Need Advice - Daughters first boyfriend visiting

[BlueEyedLady]

I think it wouldn’t be inappropriate to ask if there was an engagement, but there isn’t.

“How are you planning to keep my daughter in the manner to which she has become accustomed?” is pretty traditional.

I think that’s totally inappropriate. It reflects poorly on the parents, will insult the potential son-in-law,and will probably humiliate the daughter. If the daughter is still financially dependent on her parents, it would be alright to ask the couple together how the heck they plan on making it, but that’s a lot different. For starters, if they’re both architecture students, it’s pretty obvious how he plans on making a living. And, since they’re both architecture students, it’s probably not reasonable to put all of the early earning responsibility on him, especially if one or both of them have student loans or want to buy a house. As for the “manner to which she has become accustomed”, the kid could be the most brilliant young architect in the northern hemisphere and still not out-earn a middle income, middle-aged man at the start of his career. And ultimately, it’s just none of their business and if they raised their daughter right, by the time she’s engaged, she won’t care what her parents think of her intended’s earning potential.

And the earlier suggestion someone else had to ask about how he pays for school is even worse. He’s going to see right through that, and if he comes from a poor background, he’s going to be hurt, embarrassed, and defensive no matter what the answer is (Trust me, I know, I got the question a lot when I was younger). It’s a rude question and should never be asked by anyone for any reason.

 

[Bspencer]

when i am in a jam, i always rely on one of my favorite movies to help guide my actions - Airplane
so here are a few of the questions that i would ask him

1. you ever been in a Turkish prison?
2. you ever go to the gym and just kind of hang around?
3. you ever wonder why dogs smell themselves the way that they do?

guarantee this will be followed by an evening of enjoyment and personal fulfillment.

 

[dixieagle]

I think it wouldn’t be inappropriate to ask if there was an engagement, but there isn’t.

“How are you planning to keep my daughter in the manner to which she has become accustomed?” is pretty traditional.

As she doesn’t yet even refer to him as “the boyfriend”, I think that asking anything hinting at future financial plans is very premature.

 

[dixieagle]

I think that’s totally inappropriate. It reflects poorly on the parents, will insult the potential son-in-law,and will probably humiliate the daughter. If the daughter is still financially dependent on her parents, it would be alright to ask the couple together how the heck they plan on making it, but that’s a lot different. For starters, if they’re both architecture students, it’s pretty obvious how he plans on making a living. And, since they’re both architecture students, it’s probably not reasonable to put all of the early earning responsibility on him, especially if one or both of them have student loans or want to buy a house. As for the “manner to which she has become accustomed”, the kid could be the most brilliant young architect in the northern hemisphere and still not out-earn a middle income, middle-aged man at the start of his career. And ultimately, it’s just none of their business and if they raised their daughter right, by the time she’s engaged, she won’t care what her parents think of her intended’s earning potential.

And the earlier suggestion someone else had to ask about how he pays for school is even worse. He’s going to see right through that, and if he comes from a poor background, he’s going to be hurt, embarrassed, and defensive no matter what the answer is (Trust me, I know, I got the question a lot when I was younger). It’s a rude question and should never be asked by anyone for any reason.

Agree completely.

 

[Xantippe]

I think that’s totally inappropriate. It reflects poorly on the parents, will insult the potential son-in-law,and will probably humiliate the daughter. If the daughter is still financially dependent on her parents, it would be alright to ask the couple together how the heck they plan on making it, but that’s a lot different. For starters, if they’re both architecture students, it’s pretty obvious how he plans on making a living. And, since they’re both architecture students, it’s probably not reasonable to put all of the early earning responsibility on him, especially if one or both of them have student loans or want to buy a house. As for the “manner to which she has become accustomed”, the kid could be the most brilliant young architect in the northern hemisphere and still not out-earn a middle income, middle-aged man at the start of his career. And ultimately, it’s just none of their business and if they raised their daughter right, by the time she’s engaged, she won’t care what her parents think of her intended’s earning potential.

And the earlier suggestion someone else had to ask about how he pays for school is even worse. He’s going to see right through that, and if he comes from a poor background, he’s going to be hurt, embarrassed, and defensive no matter what the answer is (Trust me, I know, I got the question a lot when I was younger). It’s a rude question and should never be asked by anyone for any reason.

I was kind of kidding about the phrasing, but “How will you and Suzie support a family?” is a reasonable question once there is an engagement on the table, especially under circumstances where children might be reasonably expected very soon (as happens to be the case on CAF).

The phrasing you objected to came from a sad story I heard from an older woman. She and her husband were pleased when their daughter’s boyfriend asked for her hand in marriage–so sweet! so proper! so old fashioned! However, as a husband, he failed pretty miserably in providing for his family. As my older friend said she realized later, she and her husband should have responded to his uber traditional proposal with an equally traditional question about how he intended to support their daughter…

That story aside, it’s worth asking young people who are planning to get married what their plans are. Not just out of suspicion or idle curiosity, but because the young people themselves (being young) may not have thought things through. For instance, in the OP’s example, it may be that there are plans for graduate school that would not mesh well with parenthood or that the graduate program is in a high cost of living area or the graduate program doesn’t offer affordable health insurance for dependents. Etc, etc There are some awfully sad stories in the news about student loans and a lot of times people don’t understand what the numbers mean until they are out of school and are trying to pay them off.

My husband and I got a lot of heat from one set of parents when we announced an engagement in graduate school. They went about it TERRIBLY (there was a lot of criticism of the incoming in-law and one of the parents was flat out refusing to attend our wedding), but now that I’m getting closer to the age they were then, I have a lot more sympathy for their worries at the time. They had married while she was pretty young, had a baby in grad school (no doubt very unexpectedly) and then spent years painfully progressing through their programs with a lot of help from family, so they naturally flipped out when they heard that their kid was getting married very early in a graduate program.

But, there’s no engagement right now, so no sweat!

Well-informed parents can be very helpful later with regard to navigating the complicated boring issues of adult life (debt! medical insurance! cost-of-living!) that will inevitably pop up later.