to confiscate her bank card?

[WongaWoman]

Today I opened the October bank statement of my eldest DD (19) and was horrified to discover that she was overdrawn by £280, had been charged nearly £90 in authorised and unauthorised overdraft charges, had accrued over £40 so far this month in charges, and she had received a payday loan of £100 from a well known online payday loan company earlier in October.

She is only on apprentice pay of £2.60 per hour! I have now nearly killed myself to pay off her payday loan and overdraft. With back up from my DH I have confiscated her bank card until I get all my money back as I thought it was the cheapest option for her. She was in floods of tears tonight in embarrassment and at losing her independence.

I don't really know what else I could have done. AIBU?

I think some people are mature at younger ages than other. I had graduated at 20. I was 22 when we bought our house just before the first baby arrived. Married at 21. Workgin full time. Employing a nanny at 22. It's all good experience. I think the children have benefited from h aving two full time working parents too as they have had to learn to be more independent and going away to university is often a good experience for them too in having to learn to budget and manage and cope on their own.

Yes, £2.60 an hour is not a great wage. Can't you encourage her to be an actuary or leading surgeon or something?

Xenia, once you have encouraged everybody in the country to become surgeons and actuaries, who is actually going to do the back-up jobs that surgeons and actuaries rely on? do we get robots in to do those?

And what are all those people who compete for the same surgeon/actuary job going to do when only one of them can get each job?

Your world vision seems to be of a somewhat top heavy society- how sustainable is that?

Besides, this low wage is what the OPs dd is earning as a 19yo apprentice: if she were training to be a surgeon she wouldn't be earning anything at all for many years. Presumably she won't be earning that when she is fully trained and experienced.

I did take the longer route and am happy to have done so, but it certainly wasn't so I could be better off at age 19.

You are so funny Xenia. Where will all the out of work surgeons and actuaries get their car fixed, have their dustbins emptied, get a hair cut, go shopping?!

A friend's DS went to Cambridge and became an actuary, it paid well but he found it boring. He now earns less teaching Maths but is very happy and he gets job satisfaction. I have yet to find out what your job is, but I suspect that I wouldn't do it any price and certainly not if I had to live in London to do it!

That's fine - let's have all the RoF children except mind on £2.60 an hour doing low paid service work then and my chidlren can have reserved for them careers on over £100k a year. I would be content with that if you are all so keen to have daughters who are care home operatives and cleaners and the like.

Surely there could be some kind of middle way, Xenia? How about waiting with advising any one poster to encourage their child to be a surgeon until you know if this particular child actually has what it takes to be a surgeon.

I don't particularly want my dd to be a cleaner, but I don't want her to an out of work surgeon either or an incompetent surgeon who risks people's lives because her mum has told her she has to go for a high earning job regardless of aptitude. I want her to look squarely and unemonationally at herself and decide where her strenghts are and what kind of job she would do well (and yes, the evidence is, it won't be a cleaning job).

If we encorage 10 times as many people to train as surgeons it will not be the case that 10 times as many surgeon jobs will magically materialise. Only so many operations are needed; they won't employ more people because more people want to be employed.

One thing you consistently fail to see is that there are quite a few jobs between the 100k a year ones and the low pay/no promotion type jobs. If the OPs dd is on an apprentice scheme she is probably not heading for a cleaning job.

I suspect we make our children what they are to an extent through expectations and education etc. I didn't really want to get off topic. I think the original poster has been very sensible and if your child still lives with you and even after there's no reason you can't give advice.

I give it to my children whether they live here or not and if they choose to ignore it (as I'm sure they often do) that's fine.

Of course there are jobs under £100k which are better than the £6 an hour minimum wage. Also I'm not materialistic. I am content with things like walking and reading. I just think life can be easier if you have a high income, that's all and some daughters get low paid work because of low expectations from the family.

Does daughter 1 earn £60k because of (i) her genes /IQ (ii) parental expectations (iii) I paid for her education (iv) luck (v) because she's blonde or (vi) her class/accent?

Like all parents I want them all to be healthy and happy most of all although we all know that a higher income means you live a Kensington life and diet and on a low income you're in Glasgow living on deep fried mars bars. high income and good health can go together.

or perhaps even opportunities available where she lives, opportunities available elsewhere, life experience and self confidence or even whether she meets someone...?

