Need some feedback on parenting a 19 year old college daughter

[JohnDB]

We sent our daughter to a small, private Christian college. She is completing her freshman year. She originally went there to play a sport, but she is no longer playing the sport. Most of the kids at this school play a sport. She would have not gone to this school without the sport. Now that she isn't on the team, she has few friends. But, she has a romantic relationship with a young man that we do not approve of. We haven't approved of it from the get-go back in September. I don't want to get into the weeds of all of the details, but here is the question:

If you, as a parent, believe that returning to that school isn't in your child's best interests, is it wrong to say "you can return there, but we will not be paying for it, because we do not feel it is in your best interests." My wife says it could drive a permanent wedge between us and our daughter, and I agree. But if we let her return, she risks royally screwing up her life permanently with this guy. And her mother and I could be saddled with helping raise her kids and financially support them from now on, if statistics and history are any indication.

My view is, she's still our kid. We are still paying all of her bills. She's about two years immature for her age. We not only have the right to take action, but an obligation to do so. We don't parent unless it makes the child mad at us. We parent until the kid is fully grown and on their own.

Thoughts on this?

At a guess,
She sounds somewhat impulsive and makes poor choices that you and your wife bail her out from. Meanwhile she keeps making more drastic, permanent decisions you can't fix because in some ways she resents the controlling aspect of the parenting.

So....
You are going to somehow explain that she is making decisions that are permanent...and gambling with choices that you can't fix.

Ask her who she wants to be.
Ask her what a good life as an adult looks like.
And when she presents logical fallacies and incongruous ideals...ask her about them...

And explain why you fund her college life...and that if she is going to chase after anything and everything that is destructive to the goals of being a self sufficient adult that you aren't going to fund that. And that if she continues She's going to be on her own...completely. Tell her that you will enjoy it when she visits and that you will always love her.
Meaning that her living arrangements will be completely dependent on her choices....fleas come with the dog.

 

[2ndTimothyGroup]

P.S.

In relation to the "race" issue...

I am a "white" man who was married to a "black" Latina.

All of our children are "mixed".

If I were you, then I wouldn't even factor in the "race" issue for several reasons.

For one thing, there is really only one "race", and that is the human race.

For another thing, if you're considering "race" to be an issue, then this very well may be a sign that your own heart isn't right before the Lord.

Jesus created everyone, and died for everyone.

Amen. My only relationship in the last six years, was with a black woman. I too am a white male. I firmly believe in the principle that in Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek or Jew, slave or free. And why is this? Because just as you said, this is a matter of the heart.

And so when I read the comment about this being about race, that's when I realized this wasn't as much about the daughter as it is about the parents. We don't get to decide who our children fall in love with.

 

[Lanolin]

Amen. My only relationship in the last six years, was with a black woman. I too am a white male. I firmly believe in the principle that in Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek or Jew, slave or free. And why is this? Because just as you said, this is a matter of the heart.

And so when I read the comment about this being about race, that's when I realized this wasn't as much about the daughter as it is about the parents. We don't get to decide who our children fall in love with.

yea thats a bit rough
When you are 19 you dont screen people for colour. when someone shows affection, you dont actually care what their skin colour is or how much they are earning.

They'll find a way to be together if its true love and besides, in a few years she can make her own decisisons on who she sees, marries, what she studies, and what job she'll do.

I think a lot of children drop out of sport mainly because of one thing ....BULLYING parents.
And of its not that, its bullying coaches. Drugs are also now a big thing in sport.

 

[TNMustang]

Thank you for all of the replies everyone. She was kicked off of the team. We are only getting her side, but I believe she did a lot of lying to the coach and was irresponsible. We constantly catch her lying to us. Just today, she lied to us about going to class. We found out she's missed a lab two weeks in a row now. This, to me, is reason enough to tell her she isn't going back in the fall. We don't have a trust relationship. If she wants to be out on her own, that is her choice. But we own her car, phone, everything.

The race thing isn't the big deal. But marrying someone in another universe from your culture and socioeconomic status - up, down, or sideways, is a recipe for disaster. Marriage is hard enough.

 

[TheIndianGirl]

Here are the red herrings:

1. He is from a completely different culture than her. She's upper middle class, he's working poor.
2. His mother is deceased, his father is a former convict, remarried, and never sees the young man.
3. His grandparents have raised him, and even they are divorced and remarried.
4. Christian? Perhaps a believer. Spiritual leader? No way.
5. He's going to college, mainly to play football. But he's not good enough to play, so he's mounting up tremendous debt in student loans so he can play football.
6. He wants to be "cop", but you don't have to graduate college to be a cop.
7. He's from a different race.
8. He says that if he graduates, he will then be a "successful" black man and he will then have to divorce his family, as they will resent him. (That sounds really healthy!)

Meanwhile, we have discovered that this school is 100 percent about athletes. Most of the student body are athletes. They finance the school. The school offers all these kids a chance to be on a team, loads the kids up with student loans, and that makes up 70 percent of their student body. Most of them will never play, many of them aren't college academic material. Many won't graduate, and most will graduate with massive student debt.

So we don't think it's a good place for our daughter. It isn't a healthy situation.

Most of the items you listed the boy has no control over - race, born into poor socioeconomic status, bad family. Please keep that in mind.

Has your daughter explained why she likes him?

If he is poor, he would qualify for financial aid and so wouldn't incur a lot of college loans.

If you are worried about socioeconomic status, that is pretty easy to resolve. If he becomes a cop he will get a decent salary, promotion potential, and pension. What is he majoring in?

Nowadays interracial marriage is not a big deal.

 

[TheIndianGirl]

It is better if a cop has a college degree, preferably in a field like criminal justice, for promotion potential.