To be brokenhearted by my daughter’s behaviour?

[OneAvidRubyLeader]

My DD, 1st year of uni, stole some money from me (£150). She needed it to pay back a friend and she doesn’t work because of high contact hours at uni.

I just realised today that it was gone but she took it a couple of months ago. We give her money to live on but she also had a good few hundred pounds given to her for starting uni which she could’ve used to replace it and I wouldn’t have been any the wiser. She was the only one who knew it was there but I still didn’t suspect it would be her, I genuinely thought someone else must’ve taken it but I mentioned it to her and she denied it to my face but then eventually came clean and said she was always going to pay it back (then why didn’t she?)

I genuinely thought we were as close as a mother and daughter could be. I would’ve given her the money if she asked. She has generally been a dream to bring up, a happy, kind, hardworking girl with lots of friends. I have always given her everything her whole life because I enjoy spending my time and money on her. She has been brought up to know how wrong stealing is.

I just don’t know how to get over this. She knows I’m struggling with an empty nest, my mother’s dementia and my own health. How do I handle this? What is wrong with her? Am I overreacting?

I’m not sure your point - we’re not rich enough for her to go to uni and follow her dreams? This is her choice, she could’ve stayed home, went to uni locally or found a job and lived very comfortably if she’d wanted to. Instead we’re helping her to do what she wants to do.

The reason my DD doesn’t have savings is because we spent thousands over the last 10 years on dance lessons etc. We couldn’t save for her AND pay out the equivalent of our mortgage every month. We have 2 other children to think about - who get a fraction of the money spent on her - as their hobbies are cheap in comparison. Also, they will probably go to a local uni in Wales with free tuition and much cheaper accommodation so will need less help (and will have much less debt).

Her holiday wasn’t £150, she overspent on holiday by £150 and had to borrow from her friend. She had 3 holidays over the summer, two with family, one with friends. One of the holidays was 2 weeks long haul. She might be living frugally at uni but no sacrifices were made regarding holidays over the summer!

You're still crapping on and on about how perfect and wonderful and a martyr you are and you're shitting on your daughter again.

Thought you said you only wanted to know if you should be broken hearted?

@Miniatureschnauzers I’m wondering if she feels that she needs to stay this ‘good/perfect girl’ she’s always been, as she knows how much money/time/energy you’ve put into her. it sounds like up until now she’s been unrealistically ‘good’!

I think there might be truth in this. I don’t think she’s taken it to rebel but that she’s been too afraid to come to me and admit that she messed up because she’s always been “good”. I definitely wouldn’t have thought any less of her for overspending (I’d have a cheek since I’m hopeless with budgets) and would have given her the money but her Dad isn’t so lenient and he might’ve given her a talking to first. She’s taken the easy way out instead and then not gotten round to replacing the money.

In what way am I shitting on her in this post?

I’m being perfect and a martyr because we don’t have enough savings for pp’s idea of “middle-class”??

My point is that there’s clearly a disconnect with how you’re presenting things and perceiving things and how she does. You seem to be ignoring that disconnect, when that’s the very answer to your issues and how you move forward?

Again, you’ve gone on to waffle about irrelevant things in response to my post which was simply: if she felt the way you do, this would not have happened. You keep saying “she knows I would have given her the money” when clearly, she did not.

It’s that simple.

This situation is not above introspection, you’re posting about how you’re so shocked about what’s happened whilst refusing to reflect. Why didn’t she feel comfortable raising this with you before? How did it escalate to this? What were the signs?

Your way of thinking is very impermeable, in reality there’s a number of ways you can approach parenting and there’s a spectrum
of things before completely writing her off or stating she’s devoid of sympathy. I mean if you’re so affixed on her being a criminal that you can’t forgive, why have you posted here and why haven’t you called the police? What’s stopping you?

Thanks for asking. She is very apologetic and regrets hurting me and making me question my trust in her. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a credible explanation other than she took the easy way out to avoid having to ask and intended to replace it but got waylaid. She has promised that in future she’ll come to me and that it will never happen again.

You said a lot more than that in your post. You might want to reread about how you said we’re not middle-class because you think so. Also that I tell her she’s “spoiled, privileged, and she doesn’t know how good she’s got it”

I don’t need to tell her, she’s very intelligent, she has eyes, she knows she’s privileged compared to most people in the world especially around where we stay. She has her health, she lives in the first world, she gets to travel, she spent her life in ballet studios and theatres, she has an ensuite bedroom at home and at uni - she has literally had everything she’s ever asked for. The ‘she doesn’t need sympathy’ comment was in response to those who thought she was struggling to survive on a meagre £50 a week for groceries with no holidays.

Please point me to where I said I would never forgive her? Or I am writing her off? I asked for advice on whether I was overreacting regarding my upset feelings on the situation and about moving forward. She has already paid back the money, we have talked it out and decided to put it behind us. She reiterated that she knows I would have given the money to her but that she was embarrassed to ask (and afraid I might tell her Dad who probably would’ve shouted at her for spending beyond her means). She thought she could return it in time but got waylaid. I am hoping that’s the end of it and it was a stupid one off decision.

