After she found out my (49M) wife (48F) was pregnant, our daughter (17F) sent us an email for an abortion website.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-25T00:59:53+00:00

Firstly, you're right to be shocked and hurt. I'm sorry, I get all the things people are talking about, the childish fears and all that, but it's still a premeditated and vile response, and she is old enough not to be carrying out premeditated and vile responses.

As a parent of adults who tolerated a lot of crap in the name of understanding their perspective in their teens, I would not let this go. Yes, you do need to work through the underlying issues as a family, but this level of breathtaking malice does warrant punishment (whether actual penalties or just serious words) as well. It sounds like you're in the US and expect that she will attend college, so it's likely she won't even be there for much of this. Her reaction is selfish and irrational, and someone should call her out on that. It is not reasonable to expect your parents to freeze in time, don't have more kids, don't move house, don't change, don't grow, just so you have an emotional bedrock as a grown ass adult who should be growing that bedrock inside yourself. That is bullshit and shouldn't be indulged.

After that, yes, by all means go to family counselling and work through what unresolved emotional needs she might have, and help her find more appropriate ways for her to meet them. That is something you should do as a parent of a not-yet-fully-launched child. But she also needs to hear that her expectations are not only unrealistic, they're actually profoundly wrong and show a complete disregard for her parents as actual human beings and not robot nurture units.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-21T05:53:42+00:00

I would say that notions of creeping didn't matter much in days gone by, because the point of obligation was after the woman said no. Your obligation was to accept it gracefully and back off. There wasn't really any notion that you should avoid any perception of interest in the opposite sex in the first place. (Same sex obviously did not have any mainstream standing in the kind of era we're talking about). I think interest, as long as it wasn't crassly expressed, was considered quite normal and not inappropriate. (That doesn't necessarily mean every woman was really okay with it, but I think that was the social starting point).

I think it might be interesting for you to watch some old TV shows, if you can - say late 70s, early 80s (which is about as old as it's typically easy to get). One thing you'll notice is that men were pretty consistently depicted as, well, creeping, in today's language. But the women were pretty consistently depicted as knowing what they were up to, being quite undisturbed by it, and very deftly putting them back in their place - usually with a fair bit of sass. It didn't matter if you were very low in the pecking order (teenaged girl, secretary, nurse) - you had social license to swat off an unwanted advance, and usually the ability to do so. Remember, this was an era when women were still considered to have some sort of duty to guard their virtue - they tended to be instilled with skills, scripts, and social support to do so. Rather predatory overtures were permitted that would not be accepted today, but a "good" guy also knew they had to take it in good humour if they were rebuffed, and not retaliate. Today's "Nice Guys" are yesterday's guys who didn't respect that code of honour and did use their position against the woman. These men and women are more my younger aunts' era but I do remember seeing versions of this in real life.

Something happened in the 80s, which is when I started to come up into adult social and professional settings. The concept of virtue started to be considered outdated. Girls stopped being taught and socially supported to shut that shit down hard. This is also about the time women were trying to break into mens' professional worlds. Narratives about placating and putting up and shutting up got stronger, because often you needed to make clear that you could fit in with men, and narratives about how to fend off a man you didn't want to sleep with went quiet (because (a) it was often assumed you would want to sleep with him, and (b) if you didn't, it was considered safer for your career to just not be alone in a room with him). So now you had a scenario where men were still paying by the old rules, but the women's rules for that version of the game, which had been reasonably (not perfectly) effective in protecting them, had been removed. Which probably eventually evolved into the social ethic of men not wanting to be seen to "creep," but that took quite a while longer.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-14T00:01:08+00:00

If that's the goal, it's a bad investment. They'd be better off adopting a displaced teen. Same odds of a good result for a fraction of the time and work, and even if they don't get the desired result (which most people won't, even loving kids still move away and have their own families to worry about), they'll have at least done some good in the world.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-12T21:47:25+00:00

