I commuted to my college but I carpool with someone. Could your son carpooling with someone? I bet he is not the only one that commutes. I stayed the whole day, ie left very early and came back late and got all my classes in between. I couldn’t afford to stay on campus. I was a Pell Grant recipient.
Her husband and son probably need therapy too. However, she only has control of her own behavior.
She also said that she wants to but doesn’t now how to approach son to ease his pain. A therapist will teach her how and help her understand her son, and be empathetic toward him so she can rebuild their relationship. Possibly with husband too. Perhaps she can learn how to coax them into therapy for “her” benefit.
I don’t necessarily think that she is the bad guy. I think that in her S’s and H’s eyes she is and until she can acknowledge that they are not necessarily unreasonable, and can feel their pain, it will be difficult for reconciliation. It’s not as simple as who is right and who is wrong. What good is being right if you and everybody around you are miserable?
This whole family seems dysfunctional because everybody takes hard defensive positions, and nobody wants to be vulnerable. Everything is a catastrophe, everybody is a victim. This is the exact opposite of a family having shared goals and shared values moving through life with mutual support.
The situation requires delicacy and softness, but that can’t be effective until people are open to it. OP getting therapy may allow her to open the others up by being open and vulnerable herself. Maybe they will allow their own walls to drop. Maybe this family can love each other in time. That’s what I hope.
The mom has made it clear more than once that this college is NOT affordable for her family. She’s also been pretty clear that she’s been telling her family so; they choose to ignore her. Helping her children undermine her doesn’t help her.
Are you going to write that $500 check for her, classicrockerdad? Not everyone can so easily afford to plop down $500 that they’re never getting back. How is it healthy for OP to lead her son on that way? A school that wasn’t affordable last Sept. that isn’t affordable now, won’t suddenly become affordable in the next 13 weeks no matter what a therapist thinks. OP is having adult conversations. Her problem is that there are apparently no adults in her house to hear them. I understand YOU don’t mind debt. However, unless you’re going to be making the payments, you may want to consider how insistently you advise others to take it on.
@Guiltymom came on CC to get ideas for how to make her family understand this college is not affordable, not to be told why she should take on debt she doesn’t believe she can afford by people who don’t know the details of her financial situation.
I think MYOS1634 is right; she should get his SAT and GPA from his high school guidance counselor. I’d suggest her son take a gap year, try to improve his SAT, and work so he can save some money for college. Then he can apply to a new set of schools with a concrete budget (how much, if any, the parents can contribute without borrowing + the $5500 federal student loan + his work earnings + the Pell grant and/or whatever state grants he qualifies for) so he ends up with a reasonable list of choices.
Yes she has, yes they do. And on Saturday after the deadline has past and no deposit is made, we will have mutual assured destruction. She can have the satisfaction of being right for what it’s worth - not too much.
Using authority and building consensus are two very different approaches to exercising influence. I can assure you that the latter approach is far more effective.
She can’t MAKE her family do anything. She can only control her own behavior. So far that isn’t going well.
A deposit is a small price to pay to buy time to allow for the building of consensus.
@ClassicRockerDad Her son and husband have a responsibility to control their own behaviour as well. If she is right, that they don’t have the money, than she should do everything in her power to stop the deposit. She has that right. She shouldn’t have to bow down to her kids and give them anything they want. Her husband is acting like a kid - the classic example of a parent being a friend and not a parent. OP is trying to be a mom. The dad is trying to be best buddies. If the son is really going to run away over this, let him. He doesn’t deserve to be in their house if that is how he treats his parents.
It’s beyond insane to suggest that these people take on a mountain of debt just to give everybody warm fuzzies.
Albert69, what you propose is certainly a legitimate option. The son is free to go, the husband is free to go. She’s free to go.
Problem solved?
Would the OP be happy under these circumstances?
We have no way to influence H and S.
Would the satisfaction of being right and being able to legitimately blame the other two be enough for the OP?
I hope there is a better way, because it leaves the S devastated. Probably the OP too.
^ So because you have no way to influence them, all blame and responsibility for S’s attitude goes on the OP?
No, because there we have no way to influence them, and the OP doesn’t like the outcome, the OP can try to learn a potentially more effective way reach them.
At some point, blame is irrelevant. If the OP only has control of her own behavior, the only options she has are controlling her own behavior. She doesn’t know what to do to improve the situation. Somebody professional and caring can teach her. Pennylane made a great suggestion that will buy time for her to do so without her having to exercise the nuclear option.
^ But won’t that have its own issues? If they pay the deposit, the S and H are definitely going to plan on the S going. They may not go for the highly esteemed counselling everyone is talking about since they got their way. If OP thinks it’s hard to say no now, won’t it be exponentially harder after the deposit is made, orientation is scheduled, classes are registered for, etc.?
I could schedule orientation online without a parent. Same deal for advising and registering for classes. No parent input needed. If they pay the deposit, the son could move right ahead with things like that behind OP’s back (which he doesn’t mind doing, considering the SAT scores) and get them more tied in than you think.
