... being angry with my parents?

[RainyWednesday]

Spoilt brat alert

My parents are fairly comfortably off, especially now that my dad has retired (mum is SAHM) and they have few outgoings, and have always been extremely generous with money.

A few years ago now, I set about becoming a lawyer. I already had an English degree (which they supported me through), so this meant doing a conversion course (one year), a further one year course, and then two years in a training contract before qualifying as a solicitor. I set about funding this myself, partly through working during university holidays and partly through a bank loan. Because I wanted to be a legal aid lawyer, this meant I had to cover all my course fees and living costs myself (if you have a training contract with a big rich firm then they will generally pay your fees and give you some money towards living costs).

In case it isn't clear from the above, there was a gap of several years between finishing my first degree and starting my course where I was working and supporting myself - I didn't do them back to back.

I did the first course in London and after a while, as my parents knew I was struggling, they offered to pay my rent (£250 a month), which was a huge help. For the second course, I ended up moving back home to live with them - which was fab

When I moved back home, my dad offered to pay my course fees, both for the upcoming year and for the year that I had already done/paid for. I was extremely grateful for this, as you might imagine.

Skip forward a couple of years. Halfway through my two-year training contract, I decided that there was no point me finishing it. I was desperately unhappy - crying most evenings and calling Samaritans a couple of times from work. I found the work utterly depressing. In case it isn't already obvious from the previous two sentences nor did I seem particularly good at it; I'd gone into Legal Aid because I wanted to help people and instead I was just floundering. Finally, my salary was so low that it cost me slightly more to live and work in London than I was getting paid - so I was effectively paying to go to work. I felt there was no point carrying on and left my job. I still consider it one of the best things I ever did.

My parents were extremely upset and angry that I didn't complete my training contract - not because they wanted me to be a lawyer (my mum has said she didn't think I was suited to it) but because they thought I should stick with it. My mum in particular thinks that completeing my training contract would have given me more opportunities, whereas in fact it would, as far as I know, have qualified me for nothing except being a solicitor, which I didn't want to be. I hate upsetting and disappointing them but couldn't face another year of hell just to please them.

Over the next few years, my mum occasionally complained about the fact that I hadn't finished my contract and that I had wasted their money, which really upset me but I bit my tongue because I hate conflict, particularly with them.

Skip forward another couple of years. My DB and his wife bought a house with my parents' help, renovated it and sold it a few months ago for an enormous profit. Because my parents had helped them out and they wouldn't have been able to buy it otherwise, my parents promised to give me and my other brother each £20,000 out of their share of the proceeds. Yay - again I was very grateful for this.

They have recently told me that they've decided to take out of that £20,000 all the money they've given me over the past few years (and the same for my brother too). This means that, less the course fees they paid, it's now something like £11,000.

The main thing that upsets me about this is not that I've "lost" £9,000 (because obviously I haven't lost anything at all - on the contrary, I'm being given a huge sum of money!) but I feel like I'm being punished for not completing my contract. I am sure that, if I'd finished it, it would never have occurred to them to take the money back again.

It also upsets me that a few years ago they gave me a gift and now they've taken it back off me again.

Finally, £1,000 of the money they've claimed back comes from a deposit they paid on the first flat a friend and I rented in 1997. When we moved out, the landlady ripped us off so we didn't have the money to pay back to them and we eventually forgot that we owed it at all (I am mortified about this ). However, they only suddenly started mentioning it about a year ago. Now they've said that they've taken the whole £1,000 off me and if I want my friend's share then I'll have to ask her for it. Which is kind of fair enough but I am too embarrassed to mention it after 11 years and it upsets me that they've effectively passed her debt on to me because they're too embarrassed to ask about it either.

I'm sorry this is so long I feel (marginally) better for purging. On the one hand I feel like I'm being a spoiled bitch because, ffs, someone's giving me £11,000, but on the other I feel like I'm being unfairly punished and it really really upsets me

DH says I should just let it go. I would love to let it go - but how?

Maybe your parents see it a differeny way, that they are helping you both by giving you £20,000 each in total. But that you have had a bit? and just get the difference

Have you spoken to your parents about how difficult the course was?

It's never long before the "I don't care if my parents leave their money to the Society For the Protection of Earthworms" responses come flooding in.

