AIBU to not pay for DD's skin removal surgery?

[MrsParkinson]

Hi Mumsnet,

I am looking for unbiased opinions here.

A bit of a backstory. My daughter is 19 and has always been overweight from about 8, she used to sneak a lot of food and I did everything to stop that, things did improve, but at around 11, she just kept putting on weight until she was 18 really and ended up at 20 st, she began slimming world and I am really proud of her for getting to an ideal weight in these last couple of years (almost 20).

She is currently on a gap year so does work. I admit she definitely doesn't waste her money by any means, it's just unfortunate she is in a min wage job - she plans on going to uni next year.

I am definitely not rich or well off, I have to work full time and although on 40k a year, it isn't lots. I have 2 other DC at uni too, so they need some financial help.

She has been recently receiving psychological help and before getting this, admitted she overate, etc. but since having therapy has become a bit "I was only a child and I'm sad you let me get fat" and just stuff along those line, when really that's unfair and a bit passing the blame. She got heaviest when she was a teenager, I couldn't control that.

We recently spoke about her loose skin, something she brought up with me. I do appreciate it's hard for her, she is a young adult and obviously it isn't something she wants. She has spoken to the GP who says due to it not causing any health issues, there is nothing the NHS can do, which is fair enough.

She has asked if she can 'borrow' the money. The thing is, she has no way of paying this back... She is on 10k a year and plans on going to uni next year, so she just won't be able to.

There is some money put away for me that's from my husband, definitely not a lot, but is a financial aide for me. There is enough to cover the cost, but I am then left with no financial security and I do need that. Especially when she just can't pay anything back.

I suppose I'm looking for advice on weather I am being unreasonable for not paying for the surgery?

Thank you for your time if you reply.

If you were very well off and wouldn't miss £10K then I'd say pay. But this isn't the case. You aren't in a position to pay for this. People do get this on the NHS sometimes if it's affecting a person's mental health.

People who think the OP should start chucking her nest egg around willy-nilly, what happens if she gets ill or has an accident and can't work?

To me, a £40k wage is a lot of money, but she is supporting 4 adults on that. The savings in the bank equate to one years wages, so if shit happened and she'd handed out all the money to her kids (who are already getting plenty in my opinion) then what? Is she supposed to live the rest of her life in poverty?

To me, this is purely about financial practicalities. The daughter is living free and earning 10k. It wouldn't take very long to save up for the surgery or she could easily afford a loan. Too many people want instant gratification without putting any work in themselves. I don't deny she has done a fantastic job to lose the weight, but would any reputable surgeon do the work so soon? I would have thought that the time it would take the daughter to save up would more or less align with the optimum time for the surgery, when the skin has had the maximum time to shrink back on its own.

Should all the PPs who are heckling, blaming and shaming the OP for her daughters weight gain - now applaud the OP for supporting her DD through her amazing, sustained weigh loss? Surely it works both ways?

OP you are an amazing mother, very few have walked in your shoes. To loose a husband, deal with your grief, raise three children close in age through their own grief and get them to lead successful, independent, high achieving, lives at uni is remarkable. On top of that to keep a roof over their heads, work hard to maintain a stable financial future is to be applauded.

Your daughter has had at least one 'adverse childhood event" causing emotional trauma which she has sought to soothe through addictive/dysfunctional/disordered eating. She has embraced counselling and found the sustained resilience to loose an incredible amount of weight. Just look at the traffic on the Big, Slim thread here to get an inkling of the challenge.

You should all be very proud of yourselves. Pat yourselves on the back. You have all come through (or are working through) successfully, the worst that can happen to any family and what most of the judgement PP will never have to face.

Well done. Good luck. Take Care. Continue to be the brilliant mother that you are.

Unfortunately, you cannot afford to let emotions cloud your vision, you are not 'well off'. I think you should hang fire, and in a couple of years, when your daughter has further matured, discuss it again. We all want the best for our children, and to see them happy, your daughter will have more direction then, and may be in a position to contribute.
Lending her the money, would mean lumbering her with debt.

I think the blame discussion is very unhelpful, irrelevant and judgemental. I would say it's pretty clear she had some mental (and possibly physical) health issues, which were not her fault. Thinking that fat=lazy/deliberate in this situation is idiotic.

You need to look at where she is now which is a 20yo with loose skin which is very embarrassing presumably and will hinder her forming healthy relationships and getting on with her life.

Personally I'd see this surgery as an opportunity to put her weight issues to bed. She will have been through hell and will not want to return. If your other children object to you paying for this surgery then they are severely lacking in empathy. She's digging herself out of a hole she fell down and your other children are standing in the way of her becoming free. We are in 2017 and unfortunately people are judged immediately and harshly on their appearance.

When you say she can't pay it back, she may be able to pay it back to you in 10 years time when she may have a good job and is happy and successful.

We are all individuals, with different needs. Your DD's needs are different from your other children's needs and therefore will need different solutions, you trying to guilt each other by apportioning blame is corrosive and unnecessary.

