her I should be able to speak in whatever tone I want in my own home. She also picks me up on my facial expressions and tells me off if I look at her in the “wrong way”. Basically as long as I am never tired or depressed and speak in the “wrong” tone or look at her in the “wrong” way we get on ok.

Whenever we argue she uses the fact that I don’t have a dad to explain my “personality” says I need to go on medication, that I’m a hoarder (I’m not!) and basically rips me apart.

It’s upsetting and I don’t know how we will manage until she leaves for uni again in October. I have 2 other daughters who get upset by all the shouting and arguing.

I don’t want to have to keep taking it from her but if I don’t we argue and then get the silent treatment from her.

Her personality was like this before she went to uni so nothing is going to change.

Really don’t want to go on holiday tomorrow but I have spent money I don’t have and can’t disappoint the rest of my children by not going.

@Missparentmisery I’m sorry you are having to deal with this. She seems very ungrateful and out of touch with reality. Does she think you conjure money from nowhere? Don’t put up with that kind of disrespect in your own home. 💐

Don’t rise to her bait. You can’t clap with one hand.
Massively reduce your contributions, basics and that’s it. Any more, and she has to earn it either by getting a job or acting like a decent human being.
Tell her straight, that if the house is so subpar she’s welcome to find something else or live in halls and subsidise herself.

Will she kick off? Yes, but she’s doing that anyway. Will she learn and grow up a bit? Hopefully.

You’re finding her lifestyle at everyone else’s expense. I’d cut that back to the absolute minimum. In saying that there’s a huge gap between a new hoover and a new kitchen - it may be that you and your DH need to look at your family finances and decide some priorities if you can afford to replace essentials (like a hoover) or plan for the future (new kitchen). You can’t decide to fund her and then resent her for the consequences of that decision.

She does need to be respectful of you in your own home, she’ll be used to doing her own thing while she’s away so there’s an adjustment for you both while she’s back. Have a chat before your holiday about the need for both of you to take a breath while you’re away, but stop giving her money you can’t afford and then being annoyed by her.

Then why are you paying for her holidays when your hoover is held together by sellotape??? She needs to get off her arse and contribute to her life.

She is now an adult, has been living independently already and gets a student loan. What prevents you from leaving her at home?

I would rather waste one person flights than ruining the holidays for everyone. with regards to her attitude, if she doesn’t like it she can fuck off and find a job, you are not required by law to keep paying for her whims at the expense of her siblings.

Mind you, it will get worse before getting better so if you decide to go this route you need to stick to it, otherwise you will just make her worse.

In my stepfathers care home there were several young staff who were working there whilst at Uni. They certainly didn’t have qualifications.

Stop paying for her. Let her get a job and maintenance loan.

I know jobs are hard but lots of uni kids have jobs. From the kids I know, they are working in fast food, gym reception, clothes shop, kids football coach and referee, phone shop and tutoring.
I think you have to stop funding her so much and get her to try for work. Both your lives are suffering. Yours because you can’t afford to improve your home and replace broken items, and hers because she’s becoming entitled and not learning the skills she could be.
You need to help her find a job.

Well stop giving her money. Tell her if she won’t treat you like her parent you won’t finance her like one. Time for her to be an adult.

You sit her down and tell her how it is. The reason there is no new kitchen and and sellotaped together hoover is because you are supporting her at uni. In the meantime she is swanning round at home not pulling her weight with chores and expecting food and spending money to be provided and for that she treats you like shit

so it’s going to stop. This is her list of chores. She looks to find a job go to an agency look on line whatever it takes she has to be spending her time mopping. She also needs to finds a job for when she is back at Uni so she starts providing some support herself.

you will continue to provide food but that’s it no spending money. Make sure you get her father on side as well

Oh and if she’s never had a job and she’s 20 she’s going to really struggle after uni… nobody wants to hire someone who hasn’t bothered doing ANY work despite being an adult for years.

The rude, lazy mare needs to get a job. The gravy train has reached the terminus. If she wants money she has to earn some.I would lay it down for the sake of your other ds it's not fair on them. when their sis is spoilt and mardy with it and possibly missing out on stuff too.

get a job so very easy to do. I’m completely sympathetic to the Op here; it sounds awful but equally it’s not 1996, you can’t just wander into a bar or a restaurant or a shop and come out with a job any more

Maybe not as easy but there are jobs out there. Doing something to help find work would be a start.
A lot of Ds2s friends who are similar age to ops dd found work through agencies. The ' as and when ' hours suited them

Stop funding her and let her get work. Lots of young people at university get jobs . It might be stuff they don’t want to do like nightclubs or bar work, but they do it because they need the money. You have let her slip into a fantasy reality and she is mocking you for being in the real world . Stop allowing this

Is your DD at Oxbridge or a Russell Group university with a high proportion of privately educated or affluent students? If so, perhaps being suddenly surrounded by much wealthier peers has inadvertently given her an inferiority complex in relation to her own upbringing. Perhaps her scornful attitude and disparaging remarks are a defence mechanism stemmed from feeling hard-done-by in comparison to people from a particular demographic she has encountered?

She gets the minimum student loan due to her dads wage so that’s why we have to top it up, if we didn’t she wouldn’t be able to afford to live. We’re not even paying the full difference, because we can’t afford to.

Yes I explained I’d love a new kitchen & I’d love to go out for meals get my hair cut etc but can’t because we’re giving her money. It’s not her fault she doesn’t get the full grant.

She is actually a lovely girl and I love her dearly but her being at home 24/7 with no job and no uni work to do causes tension.

Stop giving he money immediately. My parents gave me nothing while l was at university, she will need to learn to live within her means and maybe learn to appreciate how difficult it is for you and your husband.

My kids started their working lives only a few years ago through agency work, before getting full time work.
OP's d can at least sign up to a few and show she is actually trying to make an effort.

Bloody hell. I don't know which is worse, her behaviour or posters defending her. I've brought up kids through the teenage, crappy, difficult, entitled years but none of them would have spoken to me like that. Your husband needs to get on board too. She needs to be told that if she continues to act like a vile, rude, spoilt, horrible brat there'll be no more cash. How dare she.

I'm almost (almost) speechless. That's a first.

It's ridiculous. Cut off the funds. She has zero respect because you allow her to walk all over you. Why should she work when you refuse to give her any motivation? Tell her the free ride has ended.

You don't have to top it up at all - she can get a job and pay for her own expenses!

She sounds like a brat, quite honestly.

She's not a lovely girl. Lovely daughters do not speak to their mothers like that.

Why can’t she get a job to top up her living expenses ? You can afford hair cuts or a new hoover & you’re giving her money for a holiday 🤯

she’d be getting fed at home during the holidays & nothing else. Bet she’d soon be looking for work.

Are you aware of the difficulties being faced by young people to just get a job right now?

Tbh I thought you both sounded about 14. Not your finest moment.

She does sound very immature. That doesn’t mean you just let it go but you are going to have to be the grownup.

I’m very aware that things were different when I was her age but I wasn’t taken on any holidays with my parents after leaving home (tbh not for years before that but they were so broke they didn’t have any). She needs to be out there trying to get a job every day, whether she achieves it or not; she’s young and presumably fit, she will probably get something even if it’s not full time hours. She does not speak to you like that; she’s an adult now, living at home because you love her and she needs it but she needs to start planning for what adulthood will look like, and that includes treating other people well.

I wouldn’t cut everything off, especially uni funding, it’s too much too soon. But part of the work is learning to stand on her own two feet.