FWIW, everybody uses their money to express their values - fair trade coffee, not buying cheap clothing made in dubious factories, whatever. Your parents sound like they are very much of the stick-it-out-to-the-bitter-end philosophy, whereas you were happy (and right) to cut your losses with your unsuitable contract. Perhaps it's generational.

You know that saying "you don't know you're born".. well I've always thought it was crap.. but, forgive me.. you don't know you're born!

I am not bitter or twisted, trust me, but if I had had the opportunities you'd had, I would NOT be whinging about it.. lest of course, the very experience of having that kind of safety net, and knowing it's there, makes one a spoilt whining brat?! Maybe it does..

You have always been in the very privileged position of being able to choose what you wanted to do with your life.. even when you realised you had made the wrong choice about going into law, you were able to make that choice to do an about face and leave it all behind. All because you knew you had the financial support and backing of caring and well - off parents. Do you realise how many people would have been completely unable to have that choice.. would have had to lay in the bed they'd made and see it through? That's great that you didn't have to.. not saying you should have proceeded with a career path you knew - belatedly - was wrong.. but you really ought acknowledge how lucky you were to be able to "change your mind".

Can you actually imagine how life would have been if you hadn't had these advantages provided by your parents? You would probably still be paying off a massive student loan from your first degree, like so very many people have to do, whislt simultanously trying to do your best in your FIRST chosen career field, AND juggling all your other, every day finances, NOT moaning that Mummy and Daddy - the same Mummy and Daddy who have propped you up financially your WHOLE life, causing you NEVER have to fully stand on your own two feet, are finally saying "enough is enough.. we're still going to give you more.. but there is a limit on how much we will give you..."

Honestly, get real!

This is interestingly connected to the thread that was running yesterday about if/how much working teenagers should pay their parents as board.. not the same subject, granted, but a very good example of what happens to GROWN ADULTS who have lived their adult lives expecting their parents to keep handing over the readies whilst they just make token attempts at making grown-up financial decisions. Tragic really.

Only redeeming fact is that you KNOW you are being unreasonable, you said so yourself, and you posted here.

Time to join the adult world; tell your VERY GENEROUS parents that you quite agree with their decision and that you have been bloody lucky thus far to have their support at every turn.

And be grateful for the further 11 grand!

Sheesh!!

Well my resolve to reply hasn't lasted very long

A couple of people have suggested they are trying to teach me a lesson about money (I can't remember who said it most recently, sorry). I just wanted to say that I don't believe that they are, I really do think (now) that they are just trying to be fair - that at least is one good thing that has come out of this thread, unnerving though it's been to have the vitriol of the internet directed my way.

I learned my lesson about money quite a few years ago now. Yes, I was an idiot with money when I was 18-20 and left university with some debt that then rapidly spiralled out of control. I've spent the past ten years paying it off (largely by myself, though occasional gifts from my parents have obviously come in useful) and am now pretty frugal.

hatrick this all really happened several months ago and our relationship hasn't suffered at all - it would just occasionally niggle at me. They are fantastic and supportive people

dittany I do think they were emotionally supportive as well - and I was worried about them being upset, not disappointed. I think with the depression it's such a lonely, isolating illness anyway. It's horrible to know that someone you love is unhappy and there's nothing you can do about it; since I genuinely believed no one could help me, it seemed pointless to upset anyone else by letting them know how I was feeling. I probably should have been more honest with them about the training contract but I think I felt like I was fucking up and the less anyone knew about that, the better; at least that time I had the support of friends around me.

ChocolateRockingHorse thanks for taking the time to type out your reply. You are right that I am lucky to have choices, but I think most people have the choice to leave an unhappy situation but not necessarily the luck to realise that they can. I am happier, earning more and in less debt than I would have been in had I qualified, so I can't see how it was the wrong choice. FWIW, a month or so after I dropped out, another trainee who as far as I know did not have the same resources I had also dropped out. And a fellow student from my second course never even bothered to start a training contract, but just changed career as soon as he finished the course - again earning more than a legal aid trainee.

I don't know why after 2 years of hard exams and passing them, not something everyone can do, and all that effort and a year of doing the training contract when you were in the home straight and your parents would have been so proud of you you couldn't just stick out a job you didn't like for another year to become a fully qualified solicitor. You would have had so very many more options. I would have been pretty fed up with you. you could have tried swapping the training contract to another different firm or asked for a 2 months sabbatical unpaid to deal with your stress issues. Why give all that up? Perhaps your parents should also be deducting the rent when they let you live at home presumably rent free whilst you were studying too.

