Carolyn Hax: "Our daughter came out as a lesbian...my husband's parents are very upset."

[movingfinger]

Q: How to help our daughter

Dear Carolyn, Our 30-year-old daughter came out as a lesbian in December. For my husband and me, the coming out was really just a formality; we've always known. But my husband's 80+ yo parents are shocked and very upset. They paid our daughter's (in-state) college tuition and have helped her with a few other financial difficulties along the way, and they have announced that if she is going to "live as a homosexual" (as opposed to either living celibate or dating men against her will), then she could consider their money on loan and they expect to be paid back. Our daughter is furious and on principle wants to repay them as they've asked, and then have nothing else to do with them. Doing so would create major financial hardship for her, and we believe it would be wrong of them to let her. We could repay them on her behalf, but would that be caving to tyranny? How do we handle this?


A: Carolyn Hax

1. You don't handle this, your daughter does.

2. Why doesn't she pay them in installments? Monthly, by check, mailed, no further comment?

Not just to lessen the financial hardship, but also to give these grandparents a regular reminder of who's choosing to be honorable in this scenario as they deposit their granddaughter's checks.

They may not even be able to see that, but that's all the more reason for your daughter to buy her emotional freedom from them.

Comments

[lunabee34]

This is something I worry about all the time. Not the financial aspect of it but the my parents being shits to my gay child part of it. I suppose they could surprise me, but they haven't done so in the last 40 years at any point, and I"m sure they are going to be extremely nasty to my kid if/when she decides to come out to them. We 100% have our kid's back, and we choose her in every single way there is possible to choose, but it will undeniably be a pain in the ass for her and us to deal with.

[movingfinger]

Dear Daughter:

0. The money was given as a gift and without contingencies. You owe them nothing. Before you do anything, contemplate this. They do not have a right to reclaim that money or to use it to control who you are or what you do. Not everyone can pull this off, but if you are angry enough about their shittiness, you probably can.

1. If you want to repay them, do not hurt yourself to do so. Send them what you can afford, and do not rob yourself. You have no contract. An amount like $50 is better, if you can afford that, because that's hard for them to ignore and not deposit. If you can't afford $20, $10 is fine. Formal student loans can take decades to repay.

2. I want you to comb the internet and the Sunday supplement offers and find the gayest, most rainbow-soaked, equal-rights-affirming checks you can, and keep a box of them purely for this purpose. Unicorns. Kittens in gay rights hats. Chuck Tingle cover art. Go for it!

3. There's a memo line on those checks. Leave it blank at first. You might express yourself there if they escalate the pissiness.

4. Don't communicate via your parents and don't accept communication routed that way. Make sure your parents understand: this is not about them. This is between you and the bigoted grandparents.

Finally, Mom: Did you actually say "we've always known" about your daughter's sexuality, to third parties? That was bizarre and none of your business, honestly. Stop. Stop talking about your grown daughter's sex life to the rest of the family. It's her life, not yours. Stop. Hush. Not your story.

[xenacryst]

I didn't read that as the parents going around telling random people that they've always known their daughter was a lesbian, just that the coming out was no surprise to them (and setting the context for the letter, that is, they're fine with their daughter's sexuality).

[movingfinger]

I hope that's true, but the way LW's letter is phrased, they might well have said that to try to mollify the grandparents. The grandparents seem to be taking it as an intentional deception.

I have known parents to say such things, well-meaning but maybe not as helpful as they imagine.

[cereta]

Same here. It's not an uncommon thing to hear from parents, that they at least had a sense before their child revealed something.

[dorinda]

Sexuality does not equal sex life.

[ayebydan]

this

[grrlpup]

Honestly I think this is brilliant. The checks should be modest; have an evocative memo line that I haven't come up with yet; and include a note with a running tally of how many months this has been going on, total amount paid, and preferred contact info in case of questions or discussion.

Then it's up to the grandparents.

[movingfinger]

Oh, yes, I like this, include a printed coupon just like the olde days. "This is payment 5 of 600."

[angelofthenorth]

How about another way around this - LW gives daughter some of the money, to help out, and to acknowledge the nastiness of the situation, but the cheques are mailed by instalments by the daughter as suggested.

[xenacryst]

So ... on the one hand, I appreciate the needling jab that repaying, especially on the gayest of gay checks would provide. But on the other, I read "Our daughter is furious ..." and I know that for myself, at least, the simple act of writing out the check and sticking it in an envelope would fire up my emotions so strongly on a monthly basis that that alone would send me into therapy. There's no amount of self righteous needling that I feel like I should inflict that would make that worth it, and I'd probably advise a concise letter, a single token payment of anything greater that 1 cent, and then no contact, at least for me, for my own sanity.