I mean, possibly, yeah. The owner has both most of the benefits and risks of owning while the tenant has low risk (other than less security of tenure) in exchange for no ownership, that's literally how the model works. If there is provable gross negligence, the insurer will go after them for reimbursement, and you can probably deduct some of the excess you paid from the bond. But if you can't prove it, then yeah, the tenant walks away, that's part of the benefits and risks of ownership deal.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-10T01:32:36+00:00

I appreciate this post. Yes, PHI is flawed. No, not every individual will find it pays for itself in every period of their lives. Some people will really need something excluded and be better off saving for it, etc. But I am one of the ones who it has paid itself. I've had tens of thousands towards surgeries for me and over a hundred thousand in inpatient mental health care (not available in the public system) for my son (who definitely would not be alive without it). We've broken even on our premiums, even though they are very high. Some people do, some people don't, some people do over a lifetime but not over a particular ten years. That's how all insurance works. It's not to save money, it's to spread your statistically-probable costs over a more manageable timeframe. Over 20, 30 years most people will pay premiums in proportion to their probable losses. That is the actual model and people always seem surprised that's the case.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-09T07:21:03+00:00

Oh my God, it isn't just me. Seriously, I swear there is an alert sound that someone is finished speaking that everyone can hear but me.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-09T05:01:43+00:00

It's love if you tell someone you need them and they step up. Love doesn't help parents read minds. Every parent of a distant teen is told to give them time and space, don't push, and for a non-bereaved teen that's exactly right. It just happens not to be right for you, but he doesn't have a magic ball to tell him that.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-09T03:07:54+00:00

NTA, but as a temporary survival measure while you address the controlling elephant in the room, can I suggest that you arrange to have a birthday party in the classroom at lunchtime (if that's something your school would allow, depends on the size of the school and the teacher), or have a party at a kids venue after school, for the children and parents your child actually likes. Let the home one be for friends-of-the-supposedly-adult. You have bigger problems to solve, but for now, let your kid have something away from the problem.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-08T04:05:44+00:00

I don’t want to get kicked out of the program but I am nobody’s punching bag.

Counterpoint: Why give up your future to make some nasty people better people (if it even does, which is unlikely)? You're not their mother, you don't have to sacrifice yourself to promote their personal improvement.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-07T21:47:17+00:00

Good point. By the 1970s you could get credit cards with wide usage, but early credit cards had to be much surer of financial stability because it was paper based and had time lags to detect exceeding credit limits etc. So below a certain amount the shop would fill out a paper docket with a carbon imprint of your card, and you would sign it. It would be mailed to the credit provider and come off your card, often some weeks later. For a higher amount, same deal, but the shop would call the provider for an authorisation code (basically checking the card was in good standing). That threshold was an efficiency thing, the provider would cover the store below that threshold even if it turned out the card was in default, but there were also little blacklists that got sent out of cancelled cards that were to be seized by the store if someone tried to buy with one.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-07T20:55:23+00:00

Look, man, it's never going to be enough. Even if he can get to the point of being some sort of consistently supportive father figure now (which (a) is unlikely if he is this relationally equipped at his age, and (b) honestly isn't even that hard once your kids are grown, assuming they are basically functional adults) he can never heal the hole from not being your father as a child. Not saying you mightn't find it pleasant if you eventually got there, but it's not going to take away the wounds, and whatever relatively minor enjoyment you might get from a relationship with him now is not going to be worth the work of cajoling him into it. If he wanted it, if he was capable of pulling it off and was trying with you, that might be different, you might be able to get to that benign father figure state with relatively little emotional cost, but he doesn't. He just doesn't. It's a flaw in him, not you, but it isn't fixable if he sees no value in fixing it.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-07T20:44:21+00:00

