At the heart of the story posted by u/thr0wawayRR on r/AmItheA–hole is the question, “When does parenting end?” because he seems to think it ended as soon as his kid became a legal adult. That’s when he switched to being a landlord.
The title of his post is, “AITA for telling my daughter that she needs to get a real job or move out?”
For context, his daughter started living on her own at 19, but now at 24 she is back home a few months ago. She’s currently studying at a university nearby and working on her thesis and working as an assistant.
Unfortunately, she is only paid at the end of each semester, which has become a problem for this dad:
But the fact that she’s not receiving a monthly income means that she’s not able to pay me rent in due time. I get that she’s still studying, and that she’s my daughter, but I can’t have a grown adult woman stay in my house rent-free.
So the other day I brought up the topic, and she said that she’s trying her best, but that she’s overwhelmed as is, juggling her assistant work and her studies. I was sort of annoyed at this, and told her that her assistant work isn’t a real job, that her hours is lenient and that she needs to get a real job to cover her monthly rent or that she has to move out.
She started crying, and said that it is a real job, and that the lump sum will be just enough to cover her rent and her student loan debt. But I’m still not eager to sit and wait for her on her rent.
This girl’s mom overheard the convo and is pretty pissed at dad, though I don’t see how she could be surprised when this is the man she married.
His wife reminded him that his daughter is working A LOT, actually, and is often up until early in the morning working on school stuff and her thesis is due in a month:
My wife said “It’s not like she’s loafing or wasting her time doing nothing or playing video games.” My wife also told me that my daughters assistant work is a real job, and that she often works extra hours.
Sometimes she’ll get called in for nonsensical reasons. But that she never heard my daughter complain about it… but that her exhaustion is quite obvious. Well, apparently it’s not THAT obvious. If it was, why didn’t I pick up on it?
But my wife is ignoring me now, and I’m starting to wonder… AITA here?
Lol. Yes. Yes, you are. As a lot of people told him, he probably didn’t pick up on his daughter’s exhaustion because he’s an insensitive a–hole.
Plus, even if you do insist on making your kid in college pay rent in the same place you house them for free very recently, you can at the very least make some payment plan adjustments to fit their schedule!
People really took dad to task:
So, does parenting end when your kids are in college, even if they’re still living at home? If so, she should call 311, because her landlord is illegally evicting her.