[cimorene]

Given that it was a gift in the first place, that kind of move after the fact is so supremely shitty that it doesn't even deserve response, let alone compliance. They definitely will not comprehend it as showing her greater dignity and honor, but rather feel satisfied that their anger has been heard and understood; it's tacit acceptance of the validity of their argument that (a) queer people are less than human and (b) it is reasonable and correct that familial love be conditional and retracted from the undeserving.

But some people can't feel secure or happy if they feel beholden to anyone, and the sense that the support was no longer freely given might cause them too much psychological distress to ignore the demand (or respond with the equivalent of 'Fuck that'). So I understand how some might view it as a victory of sorts.

[ayebydan]

Indeed. Daughter has no reason to offer 10 cents or equivalent to her trash grand parents.

[rosefox]

My stepfather's mother paid for me to go to college for three years. A couple of years after I dropped out, my mother and stepfather divorced. I stopped talking to him, and his side of the family and I sort of mutually cut one another off as a result. It never crossed anyone's mind that I should repay the tuition—divorce means that you were family but you're not anymore, and no longer being family now doesn't mean that you weren't family then.

The LW's daughter was family until her grandparents divorced her. They don't now get to claim to have been retroactively not family. The daughter has no obligation to repay them.

[ashbet]

I absolutely think she should not repay money given as a gift, especially to "compensate" bigotry.

If she really thinks she must, send $5 a month on super-gay checks. But putting herself in ANY financial hardship (and, honestly, dealing with the monthly seething while writing the check) is FAR more than these shitty grandparents deserve.

:/

[lavendertook]

The daughter doesn't need the burden of having to repay them when starting out her adult life with their disapproval in tow. Yes, she is in charge of the handling, but the LW's support and good encouragement is a good handling to offer. As the grandparents are not going to be shamed or learn anything by their granddaughter or LW paying it back, the thing to tell them is "no, neither of us will accept such financial control. You don't get to control a gift once given."

The LW will need to prepare herself for their lashing out at her now, if she serves as buffer between them and her daughter, and to keep shields up and don't accept abuse from them. And LW needs to tell the daughter to go live her life free of their toxicity or any financial obligations. I wish strength to the LW, and her daughter is lucky to have her.

[lunabee34]

If they want the money so bad, they can take her to court (this will almost certainly not happen) where they will have no case for obtaining it. I wouldn't give them a penny.

[monanotlisa]

This.

You cannot take gifts back on legal grounds, although I assume that this country, too, has some exceptions for extreme cases (this, of course, is not a case of unbearable ingratitude).

[lunabee34]

Good to have my suspicion confirmed.

[lemonsharks]

I would advise the daughter to make one significant donation to a gay charity in her grandparents' name, with a single word in the memo section:

"No."

And move in to have the joyful, queer life she deserves.

[feldman]

Seconded.

[minoanmiss]

Niiice.

[kshandra]

*applauds*

[monanotlisa]

Perfect!

[jadelennox]

Yeah, that was exactly my thought. The grandparents can go fuck right off.

[melannen]

I really like the response that they don't handle it, the daughter does. (If the daughter was writing the letter, I might have a different response.) But to the parents, my advice is: Make it very clear to both the grandparents and the daughter that you are taking the daughter's side, unconditionally, no matter what she decides, and if she decides to cut them off, that might mean you will also be cutting them off; that you don't agree with anything the grandparents are doing, including asking for the money back; and make sure the daughter knows that if she needs financial help going forward, you are there for her instead (as much as you can be.)

By no means pay it back on her behalf. (If she decides to pay it back and needs help from you in the future as a result, well, that's different. And not anything the grandparents need to ever know about.)

[dragoness_e]

Second this. Retroactively conditional gifts? That's completely shitty and uncalled for on the grandparent's part. They approved of their granddaughter just fine when they gave her the money for college. They don't get to retcon the past and suddenly decide the gift was a loan.

They're trying to use the gift retroactively as financial pressure to make the girl behave as they see fit, which is really shitty. Of course, if she wanted to be an ass back, she could say "Sure, I'll stay celibate until you drop dead, then I'll bring my girlfriend to your funeral."

[lilysea]

The daughter has zero legal or ethical obligation to repay the gift from the grandparents.

I like the idea of her donating in their name to The Trevor Project: the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25.

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

[ayebydan]

Don't give them a cent, or any other thought.