Man Decides To Pay For Son's College After His Daughter Funded Her Own — Now He's Asking If He Did The Right Thing
He's being criticized for his decision.
imtmphoto | Shutterstock A man is being accused of "mistreating" his daughter after admitting that he won't be giving her access to her education fund.
Posting to the subreddit "r/AmItheA--hole" (AITA) — a forum where users try to figure out if they were wrong or not in an argument that has been bothering them — he explained that his parents had set aside money for both his daughter and son to attend college.
In his Reddit post, the man, 54, wrote that he and his wife, 52, expected his daughter, 23, and son, 21, to attend both undergraduate and graduate school, just like they'd done.
"I have a Ph.D., my wife has a master's. Because of this, we decided not to use the funds for our kids' undergrad degrees and did not tell them about the money," he shared.
He refused to give his daughter access to her education fund, despite using it to pay for his son's tuition.
While his daughter had gone to school to pursue liberal arts, his son had shown interest in engineering and decided to attend college for STEM.
However, he and his wife worried that their daughter would be unable to find a job after undergrad since she "insisted on studying music and film in college."
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"She was accepted to some top schools and chose to attend a rather expensive one, but she had scholarships to cover almost all of her tuition. Everything else, plus living expenses, was her responsibility."
She had lived in a "very small apartment" with some of her friends that wasn't in the best part of town, and after graduating she was able to find a job, but ultimately decided against attending grad school.
When it was time for the man's son to attend college, he expressed no interest in grad school, but both his parents weren't worried about him finding a job after graduating since he was pursuing engineering.
"Since he did not receive as many scholarships as his sister, we decided to use his education fund to cover his tuition and living expenses," he wrote, despite not helping his daughter pay for school.
"He was able to get a large and nice apartment of his own close to the school, which is important since his classes are so demanding and he needs a comfortable space to work."
His daughter confronted him after finding out he had paid for her brother to attend college.
When the man's daughter found out that her parents had not only paid for her brother to go to college, but also helped him with his living expenses, she was incredibly confused.
Her confusion only doubled when her brother told her about the education fund.
"She called us and asked why she didn't have one, and we told her she did, we just didn't use it because we hoped she would attend grad school," he admitted in his Reddit post.
His daughter was "hurt" by that revelation, and asked if she would be able to access her amount in the education fund now.
However, her father shut down that idea.
"We explained that there would be a fee to simply withdraw the money for non-education uses, and if we chose to do that it would belong to her grandparents so they could put it towards their own use."
Since he refused to let his daughter have access to her education fund, she's been "quiet and short" with her parents, not answering any of their calls.
He argued that while it seems "unfair to her," it wouldn't be right to let her use the money since it's "not really her money" and she isn't in college anymore.
"Plus, her brother only received it for educational purposes and it wouldn't be right for her to just have it to spend now," he concluded.
A majority of people who commented on the man's Reddit post agreed that he was in the wrong.
"By your own admission, your daughter did very well in school, went into a career that she loves, [and] paid for all of her extra expenses and housing," one user wrote.
"Meanwhile, your son, I’m sure because he was an engineering [major], basically got to have a free ride. You guys are both are treating your daughter terribly."
"You should at the very least pay her back for all of her expenses incurred during her degree."
Another user added, "You need to apologize for substituting your judgment as to the best way to use the funds for your daughter's judgment. You need to make amends."
"You basically decided your daughter's goals didn't meet your approval so you didn't give her the money that had been set aside for her," a third user chimed in.
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.