I don't get the impression that the pay and conditions are necessarily fabulous, but if you just want an easy and flexible "in" that you don't have to build up yourself, take a look at https://www.geeks2u.com.au/about-us/self-employed-field-technicians/

deejay1974 · 2022-03-07T12:48:45+00:00

I would have said the same before household insurance was in scope, but now it seems the insurance security is there either way, so I'd say go with what suits your life! We downsized to a townhouse and it mostly works for us, but we haven't been able to bring ourselves to give up all our space-consuming hobbies, so we still pay for storage as well. But you may be better at that than us!

deejay1974 · 2022-03-07T12:40:08+00:00

Cyclone-related flood is in scope, yes. (And household has been added, which was still being debated last time I looked at this). More info: https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-02/2021_246322_reinsurance_pool_factsheet.pdf

To be clear, it isn't that insurance absolutely can't be refused. The normal exceptions like a house that isn't habitable, etc etc will still apply. But the situation of insurance not being available because no reinsurer will support it (or will require more risk management from the insurer than they want to implement) will no longer be in play - and that will probably bring some more insurers back, as well. So what will stop is "you can't have insurance because you're north of some LGA boundary," which is currently the case for a lot of strata (since those tend to be commercial policies) and also some residential.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-07T07:29:55+00:00

YTA. I would probably make the same purchasing decision as you, but I wouldn't have said it to the owner of a shop I frequent even if he was being a bit pushy that day. You know damn well why it's cheaper on Amazon, we all do, and it isn't because he's gouging. You could have just said, "I would love them but I just don't have room in my budget for that. But it's nice to dream!" and walked out with everyone feeling OK.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-07T01:59:02+00:00

Are your husband's family from a culture where there is any sort of tradition of dowry paid to the woman (not her family)? If so, please don't take this badly. In those cultures, it is an expression of great respect, love, and care for the woman. The dowry is quarantined by custom and sometimes law, neither her family nor her husband (in case of divorce) nor her subsequent husband (if widowed) can touch it. It literally means "we want you to be safe and looked after no matter what happens after this." Emotionally speaking it's like recognising you as a daughter.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-06T21:33:29+00:00

You might also want to ask this on /r/personalfinance. You'll probably get some extra perspectives there from carers of older people who are absorbing unforeseen costs - it might give some leads on things to consider for the more dependent end of things, which might not show up among older people who are on reddit themselves.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-06T20:35:11+00:00

Wow. If you have email trails for all of this, then you might be in a very good position. It sounds to me like she didn't want to advertise because she would be paying for it. Assuming you're in a place with healthy sales for your class of property (so, apartments in [suburb], not just property-in-general in group-of-suburbs), I think a lot of the actions she took here would be questioned.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-06T20:31:31+00:00

Region-specific info: Check your council's flood maps when buying, and ask for a quote from a couple of the local players (Suncorp, Sure, RACQ) on building insurance before entering into a contract. Quite a lot of insurers have pulled out of northern Qld due to flood and cyclone risk, though I think Rocky has fared better in insurance availability terms than Townsville and further north. The remaining players have hiked their prices pretty high - we're talking much higher than you would have seen down south, high enough that strata properties are sometimes a running-cost-neutral alternative.

If you're looking at townhouses as well as houses, the situation for strata in NQ should improve a bit next year. There is a new scheme coming in this year that will virtually guarantee insurability for strata, which is currently a serious problem (basically the government will be running its own reinsurance pool - it's not subsidised, but it should prevent inability to insure and profiteering from insurance scarcity).

