To allow my DD to follow her ridiculous "life plan"

[14HoursToSaveTheEarth]

This is not really an AIBU. I'm asking for advice/views. Long post so sorry.

My DD (16) is a number of things including confident and articulate. This may sound harsh but she is also in many ways immature and gullible, and very, very lazy. She left secondary school without a single GCSE of any grade and to be honest I think it is safe to say that this will continue and she will leave all education without any qualifications. Importantly, she does not care. She lives a privileged life in a seven bedroom house where she wants for nothing, but her attitude is that work is for fools and she plans to live off the government until she gets married and they look after her. You have no idea how long we have spent trying to dispel this fantasy and educate her as to how life will be in the real world if she doesn't change her attitude but she thinks we made our life choices (like going to university, gaining multiple degrees and working long hours at good jobs to provide her with this life) and she will make hers.

So she now has a "friend" who she met online via other friends who has had a hard time in life. She is also 16 but she cannot live at home due to her family circumstances, so he has a flat paid for by the local authority (according to DD). This friend has it sounds serious mental health issues, is a self-harmer and has attempted suicide several times, and recently had a miscarriage. I do not think it was her first pregnancy. The friend lives in East London. We live in the countryside several hours from London.

DD and her friend have now hatched a master plan whereby when they turn 18 DD will move in with her friend in London and they will both live off of benefits and never have to work, or at most they will get a job at MacDonalds.They think that this is them beating the system and they laugh at people planning to go to university and get jobs.

I could write this off as a teenage fantasy, which it probably is, but I constantly see threads on MN about young women who are living the life she describes and it makes me despair that this plan may become a reality. I don't even know what to do if we cannot talk her out of it. Do we drive her to London and try to be "supportive" (though I would not give her money other than in an emergency) in order to still be part of her life when it all goes wrong, or do we say "fine, make your choices but stand on your own two feet then" and see her sink possibly out of our lives forever?

DD also has two younger siblings who idolise her and I really worry about the message this sends to them, if she messages them about her amazing life in London sticking a finger up at everything we are trying to get them to work towards.

For full disclosure, as I don't want to be accused of drip-feeding, my DD was adopted at age three.

I know this will probably all come to nothing but it horrifies me when I hear her planning for a future that I know will be so bleak when for so many years we had such high hopes for her future. She has tried vaping and tried alcohol at a party but she hated both, so does not drink or smoke, has never tried drugs and is a virgin. However, she is incredibly stubborn and I have seen her turn viciously on people, including teachers, who do not allow her to have her own way (though thankfully this is not often), and so I can see her following through on this ridiculous plan out of sheer willfulness.

Before anyone asks, DH and I are fully on the same page on this issue. We are both equally horrified at her so-called plans but at a loss as to how to curtail them when she listens to everything we say and then simply says that she has her own mind and when she is 18 we cannot stop her. And she is right.

Beside this ridiculous plan and a general laziness with respect to anything concerning study, she is actually a pretty good kid most days (the moments of stubbornness I mentioned above are momentous but rare), so I have no reason to do anything to punish her. She is allowed to have friends and crazy ideas.

So please MN, your views:

Am I being UNREASONABLE and should let her spread her wings and move in with an unstable friend and live a life that horrifies me, putting her safety at risk in the hope that she sees sense and comes home, or

am I being REASONABLE and should do everything to prevent her from moving in with her friend when she is 18, even if that drives a wedge between us, hoping that she eventually understands this is for her benefit?

or should we do something else entirely?

Yes, or send her to do some work experience in McDonald’s?

It sounds partly like she knows she can say/do whatever the hell she wants as she has loving, supportive parents who’ll always be there for her.

She is, as my American friend says “acting out”.

Do you have any experience of adoption trauma? Because I assume that’s why PP is suggesting moving the thread.

I think you misunderstand or underestimate young people like this, they are often thrilled, attracted to, fascinated with, enthralled by criminality, risk, danger, living outside the norm. Particularly if she is has FASD

Yes, thank you. That’s exactly right

I’m a mental health nurse. I’m struggling to find the exact words to say this, but you need to be very very proactive right now. She needs therapy and it needs to be intensive, trauma focused and with a specialist psychotherapist or clinical psychologist not a counsellor. I work with patients who are deeply troubled with self harm behaviour, suicide attempts, substance abuse, homelessness, repeated hospitalisation etc etc and they all pretty much started out like your daughter. She still has the chance of a normal and happy life. Please help her.

Hi op what is her school history ? Was she always failing exams ? Did she ever do well ?
How come she's failed ? Either she has always been struggling and not had proper supper /diagnosis or it came as a shock in which case what went wrong

Her course includes resits of Maths and English and in fairness I think the teachers are doing their best, but I guess they need a minimum level of buy-in from the pupils. I think she has basically decided that her friends know better than the teachers, so she is happy to sit and listen, but then decides that the girls who say everything will be easy are right.