Hmm yes... all down to i - vi above...

Life isn't easier if you have chosen a job for the money and you hate it. I can't even watch operations on the TV, so surgeon is out for me! (I think that you might get some very irritated Glaswegian's on because the location has nothing to do with the diet or aspirations!)

I would think it a far healthier lifestyle to live in Cornwall hand building boats if that is your passion.
If you are passionate about gardening why not get paid for doing it all day? The same for artistic people who want to be a chef or style hair.

She may only be earning peanuts on the apprenticeship but she will have a skill and be employable-rather than have a degree and debt and no job.

You only get one crack at life, to have to live in London to get some high paid job to pay for school fees to send your DCs to a good school and good university so they can get a top job to afford school fees...........etc isn't one that would suit me and you wonder when one will want to get off the conveyor belt and say 'actually I am off to Antarctic for 3 yrs to study penguins'!

Most surveys have found massive differences in healthy weights and good idets and life expectancy particularly been the poorer parts of Scotland and Kensington. Poverty is one of the best indicator of how long you will live etc.

If you adore my work as I do and it's well paid (which tends to be the case with the intellectual jobs rather than the low paid factory production line type jobs) then it's win win all the time.

I think that you should compare like with like Xenia and if it was the most expensive district in Glasgow with Tower Hamlets, you would get a very different result. Lots of intellectual jobs are low paid.

Most surveys have found massive differences in healthy weights and good idets and life expectancy particularly been the poorer parts of Scotland and Kensington. Poverty is one of the best indicator of how long you will live etc.

Healthy in what way certainly not their stress levels a high paid job must give.

People are very lucky they can be surgeons and actuaries-they wouldn't have the time if no one wanted to have careers in childcare, teaching, farming, manufacturing, service industries because they would have to be self sufficient and home educate and manage without cars because no one would make them or build roads etc! They should be highly grateful -there are only so many surgeons the country can employ and they are fairly useless if nursing is beneath everyone!

I think in future you need to step back, but I understand you want to help DD. She clearly needs some help organising her finances, and I don't think that's so surprising since she is only 19 and probably not been earning for very long. Help her with budgeting and do make sure she repays that money, however sorry you feel for her.

Please don't go through her things again. My mum did that when I was a teenager - it kills trust and just means she will work harder to hide things from you.

You have tried your best and clearly love your daughter dearly.
Seeing as your daughter has unwittingly spilled her financial guts to you ...
Why don't you spill your financial guts loans/overdraft/savings and all, to her in the shape of how to budget wisely!!!

"we all know that a higher income means you live a Kensington life an diet and on a low income you're in Glasgow living on deep fried mars bars"

Love this

and the rest of the British Isles is just one uninhabited desert where nobody eats at all

I don't think I have ever seen a neater summing-up of the Xenia World View

Don't worry Maryz, I've sometimes wondered if she's stalking me .

How do you hide a thread?

I don't hide it, I love it. We should all be surgeons! That would be fun as the infrastructure of the country falls apart, but we could get through the waiting lists! (if the hospitals wouldn't have closed due to lack of cleaners, laundry workers, nurses, cooks, porters, receptionists etc.) And no one could move to Glasgow because they don't have lawyers, doctors etc and they all eat fried mars bars!

Yes, £2.60 an hour is not a great wage. Can't you encourage her to be an actuary or leading surgeon or something?

This must be one of the funniest bits of advice ever! I think that I missed something when my 16yr old got an apprenticeship, 'don't be silly darling, stay on at school and become a leading surgeon'! (he wasn't academic, is squeamish in the extreme and has actually done very well at something he is good at + the fact that surgeons wouldn't be able to operate without people choosing to do his job).

I think it's wonderful that Xenia's children didn't need to load up on debt whilst at university. 100 pounds a week "beer money" after bills have been taken care of?

It's very easy to take the "moral" high ground when you're in a rather priviledged situation to start with.

"OMG I'd never get in to debt - I think it's disgusting, thankfully my husband earns 500k a year".
"OMG state schools are all lovely, we live next door to Chis & Sid".
"OMG I started this business with only 1 clever idea and 6 million pounds".