AIBU for refusing to let DD give her boyfriend old phone?

[Astepaway]

DD, 17, has begun dating a boy who is 18. DD is super happy and seems to really like him.
DD has worked part time since she was 14 and her dad and I both work full time jobs and have a second job each. We work really hard to provide for our children and always have.

Anyway, DD’s new boyfriend is 18 and dropped out of college at 17. He doesn’t work and spends his days in bed or building Lego/gaming. His mum also doesn’t work and DD has told me she has mental health difficulties.
DD came home last weekend crying at their situation, they have no curtains, just sheets up at the windows, broken furniture and can’t always afford food.

The AIBU part is that DD’s phone contact has just come up for renewal and we have upgraded her phone. She wants to gift her new boyfriend her old phone which is still worth about £400. I have just given him an old phone but it’s old enough that some of the apps don’t work.

I’ve said to DD that she can’t just give him another phone that is worth hundreds that her dad and I have paid for. We have said we are concerned that her boyfriend is not willing to help himself and get a job.
AIBU??

I’m puzzled about why you upgraded your daughter’s phone just because the contract was up. That’s the perfect time to cancel the contract and buy a monthly rolling sim from Smarty or Lebara with a very generous allowance for £6-8 a month.

I personally don't think they're gaming the system, I don't see the situation like that. At the moment OP has provided no evidence that it's so. For me, it's not about labelling them or judging them. It's about looking at the facts of the situation.

If mum is disabled (we don't know this either only that she's too unwell to work) she'll be claiming PIP as well as UC, so even more money coming in per month. If son is carer (and again we don't know this) he'll be (or should be) claiming carer's allowance (which gets deducted from his UC).

It's the situation of OPs DD seeing this family as having "no income/not enough income" and feeling responsible for solving that, that's the issue. They've got an income and they've got free will over how to spend it. They may have sky-high rent making life difficult, but although that isn't their fault it's also not DD's fault (or her problem) either.

DD should be sorting out her own life, saving for a rental deposit so she can move out or for some savings to get herself through uni so she doesn't have to work every hour she's not studying. Or just saving her money so she can go on holidays with other friends, buy her own next phone, have nice clothes and toiletries etc.

The one thing she shouldn't be doing at 17 (or ever, really) and particularly as a part-time worker, who's own income level is most probably categorised officially as "poverty" status, is subsidising the finances of people she barely knows just because she feels sorry for them.

If she wants to be charitable and help "people like them", she could give £400 to a food bank or charity that helps youngsters get into employment or something.

She feels sorry for them? Well, perhaps she should try feeling sorry for the taxpayers who are funding his Lego and gaming life and the resultant lack of money the govt has. You could try explaining that the benefits bill in 2026 will exceed the income tax receipts. This is a serious societal issue. This boy is literally laying about playing Lego and gaming. And she wants to give him a £400 phone that you paid for.

she sounds kind but very naive.

YANBU about the phone, but frankly I would be more concerned about my daughter getting involved with this boy/situation/family/mess.

It's not her job to fix him or any of his family trauma and issues. You say she is happy, is that honeymoon phase puppy love happy and how long is that going to last because this is only a month old relationship.

What's the long term prospects here? Does she think she will help him change and get a job etc? In my opinion that's too much of an ask or pressure for a 17 year old and that shouldn't be her priority at all at this stage in her life.

I've seen young girls with their head screwed on start making silly decisions due to "love" deciding not to go to Uni anymore or go to a different uni because she wants to stay close to her boyfriend who is jobless with no motivation to do anything.

Yanbu. She needs to start paying for things if she thinks her parents are double jobbing to give phones away. I would not be happy with this association.

Not appropriate to give someone you’ve known a month, a £400 gift, regardless of the circumstances.

Id be watching for the smell of weed.
The drop out bit,sleeping all day,gaming all night.

I don’t know what the best approach is here as both of mine are pretty tough on laziness, but I’m reminded of some of the US finance adviser Dave Ramsey’s comments about his daughters not being allowed to do ‘missionary dating’. I’d stand firm
on the subject of the phone and I think I’d be trying to reduce her contact with him as much as possible.

Also i hope shes sensible about contraception.

Make sure the phone is factory reset. She’s naive.

You'd be wrong.

Because different people do different things, it doesn’t make them wrong amd you right, it’s just different

My post was in response to @Flintstonerubble -the quote didn’t quote!

Can you trade it in/ sell it back to phone company? It’s not hers to give away if you paid for it - that’s life.

It’s so important that she learns not to try to save men. It’s not the road to happiness. I’m in my fifties and only just realising this, so it’s probably good this has come up now!

A relationship should be on an equal footing. The fact that he’d even accept the phone is a bad sign in itself

A month?!?!?

Jesus your dd is naive

You need to get educating her more on benefits.. her boyfriend isnt the dickensian poor.
And no he cannot have the fucking phone.

Also its your phone to sell!
Sell it to a stranger and put the £400 in savings for your daughter (she'll be needing it if she keeps being taken advantage of like this!)
If she wants to slum it with the boyfriend you may want to rescind the new phone and leave her with her old one...

I feel for you this is a nightmare scenario

Let her give him the phone, its surplus to requirement now and notveirth falling out over.

We pay for our children’s phones but they are still ours. We never gifted it to them. When we upgrade we sell them to pay towards the new one. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do that tbh.

@AmberTigerEyes he games and does Lego all day. He’s not exactly a full time carer! And he used to go to college so clearly his mother coped when he left the house. It’s obvious he’s a waster and the sooner OP’s daughter realises this, the better.

Looking after a loser is a bottomless pit OP. Hell would freeze over before I let her give him the phone.

Preach.

What normally happens to the old phones? What were you planning to do with it?

When she says she’ll give you £400 for it, where is her £400 coming from? A job or money you’ve given her?

He doesn’t sound like a relationship I’d be encouraging.

He's got a phone now problem solved, you work very hard to provide, she's got rose tints on and is being rather naive/entitled. Absolutely not. It isn't really hers to give away.

Why on earth are you renewing the contract if the phone is still worth that much? Surely if it is fully functional, end the contract and get a SIM only deal meaning she keeps her original handset.

This will also teach her about sustainability and less wastage.

Absolutely.
It really isn't hers.
You are clearly doing too much for her that she is so cavalier with YOUR 400 quid phone!

Wise words. I learned quickly as a teen, and I am fortunate in having a Dad who taught me to take no crap from a bloke.

I’m concerned that the ‘be kind’ mantra can be interpreted to mean ‘always help’, and girls who try to ‘save’ men like this are likely to end up in bad situations.