My story is quite the same, although has a few parts different.

Parents should never, ever, take money from their child’s college fund if it is put there by someone else, then for the mother to refuse to pay the bills, that is pretty ridiculous.

Also, cme I believe said that the mother was hard working.. Perhaps she was, but she also spent lavishly it seems, and was not very interested in bettering her children.

Stories like this upset me, and honestly if you have not been through something like this, I understand if you are unable to comprehend the repercussions of a parents financial actions, or lack thereof.

There’s one thing that you neglected: big portion of the gift money you received (for your baptism, first communion) are from your mother’s friends at church. It’s exactly because of how your mother befriended with them that you had such opportunities. Your mother must have given their children similar amount of gifts (or even more) for their baptisms, first communions, etc. So don’t think you earned these gifts and nothing to do with your mother.

Besides that, your mother’s social activity must have also brought you many other non-financial benefits. So she didn’t just throw the money down the drain or just for her own enjoyment, you are one of the beneficiary.
BTW, didn’t your mother’s 50 friends give you gifts and their blessings for your wedding? Your mother spent her 401k, and you got to keep the gifts. So don’t complain about that.

I agree that your parents are responsible for their financial difficulties now. But as a child, please count all the love and care they show you throughout your life, and try your best to look after them at their old age.

My mother is a spender, she has never saved. And has excuse after excuse and blames it on whatever happens to be convenient.

When her husband retired over 25 years ago, he had to take a partial lump sum to pay off her credit card, something like $40,000. He could never get her to quit spending.
When he died, she was set up for a modest living. She sold the home and I do not know where $100,000 went.
She remarried and after her husband died, she has an annuity, a paid for home, and car and no debt. She lives a lavish and more lavish lifestyle. Parties, dinners, lunches… never ending spending. She will be broke before she dies. It is amazing what people think they need. Closets of cloths and shoes… some never worn. New this, new that. It never satisfies.
It is difficult to watch all the waste.

Now… Re: Do parents owe their kids a college education? I’ve gone back and forth on this issue. It’s a tough one, and no one has all the answers. My parents sure didn’t pay for mine – a combination of factors saw to that. But in the end, I do actually think it is the parent’s responsibility to help if they can at all afford to, because the federal financial aid system in the United States is set up to expect them to. It’s extremely difficult for anyone under 24 to get the financial aid they might need in the absence of parental support. Yes, joining the military is an option… actually, it’s one of the only options. (The other two options are to get a heterosexual marriage or have a baby… or to wait until you turn 24.) So I have little tolerance for parents who are both unhelpful and combative when it comes to financing a college education in this country.

I agree that kids should not expect parents to pay for their college education but parents should not take money given to the kids from someone else.

On the plus side, it sounds like you and your husband are determined not to let the same things happen in your life and marriage, which is great!

Its brave to share your personal story, so thank you.

A very wise woman said “once you have children, you give up the right to be selfish.” This seems very much a story of parents who are self-centered, and not a story about whether or not a parent should pay for college!

For contrast, my parents struggled their whole lives with money while raising 6 kids. One time during an especially long layoff, they simply could not come up with the $100 needed for the mortgage payment. They approached me, age 10, and asked if it would be ok if they cashed the savings bonds I received as a baby. I agreed. Over the following years, they bought me 3 or 4 savings bonds to try to make up for it, and I had to reassure them on numerous occasions that they didn’t need to feel guilty about it because I was happy to help.

The $1900 surprise tuition sounds like it was handled in the best way possible at the time, but I don’t think your wife should feel bad that this upset her, especially if she watched her mother buy many Christmas presents and host parties at the same time. It must be heartbreaking to see that your parents valued material things over fulfilling a commitment to their children. It was probably just another instance where something had been promised and not delivered. Whether the promise was “deserved” or not is immaterial.

For all the difficulty it caused her at the time, it sounds like a good example of learning by experience — finding out not only the value of good friends willing to help, but also strongly reinforcing the need to plan ahead for what you don’t expect, not just what you do expect. Sounds like you guys have learned those lessons well and are committed to living your lives on a different path.

To respond to Cat, no, the wife’s situation is not the same as growing up with parents addicted to crack. However, that doesn’t make her reaction to her life experience invalid. A child of crack addicts in America has a much better life than that of a crippled child in the poorest regions of India, or a refugee child living in a camp in Darfur. The wife didn’t wallow in pity, she worked hard to change her life for the better. The child of a crack addict has a different set of circumstances to overcome, but that doesn’t mean that they are the only ones to feel like other people’s actions that are out of their control have adversely affected their lives.

I know a very wealthy young man who walked into his mother’s bedroom because he was worried about her, and found her lying on the bed with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was wearing every single fur she owned and every single piece of jewelry, and nothing else. All the wealth in the world couldn’t give him a functional and healthy mother. Can we not have enough empathy for both the children of crack addicts and the guy who found his mother dead and nude except the furs and jewelry?

- It was a one-time $1900 that was unexpected by my wife and her mother. For some reason they didn’t understand that you have to pay every semester so this was a surprise bill. Mid-semester loans and scholarships were impossible to come by – she tried. There is some blame for my wife not knowing the billing policy, but all of this information was sent by my college to my mother. It could be a scenario where my wife would have never seen it, if her mother didn’t share it.

- Upon borrowing the money from the family friend, she did work two jobs in that summer until the friend was paid off. Her work during school supported herself during school.

- The rest of the years, with better planning, they had more loans, financial aid, etc. This financial aid, eventually led to her joining the military. (Louis ND, she’s not much different from your sister).

- While Cat mentioned, “her parents weren’t crack addicts”, one should know that all things are relative. I think the environment that she grew up in should be considered. If you grew up with all the riches in the world and then had to get by on a $25/hour wage, it would be quite tough for that person. My wife’s environment was one where everyone around her was given cars, given college, etc. They never had to think about how a speeding ticket meant eating Ramen that week.

- The $1900 underscores the important message she was trying to convey. It’s my fault, but I seem to have edited a lot of that message out when I changed the title from her “A history of growing up with no emergency fund and financially irresponsible parents” to my “Poor Money Choices Ruined My Parents’ Life.” An emergency fund would have made this situation much better. We’ve continued to add to our emergency fund for just situation. It might even be too large.

- Lastly, there is the fact that the mother essentially stole money from her which would have solved this problem and didn’t repay it.