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.

Exactly. Some people think this is beneath them.

Yet thousands of them manage to.

She needs to fund herself a bit more. My parents were multi millionaires and gave me £300 a month for uni. If I wanted more money then I had to earn it myself, which I did. During the holidays I went with a recruitment agency and did a whole host of crappy jobs to earn money. It taught me a lot and it was the right thing for my parents to have done.

You’ve effectively made a 19 year old homeless because she woke you up at for a lift and broke a few house rules (and couch surfing with friends IS covered under the definition of homelessness) and your response to not seeing or hearing from your child is a laughing emoji? Oh.

Yep. Two care homes near to me crying out for carers. They take on uni students and train them on the job.

The maintenance loan assumes a parental contribution and you can only be loaned the amount before your parental contribution.

I think you need to stop financing her firstly. My daughter spent 4 years at Uni and basically self funded due to her savings and working. We offered to help if she needed it but she said she was fine. I think she had about £1,000 in her first year from us and that was all she had.
I don’t understand why parents continue to support their kids after the age of 18 when they are at Uni. They spend so little time in lectures that getting a job was easy to fit it around. You should be topping them up at the very most.
Both my sons went straight into work and have been independent since they were about 17. You do your kids no favours treating them like dependents and financing them. You need to cut the umbilical to your daughter, and cut the crappy attitude and expectation. You deserve better and she needs to learn that nothing comes to her without her having respect for those that provide it.

Don't be ridiculous. Boundaries . No child, adult or otherwise should treat their parents like that. Did you?

Jobs can be tricky to get depending on where you live.

My DC is really struggling to get one, but they are applying and going for interviews (and not acting like an entitled brat).

I would expect her to get a job but I’d be satisfied if she’s genuinely trying her hardest to get one.

If your child was so vile to you, why on earth would you enable it ?

I will be funding my son through uni, he isn’t leaving home to go though and he’s lovely to us and a joy to be around. The main thing is though that by doing so, we’re not placing a financial burden on ourselves.

Your daughter and circumstances are the opposite of all that though aren’t they? She’d speak to me like she speaks to you ONCE. If she did it again then ‘missy’ would be funding her own education and holidays.

She gets a job and she funds herself. She won’t or can’t find a job? Then oh dear, she’ll have to drop out of university won’t she? I mean. She doesn’t actually have to go.

Exactly

@Cheese55 Is correct. The jobs are seriously going. Pubs and clubs are going. Parents want the work and they get it above students. A few might get lucky but there are nowhere near enough to go round. Nearly everywhere is reporting this. I’d definitely get in temp staff agency lists though but lots of part time student jobs have gone.

She could try volunteering or she might be bouncing back home as a jobless grad!

No I didn’t, but I think in part they always made me feel safe and respected, and I knew that I wouldn’t be sent away or rejected for making teenage mistakes!

I think if I’d needed picking up in the middle of the night they’d have been pretty cross about it, but they wouldn’t have wanted me to feel I couldn’t call if, as a 19 year old girl, I hadn’t been able to get home. They’d have prioritised safety.

If she can't get a job she needs to learn some manners and show some gratitude.

She needs to double down on looking over summer.
I wouldn't stop subsidising her bit I would be reducing it by 300/400pm or so
Because I guarantee shes spending that pm on clothes and going out / gym etc.

Buy yourself a new hoover.

You have raised an utter brat, and are pandering to the madam

When I was at uni I worked every summer and saved it up to use during the year. It's easier to get a short term contract in a shop or amusement park or whatever, somewhere seasonal. If she was like this before uni then it isn't just thr independence going to her head, which is fairly common, but it usually balances back. If it's her personality then I think she needs some hard truths. Why are you all going short so she can live it up?

Just checking - you know my response was to the person who asked their child to leave their house right, and not the OP? I’ve said the OP has my sympathies!

That's great. I'm sure if you called your mother 'Missy' they would have had something to say about it and might not have been so accommodating.

She needs to try and get a part time job. As someone else said, sit her down and explain your financial situation. Not an easy situation but she need to hear a few home truths. When she finishes Uni and if she doesn’t have a job will she be expecting you and your DH to pay for the things she wants then?

Stop giving her money! It's one thing to help with uni costs, quite another to completely fund her lifestyle. When I was at uni I worked and summer holidays I worked all the time to help me pay for the upcoming school year.

Am afraid you reap what you sow. She needs to learn the value of money and she at least needs to learn how to be grateful about the help you give. She sounds like a judgemental little sod, did this get worse at uni?

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.

Really? Can you really not see her side of the argument?

Wow, she is so rude. Even if you were (and I am not saying you are but this is what she has sajd) depressed and a hoarder because of a difficult upbringing what sort of a person would rub your face in it like that and not be able to show some compassion. She sounds spiteful and immature. As others have said, she is no doubt envious of others who have more money and shiny stuff at Uni and in that self centred way that many new fledged young adults do they feel self pity for themselves and blame their parents with a absolutely no insight into what their parents have sacrificed for them. She will grow out of it but for now I think you need to calmly deliver a few home truths and ground rules.

OP both you and your husband have made this situation by making her "queen" making sure she money whilst you go without. She knows she is Queen and that is why she tells you to watch your tone (in your own house )and has the cheek to call you missy. It is time to parent here and tell her that she either changes her tone or she finds somewhere else to live. Also let her know that come October she funds herself.
I find it incredulous that both you and your Husband are giving her money every month yet you let your other children suffer.