Unsupportive Father

[patmappas]

So I was wondering what your opinion on my situation is. So today I had enough, my car tags have been expired for almost a year and the MVA is threatening to suspend my drivers license. As I was driving through the EZ Pass today I didnt have cash so they told me that the bill will be sent in the mail. This gave me an unbelievable amount of stress cause being 18 and risking my license being taken away is a serious problem. So I went downstairs in my basement where my dad is usually hiding and asked if he could pay for my tags. Mind you that I’ve paid about $3000 and sum number into gas and oil into my car and my father only a fraction. He told me that I’m going to have to pay for the majority of it and I lost it. I lost it because he denies the fact that parents have an obligation to their child to support them materially as stated in the catechism. I dont even think you need a catechism to know that. Its not just me who he doesnt support financially but my whole family. I’m currently working two jobs which I received in the last month plus going to college, well today I lost one of the jobs because I couldnt keep up and had to do college work today. It just drives me nuts because he said he wouldnt dish out $130 for tags because he already gave me a bunch of money for my car which was only $500 which Im thankful but he was saying he did his job as a parent. And the fact that he has a nuclear medicine degree and an engineering degree and didnt want to work drives me crazy too. He would have been making $80 per hour but decided to make my mother and brothers bear the financial cross. Also the fact that the house I live is infested with bed bugs and when I wake in the morning have a necklace of bites all connecting around my neck drives me mad. I’m starving half the time. My mom doesnt have a car to drive around in an she brings in all the money. Am I wrong for confronting him? I did do some things wrong like cuss and punched the printer since I became so angry that I renounce as wrong but seeing him hard hearted cold and calculating enraged me. Any insight?

 

[EasterJoy]

If you are 18, your parents don’t have an obligation to support you materially any more. Most parents on Planet Earth do not supply their children with automobiles, nor do they pay their fines.

If your mom wants to confront her husband about how they are each contributing to their household, that is up to her. It is for her to decide if he is holding up his end of their marriage, not yours. It is also up to her to decide that he has legitimate reasons that he is not holding a job you might imagine he ought to have. Those reasons are not your business, not any more than the reason you are unemployed would be any of their business if you were out supporting yourself. This is the respect that adults give to each other.

If you are living in your parents’ house after the age of 18 (or even at a younger age, if the family situation warrants it), it is not unreasonable for them to insist that you contribute to the material support of the household, either. It is not your business to decide someone else ought to be contributing more. If you don’t like the arrangement, you’re free to go out and support yourself alone and make your own rules. Until then, correcting your father is not within your jurisdiction.

 

[CradleJourney]

Any insight?

Yes - the Serenity Prayer

Step one - accept the things you cannot change. You cannot change him. You cannot change your mother. You cannot change what he decides. You do not know what the world looks like from his position - just as he does not know what it looks like from yours. He is/does/says what he is/does/says.

Step two - courage to change the things you can. You have 100% the ability and power to make the choices of what you do, where you do it, who you do it with, and how/when you do it. Talking to him was a choice. It might have worked. It didn’t. Time to move onto your next options about what to do. What would be the best course of action for you to take? What are your options? You mention you’re a student - I’d go get some advice from the counseling office at your school. Or seek the advice of another adult outside your immediate family who better knows your situation and the resources available in your area.

Step three - wisdom to know the difference. It’s perfectly okay to feel what you feel. Emotions just are. But it’s not wise to make decisions or let ourselves get stuck in focusing on how things “should” be or how it is for other people. So get information - lay out all your options, get some guidance and choose what’s best for you (not them).

 

[patmappas]

If you are 18, your parents don’t have an obligation to support you materially any more. Most parents on Planet Earth do not supply their children with automobiles, nor do they pay their fines.

If your mom wants to confront her husband about how they are each contributing to their household, that is up to her. It is for her to decide if he is holding up his end of their marriage, not yours. It is also up to her to decide that he has legitimate reasons that he is not holding a job you might imagine he ought to have. Those reasons are not your business, not any more than the reason you are unemployed would be any of their business if you were out supporting yourself. This is the respect that adults give to each other.

If you are living in your parents’ house after the age of 18 (or even at a younger age, if the family situation warrants it), it is not unreasonable for them to insist that you contribute to the material support of the household, either. It is not your business to decide someone else ought to be contributing more. If you don’t like the arrangement, you’re free to go out and support yourself alone and make your own rules. Until then, correcting your father is not within your jurisdiction.

Ohh ok I see, I dont have the authority to correct my parents duh. Ok so I have another question, is there an exception if I use The Lord’s Law to correct him? Thats the assumption I was basing my actions off of. Cause the authority ultimately doesn’t come from me but from God. For example the fine was given from an expired easy pass that he gave me and said was ok to use. I got in the mail one day a $6.00 fine and asked if he could take care of it. I handed him the $6.00 bill, months later I received an email for suspension of my license and was surprised. Now the bill is $50.00 and told me to pay for it. Is this not against the virtue of justice? Another example back to the work situation. My dad hasn’t worked for 20 years and he sits around and hangs out all day. I dont think there’s a legitimate reason for not working. I remember one day I asked him why he didn’t work, as an adult, and he said “I’m not willing to work and take orders from someone like your mom over there. Im going to enjoy my life!” True masculinity comes from self sacrificing that Christ demonstrated which I mentioned to him. Self sacrificing is also a demonstration of love which I mentioned to him too.