I think I will speak to DH to see if we can encourage her to take on some part time work in a supermarket or such, to get a taste of real life. To be honest in the past I was worried that that would limit her ambition (no offence to anyone) but it worries me that in reality her ambitions don't even stretch that far.

It is hard as until last year we never expected her to be in this position. We knew she was not doing well at school, but I did not expect to having this conversation only a year later.

This is another good point actually. Have you actually seen these friends (on FaceTime or whatever)? I’d be saying I want to sit in on their next online rendezvous at least for a minute to check they are who they say they are - and she can hand over her phone if she won’t allow it.

I don’t think your dd is alone in her life plan. Plenty of women get married and are then ‘kept’ but there husbands. I once taught a girl whose only ambition in life was to be a WAG. She is indeed now a WAG. I don’t agree with this life choice, and wouldn’t want it for my dd, but plenty live like this.

Does this actually make any difference?

Yes

So is she not actually doing any of the college work assignments?
If not I am surprised they haven't asked her to leave.
The "education or training until 18" thing doesn't mean you can't get kicked out of college.

I do hate the constant 'are they neurodivergent' on here, but in this case it could be warranted. Not even starting indicates a challenge with executive functioning. It may not be that she wont start, it may be that she can't start. It may all just feel too big and overwhelming. This is a feature of ADHD which we are starting to understand, our oldest is incredibly smart, but she 'freezes' in certain situations.

Make sure she knows that benefits are at the whim of the Government. They can be radically changed on a whim really. It’s not safe to plan your life on something you have no control over.

Young, single, childless, healthy people are not going to be well provided for now, or in the future.

I don’t actually mean this - but why don’t you suggest an arranged marriage for her?!? Given that she “plans to live off the government until she gets married”

Agree that key place to start is any trauma associated with adoption.

I once interviewed a group of young adults who worked in McDonalds. They struck me as a good employer for young people of student age. They taught employees useful attributes like neatness, teamwork punctuality and service skills. Moreover they also recruit many of their managers in house so there is room for promotion for the right young people. As other PP have pointed out McDonalds can be choosy who they employ and would be looking for hard working and motivated applicants who are willing to learn about the brand and the company ethos. This does not fit well with someone who plans to coast through life.

Has she actually met this "girl" in person? Facetimed? Have you met her?
Can you confirm its not some bald 50 year old bloke in a dirty vest surrounded by empty Tennants cans?

It might. It might not. It shouldnt be counted out

Lots of kids do this and they're not adopted. Lots of adopted kids dont do this.

Its not right to have a fixed view of why this is happening and as others have said, there are plenty of people who do have this as a viable life.

My 16yr old son says it sounds like social media fed. Cut off her internet - or at least reduce maybe in combination with some of the ideas above. I doubt that focusing on getting her a job will be a good use of your energy.

It’s not for an adopted child to “repay” anything. And rather decide that her “nature” is defective in some way consider her early life experiences that will have led to her needing to be removed from her birth parents. The impact of constant trauma on a child in the earliest stages of development can be absolutely devastating, impacts their decision making, impulse control, their self esteem. Teenagers who are care experienced need a lot of scaffolding and support, it’s a very difficult stage for anyone and she has the impact on trauma on her developing brain.

She need support, professional help to understand her life story and how her early experiences impact her.

A family member was adopted (at birth). I’m a few years older and I remember she had a tough time as a teenager, very rebellious. Not sure she did well academically but matured in her early 20s and got a profession and is doing well for herself now.

I’m sure it must be the adoption element that doesn’t help. Probably specialist advice is best.

@14HoursToSaveTheEarth what does she actually enjoy in life (or used to enjoy when younger).

How is she planning on even travelling to London with no money?
Make her get a job. She sounds like she is wasting so much time. She must be bored stupid hence the fantasy she is creating online. She should be having the time of her life. God knows why she thinks she’d enjoy working at McDonalds.

Very sorry for what you're going through, OP. If it helps, when I was 16 I agreed to go to Vegas and marry a (platonic) male friend of mine for a weekend, thinking it would be a laugh, we'd get some freebies and then get it annulled easily a few days later. At the time I wasn't planning on getting married properly ever. I realised the following year how much flights to Vegas would cost, and that I had no money...

Could you encourage DD to start applying to some of these easily available jobs now, McDonald's etc? I was rejected from a Tesco's as a post-grad once, and the application was not easy! And I have three degrees (now, post-grad at the time) and had previously worked in hospitality. Might bring her down to earth a bit?

My DC is tiny so no idea really but I imagine acting neutral and letting things play out might act in your favour, at least she's see she's not getting a reaction from you. I also highly doubt if she's grown up in a nice seven bed house that she'd last long in the kind of accomodation you get through the council even if you're lucky enough to get something.

It makes a massive difference.