I have an agreement with mine (3 children are at university) that if they drop out they owe me what I funded and paid for. It's not unusual. I've just agreed to fund one of them for another 2 years and it is on that basis too.

I suppose I can understand your parents' position more than yours. What is one more year of sticking something out when you'll have another 60 alive etc. and then you could have called yourself a solicitor etc. I just don't understand what the point of dropping out was but even if you felt you had to it's their money. They can do what they like with it. My father has given my siblings more than I have had. I don't mind that at all. I don't see their money as mine or that there is any principle they have to treat everyone alike.

I agree with others that I think your parents are just trying to be fair to all their children. But as the parent of older children myself, I think that if you weren't upfront with your parents about why you left your course, they could have been hurt by your decision.

We invest so much emotionally in our children that when an apparently inexplicable decision occurs, after doing what we thought was our best for you, it can seem as though we, as parents, have been found wanting. If you haven't spoken to your parents about why you left, then this gift of money and the impending birth of your baby makes it an ideal time to broach the subject and have a heart-to-heart with them.

dittany, I suggested that too, yesterday. Am still fascinated by this thread
I think the money and control are inextricably linked here. Parents provide for their children while they are too young to earn for themselves, and conversely have more say in their lives, dish out punishments etc. The thing which is wrong, is that you're still in this relationship with them as an adult.

xenia, my sister gave up a phd at the last fence, and watched other people use her original research for their own theses, as far as I know. It wouldnt have been my choice, but she says she was sick to her back teeth of it. Maybe you or I cant understand how fed up someone would have to be to quit near the end. We also come from a family where you struggle grimly on to the bitter end, regardless of whether you are happy or not. Much good it did me, trying to complete my university course when I was ill.

Why not be a real adult and say "No thank you, keep the money for everything that you have ever done for me" then go and be an adult out in the real world, and earn some self respect as well as some respect for your parents.

Your parents are giving you £20,000-they just gave you some of it early. I can't see that they are punishing you.
I actually think it would be nice if you said thank you for all your support in the past i would like you to keep the money and have a wonderful holiday.

Xenia If it was simply a matter of being unhappy then I would have stuck with it, but there was the financial aspect as well. Legal aid training contracts are extremely badly paid and what I earned was not enough to cover my rent and bills - I am not including spends in this, purely essentials - so another year would have left me even further in debt than I already was, with no real prospect of paying it off (since legal aid solicitors aren't exactly rolling in it either). I did look for a second job and did occasional babysitting but it was hard to find work that fit around my hours. I don't think that swapping firms would have made any difference to that - maybe it would have if I'd switched to a City firm but I didn't want to be any lawyer, I wanted to be a legal aid lawyer, and salaries (or minimum salaries) were set by the Law Society (incidentally, there are two levels, one for London and one for the rest of the country - my firm paid the non-London one because it was in zone 2 ). Taking an unpaid sabbatical would have been out of the question. If I had wanted to, I could have gone back at any time in the five years following the courses I did, so it wasn't an all or nothing decision - so effectively I did take a sabbatical, did something else, and never went back. I don't believe that qualifying as a solicitor would have given me any options other than being a solicitor (and the qualification would only have lasted a year) - not completing my training contract does not mean that the other two courses I completed are worthless.

AbbeyA I have thanked them, and often, for everything they have done for me, not just the financial support they have given me. And they are going on several nice holidays this year

YABU --- they are trying to show you the value of money. if you had paid for that course yourself, would you have dropped out (or even started it)?

Ok I skim read, which I generally hate and despise in others, but it is a long thread

Do you think you would have started that course if you hadn't known that the bank of Mum & Dad were ready to bail you out ? I have a funny feeling you might not have.

Therefore having your parents money on tap, hasn't proved in the past do have done you much favours. The grown up mature thing to do would be to say thank you very much for the £11,000 as an adult able to support yourself you don't need it, but you would love them to invest it for their grandchild if they really want to give it to your family.

Like Dittany, (and slightly ignoring what you consider to be the current, pressing issue, sorry) I'm concerned that the pattern of your relationship with your parents is one where you feel they need protection from The Truth about you, RW.

