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Original poster

Kicking her out for a tattoo

447 replies

Potterhead113 · 15/10/2017 15:16

My friend is 19 and at uni, she recently got a tattoo to cover up self harm scars on her leg. It is very well done and tasteful and paid for half by her student loan and half by her own savings from work. Her parents have no refused to help her financially (her loan doesn't fully cover rent as they earn too much) her rent is now due and she cannot pay and the uni bursary won't give her any loans because her parents have money and she's looking at being kicked out with no where to live. They said she looks awful and they hate it and will only pay for her if she gets laser which she will have to pay for herself.

ATBU in this situation by not paying her or is it fine seeing as she is 19 and they have no real responsibility over her?

OP posts:
OpheIiaBaIIs · 17/10/2017 07:38

get a 2nd or even 3rd job

You're seriously suggesting that parents in their fifties and sixties work three jobs to support a 21 year old 'child'?!

Don't you think that sends entirely the wrong message? Why shouldn't an adult support themselves financially? It's their choice to go to university. They can be as self-sufficient if they choose to be - loans, bursaries, jobs - but there's not much impetus to do that if the bank of mum and dad are footing the bill for everything. That's not 'noble', it's foolhardy and storing up problems for the future. You're parents, not doormats. And if we're not careful we're in danger of raising a generation of mollycoddled, entitled kids who can't fend for themselves until they're in their 40s.

To be clear: the parents in this case are arses for threatening to disown their child and withdrawing previously promised financial support if this story is true. Also giving your child one-off support (help towards a deposit or a cat, say) is fair enough.

But working three jobs to pay an adult's bar bills rent, especially when they're contributing nothing, is ridiculous and you'd be doing yourself - or your child - no favours.

jocarter67 · 17/10/2017 09:02

I think what Potterhead is saying is that if her friend had gone out and pissed that money up the wall her parents wouldn't have cared less, but because she got a tattoo which I suspect didn't fit in with their stature, they are refusing to help her. We all make bad choices in life and I think this is a very small mistake to have made. I think her parents are being absolutely dreadful.

OpheIiaBaIIs · 17/10/2017 09:09

*deposit or car, obviously

Although a cat would be a worthwhile investment too Grin

Zaphodsotherhead · 17/10/2017 09:24

My kids did some bloody daft things at Uni. I used to have to lend them money sometimes (no parental contributions, because I am really really poor) - one of them spent the last of his bursary on hiring a fancy dress costume!!! - bu they are learning how to function in the world and they screw up sometimes.

I think a tattoo to cover self-harm is perfectly acceptable. My DD1 has one and it looks gorgeous. OP's friends' parents either have a very strange attitude to tattoos, to self-harm or to money, because cutting a young person out of your life just because they do something you don't much like, seems a bit extreme.

She's 19 fgs, not 49, she's just getting a handle on this 'life' thing. They should cut her some slack. And it's on her thigh? So they'll never have to look at it then, will they?

Austentatious · 17/10/2017 09:45

@potterhead There are scores of people here, quite probably even on this thread, who made friends in Fresher's Week and spent the remaining three years realising that they weren't who they said they were. Starting University is an opportunity to change and reinvent yourself and people do that - one girl on my course changed her name, another spent his grant on a new wardrobe of high end designer clothes in the first week (and cracked his skull on the first saturday, drunk & unused to drinking). Another public school boy turned up with a pink mohawk and spat. People try on new personalities and stories and everyone urging caution is really right to do so.
Imagine you're an auditor and you have to verify every piece of information that's coming to you. Have you heard the conversations with the parents? do you know what the original agreement was? do you really think a huge piece of artwork was only £120, half price or not? Did you ever see self harm scars on her thigh? Please don't automatically accept all the information that's being given to you. You can be supportive and help her get to student welfare, but do not for goodness' sake blow your first term on a drama that's not your own.

Mumto2two · 17/10/2017 09:53

Haven't read the whole thread, and tattoos are a particular dislike of mine. But that's irrelevant. My daughter will be heading off to uni soon, and has been earning and managing her own budget for some time now. There is far more to this than meets the ear I think..and I totally agree with Austentatious post above.

OpheIiaBaIIs · 17/10/2017 10:11

You can be supportive and help her get to student welfare, but do not for goodness' sake blow your first term on a drama that's not your own

Best advice on the whole thread.