 

[patmappas]

Yes - the Serenity Prayer

Step one - accept the things you cannot change. You cannot change him. You cannot change your mother. You cannot change what he decides. You do not know what the world looks like from his position - just as he does not know what it looks like from yours. He is/does/says what he is/does/says.

Step two - courage to change the things you can. You have 100% the ability and power to make the choices of what you do, where you do it, who you do it with, and how/when you do it. Talking to him was a choice. It might have worked. It didn’t. Time to move onto your next options about what to do. What would be the best course of action for you to take? What are your options? You mention you’re a student - I’d go get some advice from the counseling office at your school. Or seek the advice of another adult outside your immediate family who better knows your situation and the resources available in your area.

Step three - wisdom to know the difference. It’s perfectly okay to feel what you feel. Emotions just are. But it’s not wise to make decisions or let ourselves get stuck in focusing on how things “should” be or how it is for other people. So get information - lay out all your options, get some guidance and choose what’s best for you (not them).

Ok thank you, its just hard being all by myself. I’ll pray to The Lord and see what he can help me with. That’s really great advice at the end not to focus on how things “should” be. Thanks

 

[Anglewannabe]

Ohh ok I see, I dont have the authority to correct my parents duh. Ok so I have another question, is there an exception if I use The Lord’s Law to correct him?

The commandment is to honour your parents, not correct them.

You are going to like what I say but it sounds like your dad’s attitude is rubbing off onto you. When I was 18, I wasn’t even allowed to buy a car with my own money as long as I was living under my parents roof. I am shocked you expect your dad to pay for yours. Is there not a bus system in your town?

Seriously, I can not believe someone would expect a father (who is not working so probably has no imcome) to pay for their car.

 

[patmappas]

The commandment is to honour your parents, not correct them.

You are going to like what I say but it sounds like your dad’s attitude is rubbing off onto you. When I was 18, I wasn’t even allowed to buy a car with my own money as long as I was living under my parents roof. I am shocked you expect your dad to pay for yours. Is there not a bus system in your town?

Seriously, I can not believe someone would expect a father (who is not working so probably has no imcome) to pay for their car.

Ok I’ll make sure I’ll pray to God and pray my rosary to make sure that attitude goes away. I think you’re right too and I should pay for it myself. Thats why I needed others (name removed by moderator)uts so I can form the right ideas haha

 

[Viki63]

I’m sorry you lost your job, I hope the other one is better,
Congratulations on working and going to college. You sound highly motivated, and you are also open to being corrected, which is admirable.

It’s a shame your father is not setting a better example for you, but perhaps you could look to your mother for guidance more, Or your pastor.
Hopefully you can get the auto expenses taken care of with your next paycheck.
Praying that things will work out for you,

.

 

[Herculees]

So I was wondering what your opinion on my situation is. So today I had enough, my car tags have been expired for almost a year and the MVA is threatening to suspend my drivers license. As I was driving through the EZ Pass today I didnt have cash so they told me that the bill will be sent in the mail. This gave me an unbelievable amount of stress cause being 18 and risking my license being taken away is a serious problem. So I went downstairs in my basement where my dad is usually hiding and asked if he could pay for my tags. Mind you that I’ve paid about $3000 and sum number into gas and oil into my car and my father only a fraction. He told me that I’m going to have to pay for the majority of it and I lost it. I lost it because he denies the fact that parents have an obligation to their child to support them materially as stated in the catechism. I dont even think you need a catechism to know that. Its not just me who he doesnt support financially but my whole family. I’m currently working two jobs which I received in the last month plus going to college, well today I lost one of the jobs because I couldnt keep up and had to do college work today. It just drives me nuts because he said he wouldnt dish out $130 for tags because he already gave me a bunch of money for my car which was only $500 which Im thankful but he was saying he did his job as a parent. And the fact that he has a nuclear medicine degree and an engineering degree and didnt want to work drives me crazy too. He would have been making $80 per hour but decided to make my mother and brothers bear the financial cross. Also the fact that the house I live is infested with bed bugs and when I wake in the morning have a necklace of bites all connecting around my neck drives me mad. I’m starving half the time. My mom doesnt have a car to drive around in an she brings in all the money. Am I wrong for confronting him? I did do some things wrong like cuss and punched the printer since I became so angry that I renounce as wrong but seeing him hard hearted cold and calculating enraged me. Any insight?

It is NOT his responsibility to support you! It is a parents responsibility to provide for their MINOR children. You are 18 and therefore no longer a minor. No-one in my family had a car at 18. None of us (my parents had eight of us) bought a car until we could afford to pay for it ourselves. Give up your car and take public transportation, if the school you go to is not near public transportation transfer to a school that is near public transportation.