It sounds to me as though the parent-child relationship had been reversed at that point. Even now, you are 'protecting' them from criticism, both your own, and that of other posters: every post has a smiley and a statement about how great they are.

It is quite possibly true that they are wonderful people, and simultaneously true that they have made mistakes in their relationship with you - and perhaps are still doing so.

It is possible that you are being a spoilt brat, in objective terms, and simultaneously a hurt child whose parents have habitually used money as emotional currency.

Family relationships are not often susceptible to a 'common sense' approach, ime. It doesn't really matter whether is 11K or 11 quid - you clearly feel that there is a subtext to the gift, or to the manner in which it is offered.

I think that psychotherapy would be very useful to you RainyWednesday. Has Sophable been on the thread?

I think the root problem here was the mental aberration to want to be a legal aid lawyer really! They couldn't find a barrister do to a case recently because the pay was £176 a day (for many months) with no pay for preparation including reading 6000 pages of documents.

If you were my child I would have rather paid more to keep you going to the end of the 4 years so you got the qualification and I would have preferred you to ask for an income top up just to keep you going through that but I don't know if your parents would have helped in that last year. Anyway it's all done now so no point crying over spilt milk. Go forth and earn £100k + a year and then you won't be dependent on parents or worried about money etc. More women need to think about money more. It matters more than they think.

Why did it take you til a year into your training contract to realise it wasn't financially viable? And why didn't you find out in advance what legal aid careers paid? That way you could have saved yourself the bother and your parents their money.

Well I earn nowhere near £100000 a year but haven't asked my parents for a penny since I was 18.

Xenia - sometimes I think you are a very intelligent woman and at other times I think you must truly live on a different planet to the rest of us.

Its your relationship with your parents that is the problem...not the money? Because if you are on here talking about it, you do not feel able to go to them about it...and you suspect ulterior motives, as in its a punishment...

My parents gave me money to go to college...when I failed the course my dad went on about the money I wasted for about 7 years.....on a regular basis. I learnt my lesson. The next time I needed money I did it on a pay them back basis...which was agreed to, then after my mother bitched about it. Then when I sold my flat I made sure I paid the entire amount back PLUS interest...and it was a generous amount too. Did not hear of the loan again after that.

If I were you...don't take the £11000. Its not worth the strings attached...

And I don't think you spoiled or ungrateful your upset by the unspoken message by your parents.

Not everyone cares about money xenia!

I care a lot more about being happy and the general well being of me and my DD.

I agree with CrazyMofo-not everyone cares about money! You need enough to live comfortably-after that other things are far more important.

I suspect the 'message' is 'unspoken' because in reality, it doesn't exist. I suspect the poor sods are just trying to be fair to all their children in terms of financial support and have absolutely no idea what Rainy is thinking. After all, she says doesn't tell them anything about what she's thinking and feeling, yet she assumes she knows exactly what they are thinking and feeling! I believe that in life it really pays to assume the best motives (ie trying to be fair) rather than assuming the worst, as it makes you happier, and also in my experience, when you think the worst, that tends to be more about your paranoid fantasies than reality.
I think I'm right in saying all the children have had the same level of financial support. One brother got help with his business, Rainy got help with her education, flat, living expenses and training, and the other brother got money invested in his property developing venture. The parents have enormously kindly offered to split the profits they made from the third child's hard work with their other two siblings, deducting previous gifts to BOTH of them from the final amount given. No 'strings' attached. They have never asked for money to be paid back, just kept on giving more. I wish my parents were so 'toxic'!

vivace I've said somewhere above that I've come round to agreeing that you're probably right, it probably is more a case of them trying to be fair, which is one good thing to have come out of this thread for me anyway I also agree that they're far from toxic!

I don't know whether we've all had the same level of financial support because we've all done different things at different times - we weren't all simply given a sum at some point and told to go and prosper, but have been helped out occasionally when as the situation has arisen. (For most of the ten years when I was living away from home, working or studying, and more or less supporting myself, the brother whose hard work I've profited from was living at home during the summer and spending his winters snowboarding and cooking ).

Aiyee, and since I'm replying because it's been bumped anyway, a couple of people have asked whether I would have done the courses if I'd had to fund them myself. Yes - when I started I absolutely was funding them myself and was genuinely surprised when my parents offered to repay my fees.