<p>In its Time, it is possible.</p>
<p>DS calls home from a tier 1, engineering grad school. “How long do you boil spaghetti?” (His mother and grandmother are master cooks).</p>
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<p>I think that’s irrelevant, though. What you and your wife, as grown adults with incomes, might spend on your daughter if you were to take her someplace has little to do with what she should be spending when she’s at school. I mean, my parents used to take me shopping and spend hundreds of dollars on clothing for me during vacations, etc. That doesn’t mean that they should have provided me an allowance to enable ME to do the same when I was away, though. Similarly, if they wanted to take me to dinner every night at the finest restaurant at town, that’s their prerogative, but that doesn’t mean that they owed me the money to enable ME to go out to dinner every night at fine restaurants when I was at school.</p>
<p>Being broke when you start off on your own is a right of passage.</p>
<p>It’s important to be able to remember times you had to struggle to get by. It makes it that much nicer when you work your way up. It helps you appreciate the things you have and how hard it is to keep them.</p>
<p>Do not rob your daughter of this important experience</p>
<p>POIH, I really liked your sage remark: I do really believe it is not how much you earn or have but how you spend is the key to successful financial life. I hope you can teach that to your DD.</p>
<p>As for the cooking issue, in our family of 4 men, they all cook. My DH and DS2 particularly enjoy those cooking shows and they still exchange emails about who they’d vote for in Top Chef. I don’t like to over-emphasize food discussions too much around here, but that’s simply my way to keep us all fit and thin and not constantly thinking about food. But I do think it is vitally important for everyone to know how to cook, at least a few basic meals.</p>
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<p>That maybe over rated.
I still remember H and I unknowingly walked into a good Italian restaurant in the Village, but we only had enough money for one pasta dish, so we shared that (with James Beard sitting next to us). Window shopping in NYC was my favorite past time.</p>
<p>and those are good memories.:)</p>
<p>We were happy to find enough change on the car floor, ashtray to buy a pizza Fri nights.We were all broke. It didn’t matter.</p>
<p>marite:
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<p>She is not on a meal plan. The option she is on provide her the ability to pay 50% for food in the dinning rooms. She uses that for dinner most of the week days but take her lunch outside and eat on the weekends outside.</p>
<p>I never formally learned to cook but always was fond of BBQ and love to cook dishes in different way which DW always believe is unhealthier than her preparation.</p>
<p>But I do it because of enjoyment and want the same from DD. I don’t want her to cook because someone else think she should know how to just because she is girl.</p>
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<p>Of course this is YOUR family decision…but I have to ask…why shouldn’t she support her own social outings? Seems like THAT would develop some responsible spending preparation on her part. She could use HER money to do whatever SHE wanted to do…no questions asked…but no loans given to cover shortfalls.</p>
<p>I’m not saying you shouldn’t give her an allowance if you so choose. BUT what is wrong with HER making a financial contribution to her social and eating out habits?</p>
<p>My son cooks. He has cooked since he was in middle school. He also cooked when he lived in Boston. He did his own shopping and never spent more than $250 a MONTH on food. He once told me that his food budget was less than $50 a week. WE paid for that. If he wanted to eat out…that was on his dime. </p>
<p>Our kids both worked in college…but it was not to build up their nest egg while we depleted ours. Since we were paying the better part of their tuition/room/board costs, we didn’t think it was unreasonable to have THEM contribute to their social expenses. </p>
<p>By the way…MIT does have kitchens. There are tons of easy breakfast and lunch things students can have on hand and use. My DD has a bagel, cereal or English muffin every morning with fruit and tea…packs a sandwich and fruit for lunch…makes pasta or a nice fancy salad or stir fry or what have you for dinner. She does a monthly run to Trader Joes, and Costco (splits those things with the roomies). She spends less than $50 a week on food. Oh…and she DOES go out to eat at least once a week…but usually at lunchtime when the meals are much cheaper than dinners.</p>
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<p>She should learn to cook regardless of her gender. It’s a terrific skill to have. EVERYONE should know how to do some kind of cooking.</p>
<p>But to each his own.</p>
<p>limabeans: That is the intent and hence I don’t believe in setting limits. I think DD needs to understand how much she should be spending on food and entertainment. Otherwise by the time she gets the job she will be spending away all the take home pay.</p>
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I think it’s nice to cook for enjoyment, but that’s not why one should cook. Everyone should be able to cook the basics, just like everyone should be able to touch type. (But at one time if you were female it was better not to admit that you could.)</p>
<p>I see I am echoing thumper. But really, I think you are making excuses for her.</p>
<p>I’ll confess, I have one son who doesn’t cook - even though I cooked lots with him when he was very young. My high school senior is a good cook and loves to cook elaborate things like white chocolate mousse cake with raspberry cream!</p>
<p>I have to agree with all the other posters. Everyone, male or female should know how to cook. My father is in his 70’s and never learned how to cook. It is a huge handicap for him.</p>
<p>POIH…I just have to ask…Cooking is a skill EVERYONE should have. It’s right up there with knowing how to do your own laundry (so you don’t have to send it OUT to be done) and cleaning your own house (so you don’t have to hire someone else to do so) or washing your car…or mowing your lawn…you get the picture.</p>
<p>My kids do ALL of the above things. Does your daughter send her laundry out to be done? Does she have someone else clean her room, wash her car, etc? </p>