Tell her to get a bloody job too! Im sorry but even if her uni is 50 hours a week, work a little shift on the weekend doing something. It is no excuse.

"Her holiday wasn’t £150, she overspent on holiday by £150 and had to borrow from her friend. She had 3 holidays over the summer, two with family, one with friends. One of the holidays was 2 weeks long haul. She might be living frugally at uni but no sacrifices were made regarding holidays over the summer!"

You are well, well aware that you are trying to paint her as incredibly fortunate and irresponsible because people dared to feel sorry for her.

You are well, well aware that I did not even REMOTELY suggest you should have given her more money.

You are well, well aware that you think you are saint and a martyr.

But you are just making yourself sound like a vindictive and really shit parent who thinks you're deserving of a trophy for doing normal things for your kid.

It sounds as if you have started to calm down a bit.

It was a stupid thing for her to do, but first year uni students do idiotic things sometimes.

YANBU.

Yes she's a young adult and we've all done really shit things as young adults. But stealing from your own Mum is really, really shit.

Have you told her just how much this has upset you? I would be totally honest with her. Tell her you aren't sure who she is anymore and you feel your relationship is changed. Even have a break talking to her for a few weeks if it helps you. This should help her to understand what she's done and take full accountability for it. I don't think it is a good idea to minimize something like this. It's really serious.

However many times you repeat, @OneAvidRubyLeader that £50 per week is plenty of money to live on, it isn't. Your attitude towards money and morals are dreadful, judgemental, dramatic and self-absorbed. Your DD should not have stolen from you, but I imagine it's really difficult for her to tell you that she cannot manage, when your views are so fixed.

Perhaps read the OPs posts. The student has more than enough to live on.

She probably doesn’t have a few hundred in her account let’s face it, she will have spent that already. Her desire to keep up with friends has overridden her loyalty to you. Take that money off whatever you’re giving her and say if it ever even crosses her mind todo that to you again the money stops. Stop being a doormat!

Wild stab in the dark from me here ... Is all the hurt about the theft? When my eldest left home there was a hole in my life. I suppose I was grieving all sorts. I filled up the hole with loads of other feelings because I didn't know how to get over the fact my baby was never coming back. That part of my life was gone. Something had breached. Might your heartbreak be a combination of factors?

Thanks. I've read it. Obviously the OP's mantra is 'she has enough to live on'. That doesn't mean it's true.

She's not a prostitute, drug addict or abusing kids.

Is being a prostitute or an addict now on a moral par with being a child abuser?

You clearly didn't learn to read at university did you?

Of course £50 a week is enough for food, ffs. From what OP said, it sounds like they don’t have much time for socialising anyway on her course - and OP says her daughter doesn’t drink.

if she wants more then she can get a job in the holidays to save up like the vast majority of people did when I was at uni (not very long ago!) if they’re not working during term time.

Besides, it clearly is enough if she apparently hasn’t spent the £300 she was given at the start of term (as she had it to pay back OP with in the end)

Agree.
People at university were needing 100 pw 15 years ago, and they were not rich, super privileged students.

Art materials are extremely expensive too.

There’s absolutely no evidence that this young woman is struggling financially (beyond what’s normal for a student). She doesn’t have a job but clearly did have the money in savings all along, as she’s now given it back to the OP. She gets enough money to live on - I only had my loan at uni and had to get a job and the same is true for so so many students as I work in HE and they’re not all given handouts by their parents. But as I said, this girl had the money but preferred to steal from her mother than dip into her own funds.
The amount of justifying theft, victim-blaming and general bullshit on this thread is shocking. Theft is theft and oddly the courts don’t care if your frontal lobe is developed or not. All the crap about how you’re not middle class unless you have loads of savings as a student - are you on something? I was raised middle class and had fuck all savings just like all my middle class friends. Maybe you’re confusing middle class with being rich but they aren’t the same.
Most 19 year olds don’t steal from their parents (giving examples of stealing when 10 isn’t the same although I was 😮 at the person who took £100 from their mum to buy a phone). Doing that suggests that you have not very nice personality traits to be honest and I’d be heartbroken if my kids did that to me.

FWIW, I don't think honest people who have a 'lapse' forget what they've done because it eats them away. You don't just forget you've taken £150 of someone else's money. It doesn't work like that. She's only fessed up because she's been caught and even then her initial stance was to flat deny it to your face.

You say in your OP that you've given her everything. Does this mean she's been a bit spoiled over the years? I've seen this in my own family and it creates a sense of entitlement. She sounds entitled to me. You don't steal from anyone if you're a decent person, and you certainly don't steal from your parents. I wouldn't be heartbroken, I'd be livid.

🤦🏻‍♀️

I would be really upset about this but she will struggle to pay it back if she isn’t earning. She needs to get a job. I had to be in uni 5 days a week and had to do full time work placements but I did a lot of bar work. My friends who didn’t work all stayed up as late as I did but they had hangovers as well.

She has already paid it back as she had the money all along