AIBU to have no idea how to sort this situation?

[allthegoodusersaretaken]

DD is 17 and has just started her second year of college. She's point blank refusing to even start a UCAS application. DH wants to kick her out after college unless she goes to university, which I think is completely unfair especially given the cost of living at the moment. The problem is, he refuses to even consider a compromise - DD has said she might want to go to university after a gap year, I've suggested charging rent once she leaves education (she does have a job but couldn't really afford to live alone on her wage, even if she was working full time), she's said she's considering careers that don't need a degree. He doesn't want to hear it and is now refusing to talk to her as he feels that she's letting us down. I'm at a loss with what to do now, I can't force her to apply to university but DH is refusing to accept any alternative. Anyone else experienced similar?

I had a gap year, not a gap yahhh with beads and building wells in an impoverished village to wax lyrical about with my very middle class friends.....

I worked full time and also had a second job, it was good for my brain to take a break, my generation had SATs in year 9, I did some GCSEs early in year ten, then the rest in year eleven, we had to do AS levels and then A levels. I did 4 and also did a language GCSE in a year and a vocational qualification in journalism during sixth form. I was done with being tested. I felt like I was in a hamster wheel.
Work helped me to save a lot of money, I gained a lot of life and social skills outside of my own peer group (main job was as a temp PA to a choreographer weekend job was in a cocktail bar). None of it was academically challenging but I learned a lot, it also confirmed for me I did want to go to university. I was a lot more resilient than some of my uni mates due to that experience, I accrued a lot less debt due to the money I'd saved.
A compromise might be a working gap year and re-evaluate what she wants after that. I would definitely be form that if she's not going to uni she works or does another form of study.
Your husband is projecting his own experience onto her, he was forced and it worked for him.

Well, I can think of a lot of responses tbh. When my now ex wanted to throw our son out, I told him that while I couldn’t force him to live with our son, there was a door, and I wasn’t throwing my son out for anyone.

But right now, I think you need a bit of constructive advice. Maybe arrange a visit, as a family, to a careers advice team, in or out of school talking about the advantages and disadvantages of going to uni especially right now. Maybe also encourage your daughter to visit uni open days, both near to and away from home, with no obligation to apply. Look for viable jobs that she could apply for now/ when she leaves school, and see what progression is likely. Compare them to graduate opportunities - realistic ones - because there are many, many graduates currently working in shitty jobs. Try and do some background work yourself so that you come to any discussion well armed with facts. But don’t, whatever you do, agree with your husband and try to force your daughter to go to uni against her will. It will backfire massively for all of you.

You my friend, have a major DH problem

Your DH is an arse. Forcing your daughter to go to uni when she isnt sure is a shit idea. Why kick her out? Why have kids if all you wanted to do was nurture then for a set number of years and hen you are allowed to kick them to the kerb? Why cant you support your daughter?

My ds has adhd. College and school were hard. Now he is an apprentice, and very happy. Dd is en route to uni. Diff things right for diff kids. Your dh sounds like a dickhead and he's the one I'd be kicking out.

Perhaps your husband feels he has worked hard to provide your daughter with a good eduction or perhaps he feels she exceptionally bright and could be wasting her potential by being aimless? And maybe that frustration is leading him to make ultimatums? I can kind of understand where he is coming from if the expectation is that your children will go to Uni to provide more choices than he had and feels she is wasting the opportunity and could end up in a job she hates?

I’m not defending him as such, at 18 I think you are very lucky if you have a vocation and know your exact path to get there. My DH has a tendency to over react when he is worried and it seems like anger. It improved after I pointed this out to him. Perhaps your DH is just worried and expressing it badly? If he’s just being an arse then it’s your home too and tell him so. Good luck x

Omg kick him in the crotch. Only half joking.

Your daughter needs career advice and probably counselling for her self esteem. She also needs to learn how to work effectively with her ADHD. Learn as much as she can about it.

DH wants to kick her out after college unless she goes to university, which I think is completely unfair especially given the cost of living at the moment. The problem is, he refuses to even consider a compromise

Appalling. Does he give any reason? I'd find it hard to stay married to suh an arse - unless there's a big backstory ...?

I teach undergrads and am a great believer in gap years, if young people don't have an absolute passion & drive for what they want to go on to read for a degree.

