AIBU to think my 23yo DD is totally irresponsible?
Hi all, long-time reader but first time posting. I’m at my wits’ end with my DD (23, 24 in August) and honestly don’t know if I’m being unreasonable anymore.
She seems so immature for her age. From the outside, she’s intelligent, got great grades, doesn’t drink or smoke unlike pretty much all of her uni classmates, and has just started her first job. But she has no routine, no discipline, and frankly no common sense. Her eating habits are atrocious, no real meals, just croissants, cookies, bread, more bread, sometimes with hot dogs or processed cheese. I have seen her eat just a cookie for dinner, or skip eating for an entire day as well. If she goes shopping, she just buys different varieties of bread and snacks. She claims she “hates” red meat and won’t touch seafood unless it’s sushi. Due to this, she had chronically very low iron and won’t even try to fix it. We’ve always had healthy meals at home – salmon, roast chicken, veg, proper breakfasts – but she just won’t eat properly. This happened when she went abroad for her last year of uni, and I found out she’d sometimes go weekends without food (the shop was closed) or survive off a pack of croissants for a week. She’s moving back home for the job, and yet she still continues. She begs DH to buy her snacks or sneaks food deliveries to hide from me (a favorite pastime of her and DS (20)). I overhear them often having long conversations of the types of snacks they dream to eat or list of foods to eat when they can have the money to.
I’ve tried talking to her hundreds of times but she accuses me of “nagging” and runs to my DH (her stepdad), who always takes her side. She and her younger brother even seem to treat hiding snacks from me as some kind of joke. They sneak food deliveries when I’m not home to stash them for later, beg relatives for junk, I think that it’s ridiculous.
She’s also put on about 15kg in the last couple of years, and I’m genuinely concerned for her health – but of course that is apparently me being judgmental too. I worry this will impact her confidence and chances in life. She made some terrible choices at uni (chasing a guy who clearly wasn’t interested, losing sleep over him, skipping classes, cooking for him at his house when he was drunk, competing with a whole bunch of other girls, it was so much drama) and doesn’t seem to learn from her mistakes. I know that a lot of people make bad choices at uni, like her classmates partying and being found passed out in all sorts of places, which she has never done, but I still expected a lot better from her.
She has a small income now plus money from her bio dad, which he occasionally sends, so I can’t control her spending. It all seems to be used up on food or unnecessary makeup, perfume and clothes purchases (she has hundreds of each, there is pretty much no space left in her room). Worse, her new job gives her daily meal vouchers and I just know that’s all going to be going straight to pastries and sandwiches.
DH thinks I should back off since she’s moving home and we should get along, but I’m always the “bad guy” while he plays the fun parent. Even though he is her stepdad, they have a great relationship, and she obviously gets with him a lot better than me. She keeps saying her friends’ mums are more relaxed but I can’t help worrying, especially when she eats a cookie for dinner and calls it a day.
AIBU to think I should be stepping in and trying to sort her out, or is DH right and I need to let her figure it out herself (even if that means watching her completely ruin her health)? I feel like I’ve failed somewhere.