 

[Elena321]

Maybe you could quietly model to your dad the right responsible behaviour by contributing greatly to the household expenses and bills etc?
Showing him in actions this masculinity might go further with him than verbally “lecturing” (in his perception) him about masculinity.

To be completely honest,I think you should pay for your car stuff yourself and it isn’t owed to you by your parents.
If your dad has displayed a pattern of being unreliable in regards to taking care of bills etc than it would be reasonable/wise not to ask him to pay any bills for you.

It’s ok and natural for you to feel upset or a bit angry at your father if he doesn’t want to work and it’s not from Depression or another medical illness but it’s important not to act on this anger and instead pray for him.

 

[Crusaderbear]

You have some very good advice here, take it to heart. Maybe take a year off from school and work to make some money? Praying for hou.

 

[1ke]

It is unfortunate your father gave you a toll pass to use telling you it was a valid toll pass when in fact it had expired. If your father has in the past acted irresponsibly, I would say that you should have double checked the pass with the toll company or your mother before using it. If your father has never given you reason to doubt him in the past, then I can understand why you would use the toll pass. Remember, toll companies generally have rules about handing a toll pass around-- it isn’t approved in most cases. You have to have your own for your car, not one someone has given you.

It is also unfortunate that when you asked your dad to pay the $6 he did not do so. This is a lesson for you: ultimately you are responsible for you. It was your car and you should have paid the $6. You could have asked him to give you $6 but it should have been you to actually see the bill off to the toll agency, personally.

If you want something done, you need to ensure it is done.

Your father doesn’t sound like he has a track record of responsible behavior. You have entrusted a small thing to him, and he did not follow through. This should be your sign not to entrust things to him in the future.

It is a tough lesson, and more expensive now that you’ve accrued additional fines and a revocation of your license. You will have to work to fix those things yourself, and you are wiser now not to accept things from your father at face value.

 

[Irishmom2]

I am a little turned off by your negative attitude toward your father, yet you stand there with your hand out looking for money. You had 2 jobs, you could have paid the ez pass yourself. If your license is now suspended because you let the tags go, you shouldn’t be on the road driving, by the way.

As others have said, you are 18. You should be working toward getting out on your own. This site is filled with stories of people that had nonsupportive parents, or abusive parents who went on to forge their own independent lives because they had no other choice. They had to live on their own, support themselves and pay for their own car and college. It can be done, yes, with great difficulty. But it can be done if you really want it.

If you find things so intolerable, I suggest you move out. Work full time for a while. Pay your own way. Take out some loans and go to college part time.

What you have no right to do, is question why your father doesn’t work. You don’t actually have a right to know that. You do not have a right to be supported once you are no longer a minor. Do many parents continue to do do? Yes, but your parents have no obligation to do so. You are coming across as someone that feel entitled, and that is never a good way to be.

You might try and show some compassion towards your parents. Obviously, something is not right. Something happened to your father somewhere along the way that keeps him from desiring or being able to work. For whatever reason, your mother has gone to work, and whether she has accepted this as being how their life is, is none of your business quite frankly. What she has or has not said to your dad over the years is not your concern.

Help yourself, and look for ways to help your parents if you want, but stop expecting to be taken care of and carried anymore.

 

[AdamP88]

If it’s your car then you have the obligation to pay. You’re not a child anymore so you have a responsibility to pay your own way.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I think you should try to hold yourself to higher standards and accept that you cannot change your parents. Is there any way you could move out as sometimes distance from your parents can improve the relationship.

 

[SuperHappy]

I feel you need to take a long hard look at the things you are complaining about. These are minor complaints of things that are not your father’s responsibility. You are 18, that is old enough for you to take responsibility for yourself and your own expenses.

Why do you think your parents owe you anything? Are you also following the Bible when it comes to them? Your words are very sharp and don’t exactly follow the commandment to honor your mother and your father.

I think you should prayerfully ask God for His will on your life and if your situation with your parents is truly bad, ask Him to move things in your favor for moving out.

Prayer going up.

 

[Allegra]

I can understand your frustration that you are working so hard and not getting much support, but really, you’re father isn’t obligated to pay for your car. They are providing you a home, which is a pretty big expense taken care of. Working yourself through college is challenging, but I have bad news. It’s probably not going to get any easier. A lot of “adulating” consists of robbing Peter to pay Paul and struggling to keep a balanced life while fulfilling several different responsibilities. When college is over, you’ll be better off for having learned these skills early in life.

 

[AdamP88]

I can understand your frustration that you are working so hard and not getting much support, but really, you’re father isn’t obligated to pay for your car. They are providing you a home, which is a pretty big expense taken care of. **Working yourself through college is challenging, **but I have bad news. It’s probably not going to get any easier. A lot of “adulating” consists of robbing Peter to pay Paul and struggling to keep a balanced life while fulfilling several different responsibilities. When college is over, you’ll be better off for having learned these skills early in life.

Yes, it is. But it’s the norm now. If I had adult children, I would totally expect them to pay for all their own things and contribute a bit to the household too.
If you can’t afford to keep the car, then get rid of it. You have to live within your means.