For most of our parents, the day we walk across that stage and receive our diploma is an emotional, but incredibly proud one.
Years of hard work and dedication from both sides have led up to that culminating achievement. Our parents may have put in hours of helping us with our homework, and offered all the love, support, and if possible, funds to help us get to this moment.
To see that all pay off is in immeasurable experience for everyone involved.
Of course, that’s assuming your parents even *wanted* you to get an education in the first place.
For one woman, her mom and dad were not so supportive of her career dreams, and even went so far as to refuse her the same college tuition they provided her brothers, simply because she’s a female.
But rather than sit back and accept her parents’ wants for her to live the domestic life, she funded her own education. And now that they want to reconnect, she’s decided it’s only fair to put a price tag on their estranged relationship.
The unnamed woman shared her story in the subreddit r/AmITheAsshole to find out whether she was being unreasonable or not.
As she explained in the post , she was raised in a family where both her parents were super religious and believed in rigid gender roles. That is, the man should provide for the family while the woman stays home and takes care of the house.
“Because of their expectation I’d stay home with kids, they never valued my education, educational achievements or emphasized things beyond domestic skills,” the woman said.
Her three brothers, on the other hand, had mom and dad’s full support when it came time for them to go off to college.
In fact, their parents were more than happy to open their wallets to help make that happen. They paid for each brother’s tuition, as well as their books, off campus apartments, and any other living expenses that might come up while they’re in school.
As for their daughter?
“I was told I wasn’t allowed to apply for college.”
Without her parents’ support (financial or emotional), the woman knew it was going to be difficult to pursue her education dreams.
But she also knew it was something she desperately wanted to do. So she secretly applied to college, and was accepted with a partial scholarship. And that was left to do was… well, leave.
“I didn’t tell [my parents] I was moving out until a week before I left, with essentially nothing but what a few friends gave to me that their parents bought them for college,” the woman revealed. “I took engineering, and had to work, take on debt and struggle.”
But the price of her education wasn’t just her tuition — it also cost her her relationship with her parents.
Years later, the woman said she’s barely spoken to her mom or dad since she left their home that day.
Now she’s married and expecting her first child. But upon learning this, her parents have reached out in an effort to somehow rekindle their relationship.
As the woman explained, she recently met up with her parents who said they were “sorry if they caused [her] pain.”
“I asked them specifically what they were sorry for,” she recalled. “They wouldn’t elaborate and just said they wanted to move forward. I said that wasn’t sufficient.”
Ultimately, she decided their love would come at a price: $100,000, the same money they afforded her brothers for their education but which they refused her for her own.
Having likely not expected this response, her parents reacted with shock and refused to pay her a cent.
But rather than stick around and squabble the terms of their relationship repair, the woman simply left, and has since had to deal with phone calls from her brothers accusing her of being immature and hurtful.
So that’s why she’s posed the question to the Reddit community: is she being an asshole, or are her parents the ones in the wrong here?
People on the site decidedly confirmed that the woman was not, in fact, the asshole in this situation — her mom and dad are.
“As far as I can see, your answer to them was perfect,” one user wrote. “It was very fair, and if they have fixed their appalling bigotry issues, they would be falling all over themselves begging you to take the money. Since they clearly have not fixed their bigotry, you don’t want them around your child.”
Another agreed and added, “They aren’t sorry for how they treated [their daughter], they just want to be able to have access to their grandkid.”
Ultimately, the Reddit community agreed that parents should at least try to support all their children equally, not simply based on gender expectations.
What do you think of this situation? Is the woman being fair in her tuition reimbursement request or is she being entirely unreasonable?
Let us know in the comments!
h/t: Reddit