DD almost did this. Luckily she pulled back just in time, but not before things started to get very ugly.

Please be careful, OP, and don't let your kind nature be taken advantage of.

Woolyheads · 17/10/2017 10:13

She's really paying £2,400 a TERM for rent???
Wow. She can come and live in my house for that.

Ta1kinPeece · 17/10/2017 14:49

Lots of University accommodation is on 51 week lets of £110 a week
ie £7400 a year
payable the first day of the first term

Lots of University accommodation is a LOT more expensive than that.

Headofthehive55 · 17/10/2017 14:54

More fool them for not choosing a less expensive alternative.
You don't have to go. It's a choice.

Ta1kinPeece · 17/10/2017 14:57

head
More fool them for not choosing a less expensive alternative.
Wow, that is helpful.
Have you actually LOOKED at the average price of University Accommodation nowadays

42 week lets are the absolute minimum.
Rooms are around 6 feet by 9 feet
The cheapest rent at ANY of the Uni's on DDs UCAS form was £120 for a 42 week let
but there were only 150 rooms at that price.

havanesehope · 17/10/2017 15:06

Your poor friend, how heartless. I had a tattoo at 18 and my parents would not of dreamt of treating me like that. FlowersFlowers

titchy · 17/10/2017 15:27

University rents ARE usually cheaper than that - but equally usually the students puts down four choices with no guarantee they'll get any of the four. (Talkin - not quite true - dd is at the place your dd waited ages for paying for a 32 week let Wink - not stalking you but it was dd's first choice and I was mentally preparing her for elsewhere based on your thread!)

iBiscuit · 17/10/2017 15:32

Op stated iirc that her friend wasn't able to find less expensive accommodation.

And it's true, she didn't have to go. Nor did her parents have to say they'd pay her rent for her. But they said they would pay and then reneged on that in a fit of pique.

Dianag111 · 17/10/2017 16:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Dianag111 · 17/10/2017 16:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Headofthehive55 · 17/10/2017 16:18

peece
Yes I have looked at uni accomodation. My DD pays approx £75 per week bills included. IT was an important aspect of choosing where to study for her.

Ta1kinPeece · 17/10/2017 17:02

titchy
Ah true, yup, that Uni has some 32s because they have conferences
I seem to remember the weekly rate being a bit killer though Grin

Headof
My DD pays approx £75 per week bills included. IT was an important aspect of choosing where to study for her.
Sorry?
what?
A cheap room in hall was more important than the course and the academic outcomes?
The world has gone made.

bastardkitty · 17/10/2017 17:06

Not sure what student accommodation you can get for £75 including bills in the UK. Cupboard under the stairs maybe?

OpheIiaBaIIs · 17/10/2017 17:13

Blimey, DD pays £70pw board to live at home. £75pw for halls sounds ridiculously low.

Mind for that she gets all her food, a takeaway a week, all bills, her washing done, her food cooked, her hair cut (I trained as a hairdresser years ago), and none of the shit that goes with sharing with strangers. Her friends who pay £175pw at least for their rooms (some here cost upwards of £300pw) are very jealous of her set-up.

We are saving a portion of what she gives us to give back to her when she leaves uni to go towards a deposit or whatever, but she doesn't know that Smile Meanwhile she's learning to budget and work for a living while she studies, all of which I think is an important life lesson.

Headofthehive55 · 17/10/2017 18:46

Where on Earth is that balls? The gerkin?

peece yes it was important that we were able to fund her rather than the costs being so high we couldn't manage.
(I'm from Yorkshire - we don't do spending...and she's half Yorkshire half Scottish...so even less keen on spending! )

bastardkitty · 17/10/2017 18:59

Lots of London halls are £200+ for a basic room.

bastardkitty · 17/10/2017 19:01

That's per week, not per month, BTW!

Ta1kinPeece · 17/10/2017 19:08

headof
Just picking a northern Uni at random ....
Nothing in the £75 a week range
Not a lot under £100 for less than 40 weeks
accommodation.leeds.ac.uk/compare-residences

Those doubting the cost of halls in the OP need to understand the current situation for students

bastardkitty · 17/10/2017 19:12

People who talk about flipping a few burgers to fund their way through uni are completely out of touch with the current costs. There are many degree courses where you either are not allowed to work or could not pass if you spent the weekend working.