As @ShinyMe says, some undergrads struggle. If they're there because they've been forced to be there, or can't think of anything else to do, then it's better for them (as well as their peers who have to collaborate with them, and those of us who have to teach them!) to defer for a year, get some working life experience, and work out what it is they REALLY want to do.

It's actually quite healthy for them to step off the treadmill of formal education, and have to work outside the home, and take responsibility for that work.

This just isn’t true. I was pretty much ‘forced’ to do my degree. And now I’m a lawyer. It worked out fine. It generally does.

It may not have been true for you, @Tsort and it's great it worked out for you. However, over 30 years of teaching undergrads, I've seen enough examples of what @ShinyMe describes to think being forced to do a degree can be a very bad idea.

Why does his decision rule?
uni or you’re out - why are you allowing him to rule the roost. You’re parents and partners
What if she want to work full time and no ever go to uni?
why is uni so important to him

It’s her choice what she does - show her how to stand up to bully’s.

I meant a compromise between the two postions; dad wants her at university or out on the streets & the dd wants a year out but hasn't sorted anything. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing position, the dd can earn money while getting an education.

These are absolutely her decisions to make and your husband cannot and should not bully and threaten her into them.

All I would suggest is that you ensure she makes a fully informed decision, so perhaps she could join a U.K. ADHD women Facebook group and ask how other ADHDers managed Uni. I would also suggest asking unis what they can do to make their courses accessible to people with ADHD, and going on a Uni visit.

My personal opinion is that anyone who can go should seriously consider it, it is a great life experience as well as an education. There is a long gap between A level exams and beginning Uni, and the holidays are long. There is time to recharge. (But if she thinks she needs a year out then it is her decision to make.)

The only thing you as parents can do is ask her to seriously consider her options and help her to do that.

Your husband's attitude is likely to be counterproductive. At 17 I would have wanted to leave home as soon as he said any such thing, abandon my studies, and move in with the most unsuitable boyfriend I could find.

What was your husbands degree subject? Coercive Control & Twattery?

My husband would threaten my kid with this once and he'd be taking his university educated arsehole on a walk to his new bachelor pad.

agree, he is a overbearing boorish arse

Force her to uni to take out a mammoth student loan to pay for it and then flunk it cos her heart isn't in it and she makes no effort.... great idea.

She's nearly an adult, he doesn't get to make those decisions for her, she needs supporting to find out what direction she does want to go in.

Maybe you could sit down with her and go through the costa of living and talk about what career she wants that will pay enough to pay her way in life - not necessarily requiring a degree, more explaining the realities of living costs and that money has to come from somewhere.

Maybe sitting down and have a good look a finances and other routes into the job market could help.

Also trying to get an entry position in the field DD wants to work in might just be a smarter move.
University isn't all that and honestly, there are a lot of worthless courses around.

University isn’t the be all and end all and if she doesn’t want to go then that’s nobody’s business but her’s. Anyone saying my DC were letting them down would be free to move out.

I would say uni is the worst possible thing for someone who doesn’t actually know what they want to do but the parents feel they have to get into thousands of pounds of debt for the privilege.

There are plenty of apprenticeships out there plus other lines of work. Of all the uni aged children I can think of I would say only about 50% have gone to uni and of those who have, 50% have taken a gap year before doing so.

I would be expecting her to get a job, but at 18 it doesn’t matter what job, because let’s be honest, very few people are still in the same line of work at 40 that they anticipated at 18, unless they’re doing something specific, medicine, law etc. Most other degrees are, let’s be honest, paper exercises, allowing someone to put “educated to degree level” on their cv.

My brother was another one who was forced into going to uni. He was bright enough but academia wasn't for him and he dropped out after about six months.

He then took a year out and worked before joining the police. He's now quite senior and has a better job than me and I spent five years at uni and got two degrees.

Uni isn't the be all and end all of life but when you're young, the support of your parents can be. Tell him to have a look at himself because he's just going to push her away, and probably not to uni.

As someone (who had undx adhd) & struggled through a degree when I should have taken more time out, I'd say your dd is being very sensible.

I went back much older, got a great degree. First experience trashed my MH.

Your husband is a bully. Is he her father? Who the duck kicks out an 18 year old because they aren't ready for the next phase? She's in college and showing willing but it can sometimes take time. Where the bell does he think she's going to go?