Concerned about 18yr daughter (long)

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2006
Concerned about 18yr daughter (long)
12
Sun, 04-23-2006 - 10:03am

Is this behavior far from typical? What can her father and I do if anything? She seems to have no direction and is very rude to her father and I. There seems to be a total lack of respect towards us and her responsibilities.

Our 18 yr old daughter is an only child. We believe we have spoiled her rotten. As she was growing up we had the best of intentions regarding punishments and rewards. I believe part of the current situation is because my husband and I were usually unable to follow through with punishments. (She would put up fusses and cry or complain to the point we would give in.) I suppose you could say we were pushovers.

Anyway, here we are at 18 going on 19. She managed to graduate high school. She is a very bright girl, she just didn't apply herself. (The school situation is a dissappointment to my entire family. Especially my mother and father who are very well educated, basically intellectual snobs.) Our daughter did sign up for some classes at the local college last year. We don't know how she really did becuase of privacy laws and she certainly is not honest about how she did. At the moment she is not attending college, although she says she wants to take a class or two this year.

She does work. Makes pretty good money for a teen. She currently works at a place that I used to work, so my firends keep an eye out on her for me. She knows that it is very important to me that she behave herself there because I am in management in another location/divison. I am told that she is a wonderful person. They love her at work and tell me that it is so funny to have her around becuase she is so much like me.

She has totally screwed up her credit. I helped her to establish her own credit. When we started out it was explained over and over again how important it is to maintain good credit. Her first checking account quickly became a disaster. Because it was entirely in her name the bank will not discuss her account with me. What upsets me so much is that the screw ups were not accidental, they are intentional. For example, she knows when she has no money in her account but will use it anyway thereby incurring substantial fees. I know when this happens because the notices come to the house. I don't open her mail, I just know what they look like.

She managed to open a number of credit card accounts and she constantly refuses to make her payments on time. We have started to receive numerous phone calls from these companies. They will call and ask for her but they won't tell us anything, again due to privacy laws. Usually the calls come when she is not home but the other day she was home and I answered the phone. When I called her to the phone she picked up the extension, made sure I had hung up and walked into the other room where she "accidentally" hung up on the caller!!

The bills come to the house and when I give them to her she leaves the laying around unopened. When I insist she open them she yells at me to leave her alone or she yells "I will, I will."

Another big problem is the car she has. My husband and I purchased the car for her a few years ago while she was still in HS. The down payment came from her college funds. The agreement was, (this is before the credit card accounts were opened and before the checking account became a big problem,) that she would make monthly payments to us. I think we have received maybe 2 payments in the past few years. We couldn't take the car away because she needed it to get to school and work. (School buses and public transportation were not an option.) My husband and I also pay for the insurance.

She keeps promising to make the payments to us but doesn't. We told her in the past that the car loan would have to go in her name so that is one reason why it is so important that she maintain her credit. Now it will probably be next to impossible to get that loan into her name or if it is possible the interest will be way tooo high. We really need to get the loan out of our name.

She has been spending the nights at her boyfriend's house for a year. Her bedroom is a holding room for her clothes and junk. She comes home early in the mornings to get ready for work and use MY computer. Originally she couldn't wait to move out of our house because her father and I were driving her "crazy." We refused to give her "privacy." She always complains that we are too involved in her business. (She has told us that because she was an only child we focused too much of our attention on her.) We tried to do as the experts said, stay in tune with her on-line use, require that she keep us posted on her whereabouts, etc, etc. So she moved out to live with a friend. I even went with her to buy things for the house. We had a great time. The set up did not last. She has never been clear on why. She came home one day crying her eyes out about how she missed us. Months later, when I kept asking her why she did not bring her mattress home she said the "real" reason she "moved" home was because her friend's father sold the house.

She says she loves us, but doesn't like us. She feels close enough to me to aske me questions about sex which makes me think there is hope for us. Is this stupid reasoning?

I do know that how she reacts to me is similar to the way I react to my father. I adore my dad but he can be so annoying when he wants to know about everything in my life. I find that I give very short answers or try to redirect the conversations. Hmmm, much like how it goes with my daughter. Except she will SCREAM and YELL at me and get very nasty sounding. I defintely don't do that to my dad. (Maybe because I'm quite a bit older?) I think I was able to escape many of the early teen years away from my folks becuase I was away at boarding school.

Arrrrgggh. So much more info I could share if needed. If this is just a typical "have to live life experiences" situation I could live with that. I know I was probably not the most responsible person financially when I was in my 20s. It is just that it took me 7 yrs to get everything fixed and now I am fanatical about my finances. I just wanted her to learn from my mistakes.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2006
Mon, 04-24-2006 - 10:51pm

Great Posts, thanks everyone.

I just hope that she has an epiphany (sp?) one day SOON. If not, I'm thinking intervention. ;)

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2003
Tue, 04-25-2006 - 11:29pm

From one diamond to another...lol....

I think sometimes we all expect a bit too much from our teens. She's EIGHTEEN ... just because the law says she could go into the army and vote and sign her own contracts doesn't mean she is actually a responsible adult. They don't suddenly acquire wisdom overnight. Who does? There are people who believe that one must live "many lives" before attaining full wisdom. She's got to make mistakes and screw up and live and learn like the rest of us did.

You say you screwed up your finances and are anxious for her not to do the same. But why did YOU screw up your finances? Did your parents somehow fail you in the area of financial planning and management? As much as we often expect too much from our kids I think we as parents also attach far too much blame to ourselves for our kids faults. She's screwing up her credit and guess what, she's gonna learn the consequences the hard way. I am 42 and I have probably the lousiest, lowest credit score out there. That's for alot of reasons but you know what? I'm okay. I'm not leading a horrible, terrible life due to a "lack of top credit rating". I have what I need, I pay my debts as best as possible and life goes on.

She's not going to become a shining model of adulthood overnight. If there are a dozen things that you have issues with then, work with her on correcting one at a time. Don't want to pay her car loan and she has no credit rating? Well then you have two choices ie either you continue to pay or your sell the car. If you sell the car, you have no more debt but then how does she get to and from work? And are you willing to become taxicab/chauffeur overnight? Maybe as a compromise you can get her to pick up the car insurance and maybe other expenses.

The main thing is you can't MAKE anyone do something they don't want to do. She's only going to "fix" what she thinks needs fixing. If you don't want to deal with all the issues then kick her out. But if you do, then you have to live with how you feel about that.

Your daughter is going to come into her own eventually. Give her time, relax, take one step at a time and watch her grow. She WILL eventually want her own place, she WILL want a better job, she WILL want to do something better with her life but its going to happen on her own clock. There's really no magic attached to the number 18 far as I know....some of us at 18 are ready to conquer the world, others still wanna be tied to mamma's apron strings...

Pages