I think my daughter is throwing her life away

[BeauxBelle]

My daughter is 22, 23 next week, she is a smart, confident, beautiful girl. She did very well in her A-Levels, took a gap year to travel, did a BA in Classics and Ancient History, currently finishing her MA in Classics. She is in a relationship with a man 16 years older, they started dating 3 years ago, got engaged last year, due to marry next September.
We went for lunch yesterday, talking about the future etc. and she dropped that she is starting a second masters next month, immediately after the completion of her current one, this time in English Literature, when I asked why she doesn't plan to get a job, she explained that she doesn't intend to work, She will marry, then they will start trying for children and she will be a stay-at-home mum.
I'm upset and angry, we paid for her to attend top schools her whole life, funded the gap year, all her Uni costs, we are paying for this big dreamy wedding, to a man we do not like (he will be 40 when they marry!!) and for what, for her to stay home and make no life of her own??
Her fiancé is from a decently well off family, he owns a home mortgage free, plans to sell and his parents have offered to cover a ridiculous amount extra to buy a family home. She has tried to reassure me by saying we don't have to pay for this masters as her fiancé has offered to. I'm terrified he is trying to trap her, leave her with no independence. She is sure he isn't. I am a GP, my husband is a Lawyer, I thought we had raised our children to know you have to work hard and earn your own living!!
I feel like she is throwing her life away to play housewife to an older man!!
AIBU to feel she is throwing her life away? Should I share my concerns or leave her to it?

I cannot comprehend being 23 yrs old and never having earned any of my own money. Blows my mind! Not even a Saturday job?! Babysitting?? Wowzers.

OP, as others have said, it’s hardly surprising a person with zero motivation or need to get a job continues to chose a life that enables this.

What’s happened to all the MN posters who were writing on long threads about fertility that women are fools to leave it later than their 20s to have kids? Whatever women do someone will criticise. She’s decided to put having kids first and do it during her peak energy and fertility years (fwiw I am not critical at all of women who leave it later). There will be pros and cons either way. From the sound of it she’s intelligent, and if she’s motivated enough to get two master’s I’m sure she can find her way back into an interesting career when she’s older if she wants to.

his parents have offered to cover a ridiculous amount extra to buy a family home.

And whose name would this house be in? The fiance? His parents?

all the pills

If he's funding her drug habit then you have cause for concern after all 😜

That’s such bollocks. You must work for a crappy firm. I used to pick trainees for my magic circle form and we took a fair smattering of classics grads. Hell we even picked Egyptologists. Just as useful for law as history, IMO.

She’s been raised to expect everything gets paid for so she can indulge her hobbies.

I'd never bring my daughter up like OP, no matter how much money I had. But it is a bit rich of OP to be crying over her daughter's choices when she doesnt have the wit to examine her parenting and her own values.

You've instilled into her the fact that she can just be taken care of and doesn't need to work for anything. My sister is exactly the same - was never expected to get a part-time job, was funded through uni (I did not get any of this) and is just the same as an adult, goes from man to my parents to man again but never thinks she actually needs to get a full-time job. She's always got a reason why she can't, including further study.

Anyway! I don't think you can get involved, they're her life choices, but she'll bounce back into your home if the marriage doesn't work out.

There you go then. Nothing is ever expected of her except to do as suits her while someone else pays for her indulgence. It suits her to marry him and stay at home. Has she worked while at university to help pay for her courses?

To be fair she's been looked after all her life, so she might be seeking this in marriage. She's never needed independence.

She'll still have skills she can use for working if she wants to - but what a pleasant, charmed life she will have!

40 isn't really old. So long as it's a solid relationship and they are happy together and want the same things?

I'd be disappointed too OP but also recognise that she's been given everything without working so why would that change now?

Ehhh, most of the well-off girls I went to uni with lack direction too, farting around with masters degrees, vague 'careers' in poetry, part-time jobs, everything paid for by mummy and daddy.

Those of us who had to start actually working to pay our way were the ones who got somewhere.

However, I don't actually think there's anything wrong with a woman wanting to be a SAHM, if she's found a decent partner to make that possible. It's only what women have been doing for millennia, and plenty still want that. It's not my choice, personally, but no way will I look down on women who choose that.

I think it's a waste too OP but all I can say is if she manages to get to 7 or 8 years, has a couple of kids she should be ok going forward if it doesn't work out!

I think a degree in classics is not very useful anyway no r
a masters or PhD in such topics. Work history is more important

I feel for you OP. I am a lawyer too and raised an adopted child who was just interested in boys etc etc and now she is trying to pick her life up at 22 yo. UNLIKE YOU, I was always clear I was helping her to help herself and wanted nothing from her money wise ( she would have been unable to repay me.)

This is partly why at my ripe age, I have decided if my main reason for doing IVF was to procreate someone who will cost me a fortune and I have no knowledge of what they will want to do with their life esp in this life of social media, I decided it is not worth risking my health.

My parents were wealthy- one of the things they did right was install work ethics in all of us. My adopted daughter very luckily has inherited that work ethic from her environment- I thank God for that- she can get her hands dirty without complaining. We have all turned out differently- my sister has a difficult life of having to work each day at her ripe age of 52 yo running her small business which is unreliable and requires maximum effort. I retired early at 38/40 ( semi retired). My brother is also doing well. My other sister is getting by. Mum now in her sunset years, only thanks God for at least the 2 of us making something of ourselves. The others are valuable in their own ways and mum is always giving them stuff. At no point does mum feel she wasted her efforts and money on any of us.