<p>Being a self sufficient adult involves MORE than spending money to have OTHERS do things for you.</p>
<p>I think what people said is that she should learn to cook not because she is female, but because she should know how to take care of herself. This is not a gender issue. If we only did the things we liked to do, there would be a lot of things left undone. I don’t particularly like emptying the dishwasher or doing the laundry, but it needs to be done. She can also learn basic meal preparation without having to become a gourmet chef. That said, it is sort of like piano lessons. Perhaps a bit challenging to learn, but a great skill to have down the road.</p>
<p>I, like many others here, am confused by what comes across as inconsistency, and makes it harder to give helpful advice. You indicated that you like to cook, and are a good cook, but then said the opposite above. Can you clarify? You said, so I recalled, that you set a general (but very generous) amount/monthly allowance for your d first semester. If I read your post above correctly, you are now saying that it was just a number in your head, but you never shared with your dau these expectations? If she did not know there was a target limit, why should she be expected to know if she has now exceeded it? Have you asked her directly what she is spending $ on? You can say “I noticed your spending has gone up quite a bit these past 2 months. Is ther a reason for this?” Is it possible what you are seeing in January statements are the credit card bills for the Dec holiday gifts and vacation/winter break activities?</p>
<p>Even at my age, I rarely splurge on tickets over $100 for a concert If I do, I think long and hard about it. I can’t imagine my s’s spending that on a concert, or expecting me to spend it on a ticket for them. That said, when they are in town and we take them out, we pay for them. But when they are at school, they have an allowance, and are expected to budget their money. They know that savings should only be touched in an emergency, and again, they think long and hard about it before they touch savings. This is the mindset you should instill in your daughter. She should think about what she spends, where she spends and why she spends. LIke cooking and piano lessons, she may not thank you know for teeaching her fiscal responsibility. But she will thank you later.</p>
<p>*** crossposted with lots of other posters about the non-gender component of having basic cooking skills!</p>
<p>POIH:</p>
<p>I have only two guys and I have always been determined that they would learn to be self-sufficient. I can afford a cleaning lady; they cannot. So they learned how to vacuum clean, clean bathrooms, cook, do laundry, make their own beds, wash dishes, and so on and so forth.
I am not one to suggest your D learn to cook because she is a girl. But I do suggest she learn to cook in order to be self-sufficient and to live within her means. Even today, cooking is not my favorite pastime. But being a grad student on a tight budget made me learn fast.
My Ss have significant savings of their own and yet, they are frugal. They make their own lunches. Some of my colleagues (all well paid) do the same. My Ss do not eat out every weekend. Neither do we. S2 who lived surrounded by restaurants, ate out <em>occasionally</em> and always taking into account the fact that some of his friends were on financial aid and that for them, a $10 meal represented at least one hour of work, and $10 less in student contributions toward their finaid requirements.
I am enormously thankful that my Ss went to public schools with a large proportion of students on F/R lunch; it taught them not to set their standards by what their richest friends could spend but by what the poorest ones could afford.</p>
<p>PizzaGirl:
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<p>What would you used to do during your visits home, buy your own clothes or let your parent buy those for you? Why does it matter where you buy clothes as long as you are being responsible?
Similarly, How does it matter where DD go to concert? </p>
<p>I think we come to a point where we want to ask when it is the time to let DD be on her own without any help from us.
I think when she gets into the work force with a steady job we might not be looking at her accounts at all unless she would ask us to do so.
Till than her happiness is our responsibility and we would like her to enjoy as much as possible along being able to make her learn the financial responsibility.</p>
<p>2girls4me and thumper1:
I also want her to learn to cook but just on her own pace. I never said she should not cook but maintained that she should not have to cook just because she is a girl.</p>
<p>POIH,
Research ha shown that “happiness” comes short-term from things we enjoyed, but long term from self satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, pride and self worth. If you help your daughter learn to be competent in life skills, you will help her to develop confidence, security and inner happiness.</p>
<p>jym626:
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<p>I do cook and like it to but have done it for enjoyment. If I don’t like I won’t and eat outside.</p>
<p>I don’t want to set any limit for DD spending. What I do want DD to understand that she should have to have a limit or a budget. She just can’t spend without a budget.</p>
<p>But why should she have to limit or budget if there is no limit or cap on what she can spend? This is what is not clear?</p>
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<p>This is what doesn’t make sense. You want her to have some sort of limit or budget – but you don’t even want to tell her what it is, much less enforce it by only depositing $750 (or whatever) per month into the account. You seem to want her to naturally stop her spending at a reasonable amount, but you are not providing any guidance as to what that reasonable amount might be. </p>
<p>It sounds like you don’t want to run the risk of disappointing or upsetting her if she gets to the end of the $750 and still wants more. I understand. I feel that way about my baby girl too :-). But money isn’t unlimited. </p>
<p>Let’s ask the question a different way. Suppose we all said that the “right” number was $500. What would you do? Now, suppose we all said the “right” number was $2,000. What would you do?</p>