Putting down a deposit on a school with a 2 to 2 1/2 hour commute is not going to magically make the school closer to their home. This commute is TOO FAR.
@ClassicRockerDad, If your son quit talking to your wife because he didn’t get his way, that’s behavior you’d not only support, but reward with an expensive college education that required you taking on unaffordable debt? OP’s issue isn’t whether or not she can build consensus, it’s who runs her household and her finances. Right now, it appears to be a 17-year-old. So she should give in and send a deposit to a school she can’t afford (because THAT doesn’t undermine her position) and spend the next 13 weeks doing what? If her family hasn’t been able to absorb the fact that this school is unaffordable in the last 32 weeks, what can she say in the next 13 to make them understand it? Especially once she puts a deposit down.
You act like if the son doesn’t go to college now then he can never go. Not now, and not for that amount, isn’t no. He can take a gap year and apply to a new list of schools. Families do that all the time. This situation is the dad’s doing, not the mom’s.
It might.
Perhaps if she explains that she needs more time and wants to get some therapy, everybody understands that the nuclear option is still on the table, she comes off as caring what her son thinks, and perhaps opens the door to an adult conversation about shared values.
Basically, the nuclear option ends the opportunity.
I can tell you from my own experience, that parents can do lasting damage to their children even with the best intentions.
My father and brother never reconciled before he died. I tried to, but the hurt is still there. I’ve tried not to do that to my own children. I hope I have been more successful.
I think it’s best to avoid unilateral irreversible moves and learn how to build consensus.
Way too hard and melodramatic. There is real pain here. I don’t think your solution does anything to ease it. It just properly assigns blame and makes it clear who has the authority. Perhaps that’s what the OP can live with. I don’t think it will make her happy.
If the son is devastated just because he can’t go to a college his parents can’t afford, it seems to me that he has serious issues he needs to work through before he goes to any college. In my opinion, this is not a reasonable response to the situation. “Devastation” is an appropriate response to losing your whole family to a natural disaster, not to a change in college plans. I don’t think his mother should give in to his (or his father’s) childish attitudes or behavior. Obviously, all members of the family should consider counseling, whether as a family or individually.
Thumper is right about the commute. When I was in my mid-twenties I attended a college 2-1/2 hours (one way) from my parents’ home. I intended to go home only on the occasional weekend, but there were some weeks (when one of my parents was seriously ill) that I made the round trip every day. It’s exhausting. I wouldn’t advise an experienced driver to try a daily commute like that. For a new driver, it wouldn’t even be on the table.
However, the husband and son are trying to force a different nuclear option. $20,000 of debt per year probably means that the parents are unlikely to be able to borrow enough for the full four years (or more likely five or six years if the son needs remedial courses) of college. So the let-down (son forced to drop out because the money ran out) will occur anyway, but with the family is much poorer financial condition and with choices much more limited going forward.
If the commute is terrible, let the son finds out on his own. If it hurts his grade, then he might go to local CC after his first semester or quarter. On the UC transfers forum, there are students that have 13 Fs and multiple Ws that were accepted to UCB. I don’t see why one should create a buffer for him, let him fail. You are lucky he lives in California. There are many ways to start over.
But I think there should be some agreement about him cover some cost through job or something.
As much as I have voiced my reasons for the son attending a local CC ( costs, grades, scores, maturity) the family conflict is considerable. When two parents are at opposite sides over this, it is not an easily solved situation ( see my King Solomon reference). Also, the situation does not have a cut and dry solution, there are pros and cons to either position. My suggestion in favor of the deposit was to avoid making a permanent decision during a heated and emotional time. In many cases, clear thinking is clouded by emotions. The decision with the most flexibility is to put down a deposit.
When one ( legally over the age of 18) is set on something, and one parent is behind that, then there is little that the other parent can do. It is true that we can only control our behavior, not someone else’s. Since this is the case, the OP has two choices, stand firm and continue to be at odds with H and son, or let them take responsibility for the result of their actions.
I also am not blaming only the OP for this, or any individual family member. Family dynamics are complicated.I believe families work as a system. There may be one person with a larger problem, but in a family system, others take on roles such as enabler and scapegoat. Ideally, all family members are willing to go to counseling, but that isn’t always the case either.If one spouse refuses counseling, the other spouse can go on their own. Often, it is the spouse that seeks counseling that is the one more motivated to make personal changes for the better.
I’m not sure I see any blaming in this thread. There are various point of views. It might help OP understand her son’s emotional view.
@ClassicRockerDad I also know what it’s like to have unreconcilable differences between children and parents - in my own family. In my family’s case, the only way to have peace was for my sister to leave. The difference in my case was that my parents were mostly united in their desire to not give into my sisters BS. She wanted my parents to pay for a college that they couldn’t afford. We were going through a move and she was the oldest of 4 kids - I’m the 3rd. The friction built up over the years until it reached a breaking point. And for those crying “counselling is the answer” - my parents and sister went to counselling, multiple times for various reasons. Nothing we ever did for her is enough. If OP thinks that the college is the answer, she’s likely wrong. The son will want more and more if you give him his way.