Offer to loan her half, that way you can support her whilst encouraging her to take responsibility for finding the solution to her problem. Future surgeries will be a investment in herself that she will have to fund solo.

Your children are at that age where they want independence but want the convenience of someone being on hand to clean up whatever situation they ge themselves into.

Your DD has been overweight since 8 years old. She really began piling on weight at 11.

At those ages you had control of what food was being brought into the house and her portions. She had no money at 8 to go and buy junk food and get overweight so it must have been in the house. Did you stop her overeating from 8? Encourage exercise, only buy healthy food. Lock the cupboards once she was old enough at 11 to go and take food for herself?

It sounds like you're not taking any responsibility for it and a child of 8 doesnt turn into a 20st 18 year old without very serious over eating right under your nose and all through her teens.

Pay for some of it as it doesn't sound as though you helped her at all.

I know someone who is getting this exact surgery on the NHS.She had to go through psychological evaluations and meetings before they agreed. She also had to keep the weight off for 12 months before they'd even think about doing the surgery.

I think you should pay but wait 12-18 months to ensure the weight stays off (The person I know is allowed 5lbs each way in terms of maintaining). Maybe tell her during that time period she needs to save half if you really don't want to pay for it all.

I think she should stabilise at that weight for a few years before you consider paying for this surgery. It is an amazing achievement but reaching goal weight is only the beginning.

Is she exercising as well as doing slimming world? Toning up can help with that extra skin a bit, not to mention improve her mental health.

I think you should pay for her if you can with a repayment plan from her set out from the start. You could make the repayments low so she can continue them through uni and explain that until everything is paid off you can't provide nay further financial support.

Overweight at 8 is a parental fail to be honest. Yes she made it worse but you didn't start her from a healthy point. It's hard to control a teens eating but not impossible. It's certainly not impossible to help an 8 year old maintain a helathy weight. Maybe counselling should have been sought at a younger age.

It's nothing to do with her siblings. They shouldn't hate her for this it's none of their business and it smacks of sour grapes if they do kick off

Someone I know had been very overweight for a few years and lost it, and he says the loose skin gradually changed as a result of exercise and passage of time. You would never know to look at him now that he had been overweight, I have seen him stripped off to swim togs and he is toned and fit. Age helps - he was in his early 20s and your dd is young.

I would however worry about a 19 year old having surgery. It can take a long time for some people to recover and this is going to affect her quality of life in the meantime and may affect studies.

Can you instead invest in helping her do something about the skin in more natural ways?

It is going to be very difficult if OP pays for this, if one of dd's siblings comes along in a year or so and says 'this issue matters to me and you paid x to her for her issue, so I'd like you to pay me the same'. It is going to set up a precedent, there's no way it can't. It is going to cause resentment down the line if the OP can't do the same for another adult child or for every adult child. Not to mention if dd puts the weight back on and later wants further surgery funded. It's clear it would be difficult for the OP to do this once, never mind several times over.

Giving cash is not an essential part of being a loving, supportive parent and helping dd with the obviously distressing difficulties dd has around her body image. For many, many parents, giving cash just isn't an option.

I think OP has had a bit of a rough time here. If it's her fault the dd is overweight, conversely, would it also be her fault if it was anorexia rather than obesity? Over eating has an emotional root, as does anorexia.

That said, I would still want to pay or at least contribute to the operation.

Sorry op but I couldn't read much beyond you blaming a child for being overweight. How very caring you must be.

If she could work and save to pay half of the cost, have the money in an account so you could see it was there, could you pay the other half for her when she had achieved that?

That would show she was committed and give her something to look forward to and hopefully show the other kids that she wasn't getting a large cash handout for "doing nothing"

I think OP has had a bit of a rough time here. If it's her fault the dd is overweight, conversely, would it also be her fault if it was anorexia rather than obesity? Over eating has an emotional root, as does anorexia.

With anorexia you physically cannot force feed them.

With obesity starting from 8, well she absolutely could control what food was brought into the house. Children have no money. If copious amounts of unhealthy food wasnt readily available at home and her being permitted to eat it, she couldnt have become overweight.

I find it very telling that she went to slimming world herself at 18.

The home environment is such that she ballooned to 20st at 18 and her siblings will hate her if her mum assists her with the loose skin surgery. I'm getting an idea of the environment and doesnt look like anyone is supportive to her.

miss havisham you are spot on. When my eldest nephew was 17 he bought an old vw beetle and did it up with parents paying for parts. Younger nephew encouraged him finding parts online for the car. Then when he was 17 he gave them an itemised list of parts and total bought him a nearly new mini. How could they refuse

OP - how old was your DD when her DF died?
You said her problems started at eight but it takes an awful lot of overeating to need to lose eleven stone. At such a young age she has done an amazing job of losing the weight.