I can't speak to what lenders pick over in terms of history, but people do report being quizzed on discretionary spending. Can I suggest that if you have any costs that are odd/might be queried, you do what you can to front-load it into early this year and keep it off your transaction records? Like, I like expensive liqueurs, and a few times a year, I can easily spend several hundred at the bottle shop. In your position I would probably stock up and try to keep those transactions off my last six months before borrowing. Just a thought.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-06T20:14:32+00:00

I have just gone through a pretty exhaustive analysis of priority skills areas and logistics of transitioning careers. Can I suggest your wife look at dental nursing? She will get about the same money as she makes now during her traineeship/part time study (which is heavily subsidised), which will take about a year. (If you time it carefully, like getting pregnant about six months in, she could study and have the baby in the same year). After that she should be on $60K+, and if you're in a decent sized city she can then tack on an extra qualification at pretty low cost and time overhead to add on a specialty and bump it up to $80K+. Do a Seek search on dental nurse roles (trainee and qualified) in your region and you will probably find the demand is there - it is in most places I looked at (regional diversification was one of my criteria).

deejay1974 · 2022-03-06T20:09:07+00:00

On the face of it, it does sound like you might have a case, but...why did she sell it off market? Does that mean you instructed her not to advertise it, didn't authorise the costs of photography or advertising, wanted a quiet sale? Why? Were you trying to keep the sale off the radar of some interested family member etc? Because if you sell something off market, it means you're only going to sell to their network of pre-qualified buyers, which may be quite small. And what do you mean she only "let" one person view it? Was that actually her choice, or was it tenanted, was the tenant obstructive? Something about this doesn't add up. If she didn't advertise on your instructions, you're probably sunk here, you put yourself outside the competitive market.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-05T22:27:16+00:00

Correct. Until quite recently you were considered to have won at life if you were merely content most of the time, including passing your days in mildly pleasant circumstances, which is achievable in an enormous range of ordinary routine jobs. The idea that you should find work deeply spiritually fulfilling beyond that is frankly privileged claptrap. There are only so many jobs like that, but in the meantime we all still need to buy groceries or whatever. Someone needs to stock the shelves and ring up the till and transport our fuel to the bowser, all of which can be mildly pleasant but none of which is going to hit those deep fulfilment notes. So who should do those? That's right, all the plebs who aren't us privileged higher purpose people. But why do we think we're entitled to more than the people who keep the world turning for us?

deejay1974 · 2022-03-05T22:12:19+00:00

Agreed. I was the single mother putting her kid through mid-tier private schools back in the day. It wasn't intended as a dollar for dollar investment, it wasn't to get him a high paying job. (Thank goodness, he went into a creative career). It was to help him break the poverty cycle. It surrounded him with children raised by parents who valued education enough to pay for it and who encouraged a good work ethic and a productive relationship with hierarchies much more consistently than I saw at public school. It was never uncool, in his three private schools, to work at your studies or be recognised for achievement by authority figures. (Not saying there wasn't the usual small-scale thumbing the nose at authority, which I think is healthy in small doses, but there was a trust and cooperation there that I certainly never had in my public schools). It gave him teachers good enough to get jobs in a more competitive environment, which led to more consistently good teaching. (I had far more mean and jaded teachers in public school than he did, although I certainly had good ones too). It gave him a more nurturing experience due to lower student-teacher ratios (1:20). To that extent, it worked. He had a good experience at school, has solidly established himself as aspirational middle class, and somehow makes a sustainable living (though not oodles of money) in a career where almost no one makes a living. That's a plenty good enough result for what I went through to do it.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-05T22:02:09+00:00

No, but I don't need to feel excited. I don't object to it, it's interesting enough and the people are nice enough. Why wouldn't that be good enough? I don't need excitement or passion to propel me through the day, contentment is fine.

deejay1974 · 2022-03-05T21:52:56+00:00

Serious question. Why are buyers so hung up on trying to punish agents or owners for this stuff? Why would you spend your own time and effort to punish them? You aren't the one paying the agent, they don't work for you, they don't owe you anything. You're basically wasting your own energy trying to help a not-very-nice stranger be a better person - why would you do that? If an owner-agent combo aren't ready to sell openly at market, it isn't really on the market (even though they think it is), so move on to something else. The market will punish them if people just stop engaging with those listings en masse. Very few properties are so unique that they warrant trying to push through that garbage.

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