You are right to feel how you feel, but it is unfair to raise a dependent daughter and at 22 yo now want her to become independent. More than she failed you, you have failed her. More importantly, please learn one truism of life: 'Never give anything expecting anything in return'. Why spend all that money on her and now claim to be disappointed? Did she even know what your expectations were? My mum was clear that she wanted me to be independent as she got me late- so I had guidance. I was also not given expectations that would 'please her' but that would help me live a life without her.

I see. this. all. the. tine with professional parents. Either that or paying for rehab from age 16 or 18 yo as they were never there to parent the kids and give them emotional stability. Something is wrong in this country.

Where on earth in there did you think you instilled independence and a work ethic?

She’ll be a rich housewife. There are plenty like her. A bit of tennis or gym, lunch with her friends, shopping, getting her hair and nails done. Real housewives of Cheshire, basically.

Her husband will be retiring when she is 45, so she’ll be able to travel.

Wow, you and your husband inhabit a different world to me. I always had to work, and I intend to insist on DC having a holiday job/ weekend job once they've done GCSEs. I think you reap what you sow and you have to run with it, and support her as best you can. Life has a habit of biting you on the bum, and never goes to plan.

Her life - her way. You didn't fund her through uni just so you could dictate what she should do now.

She doesn't want go be a GP. She doesn't want to be a lawyer. She wants to be a stay at home mum with the man she loves.

She wants to do her vision of success - not yours. Deal with it

Gosh posters are harsh these days. I can't really see why having had a holiday job stacking shelves would make the OP's dd view this path as any less attractive. And those calling her a leech and so on seem to have forgotten the usual lines about the value SAHMs bring to the family.

OP I think the truth is the education and travel has bought your dd entry into the sort of circles where financial stability on one salary is possible, and to her it looks very attractive. And there are most definitely worse lives she could be leading. She may find all the fulfilment she needs in raising her children, supporting her husband's career and having her own leisure, or she may change her mind and have to do some running to catch up later, but she'll be ok and she's still very privileged.

I'd be rethinking paying for the wedding as they clearly don't need the help, but I'd not be overly concerned.

There are plenty of women on here, and in real life, in their fifties, who have had a life of pottering along without working for their entire lives. Usually privately educated, Oxbridge, married someone straight from uni (usually with an MA under their belt), had kids, had to be there for them throughout teenage years, which led to 20s and 30s, still booking their dental appointments for them, doing their washing (only for boys though). A little light volunteering along the way - maybe at a local museum or hearing kids read at the local primary. Always there for the DH, who works all hours, dinner on the table when he comes home. He wonders what happened to the bright, sparky girl he married and ends up having an affair. She finds out, but forgives him, as life would be too difficult on her own. He’s quite content to stay as he knows his career girl lover can’t (or won’t) cook for him, and knows he is only a distraction for her as she gets on with her career. He hits 65, retires, and they have nothing to say to each other and nothing in common. Her aimless pottering irritates him, and he tires of hearing how little Davey is now on orange level books, or Joan down the road has progressed to a walking stick from her Zimmer frame, after her fall. He wonders, briefly, how they got to this stage, and why his wife lacked ambition and seemed so opposed to the world of work. She wonders why they don’t seem to have anything in common any more…

A couple of our associates have such jobs. Ones a head teacher, ones a lawyer etc. Even those who sent their kids to private school have expected them to work before the age of 23 for the experience that it brings. This was not prioritised was it? One of our friends son is currently working at Iceland part time during his studies despite his parents being absolutely minted.

I shouldn’t worry too much about this young woman. She’s marrying well, won’t need to stress herself with too much work whilst raising kids, is going to live an affluent lifestyle etc. She will no doubt pick her career up later (perfectly possible) and it sounds like she’s going to live quite an easy life. Similar to mine in a way (I had 3 by the age of 25 along with my husband who’s the same age). I’ve since done an OU degree and my career is just fine but I loved being at home raising them.

The only thing I would truly be disappointed in like I’ve mentioned further upthread is the age gap. In my opinion, it’s too big. She is no doubt young and beautiful and her husband to be is nearly 40. I’m 35, I’m so grateful I’m not with a 51 year old. I know a few, and whilst okay to look at I’m not into men with white hair, pot bellies and no doubt dysfunction in the downstairs department. But that’s just me.

Destitute is a very low bar, and it will certainly be at a level where she won’t be able to offer her children one tenth of the opportunities that she has already had.

Your daughter is healthy and happy, with the education and means to do whatever she wants. What more do you want for her?

A waste of what? It is a classics degree. I have a well to do friend - her mother was a GP too who did medicine at a top uni and then got married at 24 to a well to do chap a bit older, had two kids, moved abroad (the US) and completely wasted her education. It is a bloody medical degree and she says that she never wanted to do med, it was purely parental pressure. She later retrained as a computer scientist - went back to uni after 12 years and now works for a bank. Her husband paid for everything.

So you've paid for everything her whole life and shown her no independence in paying for herself - and are perplexed why she's happy to stay at home and let her husband pay her way....?