I feel desperately sorry for your DD, her younger sibling judges her, her older sibling judges her and you too, whilst I'm sure not consciously, are judging her for getting fat. This is about so much more than food. Overeating is a complex issue with many triggers to start and triggers to maintain. Is it possible that this was the place she retreated to, to cope with her DF's death? You said she has had therapy which has helped her to lose the weight (which you are proud of) but are resenting some of the things that she has learned, notably that it is not necessarily her "fault". This isn't about blame. For me, it is about your child who for whatever reason has struggled and turned to food. This is not greed.

My DD put on weight when she went to secondary school and had all the responsibility of choosing her own meals and having more control over the numerous activities she did or not do at primary. I'm guessing a couple of stone. I take a bit of responsibility for that as a busy single parent, we did too many takeaways and easy meals at times and I didn't instill all the lessons I taught her when younger as I got busier. However, I don't "blame" myself for it. In our case it really was just about food and diet and bad choices. In your DD's case, I believe it is so much more than that.

I think she's getting a bit of judgement because she hasn't dealt with things as well as your other two. However, she's working during a GAP year (minimum wage or not), has lost eleven stone in weight and is planning on going to university. I expect that is scaring her beyond belief but is a massive achievement.

I'm not going to tell you that you are unreasonable for not paying for her surgery. I think you should realise that you are her only option if she goes to university until she graduates and gets her own job. I would, but I don't walk in your shoes. For whatever reason your DD needs your help and whilst it manifests itself as financial help, it is actually more about her mental health and well being.

This is a matter to be dealt with between you and your DD, your other children should not and need not figure in this decision.

Best wishes OP. Your DD sounds amazing

I know how difficult it is when you have one overweight child and the rest are slim from my sibling.

It does sound simple to deal with but if you have been there it isn't always quite as easy as it sounds. I am not saying the OP couldn't have done more but this isn't all on the OP either.

I would never suggest anyone spends their nest egg on this. That is there for OP's future security, not to fund her daughter's surgery. It would be foolish to spend that money. OP I would help as much as I could but I would not spend your savings. If you can't afford it any other way than that really sucks but my sibling would never, ever expect our mum to pay for surgery because they felt like she didn't do enough to stop her becoming overweight in the first place.

*reply.
I'm not passing all the blame, as maybe there were some not perfect foods there, but I had 2 other children too and sometimes the odd treat was fine, she was the one who ended up sneaking lots of what was there.

It's not about really liking snacks. That's rarely why children sneak food. There another issue there that leads to disordered eating. She needs help. If she had developed anorexia at 8 and needed some corrective surgery from malnourishment as a teenager you would help her right? It's the same thing. For some reason, probably because over eating is such a taboo we have to blame the over water for obesity in a way we don't for other disorders.

You shouldn't pay
Your daughter can pay for it herself once she gets her degree and a well paid job

Only read a few posts so this may have been said already - whilst doing lighter life the "therapy sessions" which were pushed on us as compulsory were very much aimed at blaming parents for any eating habits , it made me really cross as it wasn't my parents at all - seems like it may have been the same with your daughter

I have one child who needed a lot of calories as a result of a chronic illness and one who started to overeat at 16 and pile on weight. She has never been more than s little overweight but If I cut down on treats at home she would just buy more when she was out of the house and out of my control.

We have always been a fit and healthy family and neither my husband nor I have ever been overweight in our 22-year marriage, but I had an eating disorder as a teenager and young adult and it was nothing to do with my parents. It was just the way my brain was wired and probably triggered by som problems at school.

It is very hard to have calorie-burning hungry children who need lots of fuel and then one who has a completely different metabolism but feels hurt and tbh unloved if she isn't 'allowed' the same treats as her siblings.

It is ludicrous to say that you can lock the cupboards and genuinely control what a child eats once they are 11 and going to secondary, unless you are also prepared to drive them to school, never allow them out, not give them pocket money and in other ways hamper their lives psychologically and independence-wise. There are many tales on here of people who were walking home from school hiding their eating behaviour from their parents- both stuffing their faces with chocolate, eating almost nothing, or both. You cannot fully control what enters a teen's body, that's actually abusive to think that you can, and if you did, you would have to have them on such a restrictive living regime, it would be simply damaging- what, never round at other people's houses, away for weekends, at parties where they may gorge on icecream fizzy drinks etc?

I agree at 8 this is possible, but once they are essentially out in the world, their control over eating has to be partially internal as well as what you provide at home. In fact, if a child is very restricted at home with no snacks and nothing sugary at all, they may binge-eat at school/away from the home setting, and it does nothing to set up normal eating patterns.

Some of the judgement and some of the advice on this thread is bonkers as well as not at all in line with current thinking about the psychology of eating disorders (over as well as under eating) or indeed how to lose weight over the long term. In fact, the Op has a daughter who has lost weight extremely effectively and should be commended for such.

it wasn't my parents at all - seems like it may have been the same with your daughter

At 8 years old? Are you serious?