Most graduates walk across the stage feeling a sense of freedom. For her, her Master’s degree became the golden handcuffs she never saw coming.
It started as an act of staggering generosity, as her dad, who isn’t hurting for cash, offered to pay for her advanced degree entirely unprompted.
There were no contracts, no “IOUs,” and no mentions of repayment, so she thought this was just a case of a dad supporting his daughter’s future. But she was wrong.
This woman’s dad has a great job that provides him with stability and double the salary she pulls in. Back when she graduated with her bachelor’s degree, her dad astonished her by saying he would pay for her to get her Master’s, even though she never asked him for money to pursue that.
Upon graduating, she got a job with a company for close to a year, and throughout the time she spent there, her dad would occasionally ask her to send him money.
“He would say things like, ‘When you have your finances figured out, you need to give me 50% of your salary.’ When I thought he was joking, he would say, ‘What would you even do with that money?’ Later, I got a better opportunity with a higher salary, and that’s when things started to go downhill,” she explained.
Then, her dad demanded that she fork over half of her salary to him. When she declined to do that, he quit speaking to her entirely.
Her dad began saying to her mom that she had to give him her entire salary every single month in order to make it all up to him. Her dad said she could then ask him to give her money back to pay for her commute to work every day.
Her mom pushed her to make up with her dad, so she did her best and actually requested that he forgive her for not wanting to give him all of her money.
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She did this in person, and her dad pretended like she didn’t exist. A day later, her dad said asking for his forgiveness wasn’t enough; she still had to give him her salary.
She always had a wonderful relationship with her dad. They would hang out a lot and laugh, and that’s why she’s so confused about his behavior right now.
“I never told him I would pay him back. Even when he joked about it before, I clearly said I wouldn’t pay him back because I’m his daughter, and I believed supporting my education was part of being a parent,” she added.
“Recently, my company offered employees the opportunity to buy cars at discounted prices with a loan option. My dad told me to take a loan and give him the car since the price (about $15,000) is close to what he paid for my master’s degree.”
“He said, ‘You weren’t going to pay me back anyway, so you might as well buy me a car.’ He already owns more than two cars. That’s when I realized he is actually serious about this.”
She went to her mom and said that her dad is hurting her feelings, and her dad still told her mom she needs to give him her whole salary from here on out.
She’s left wondering if she’s a jerk for failing to do what her dad asks.
I think this is crazy for her dad to offer to pay for her education without stating he wanted to be paid back. That’s not fair of him. If he wanted the money to be a loan, not a gift, he should have disclosed that to her in advance.
A gift, by definition, does not require repayment. By waiting until after the money was spent to demand it back (and then some), her dad is acting like a predatory lender.
What advice do you have for her? If your parent offers to pay for something without mentioning repayment, is it fair for them to invoice you years later?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
