Money, Family, and Paying the Bills

You have a pretty good relationship with your parents, but money has also been a source of conflict with them. You’re the first in your family to attend college, and you’re working twenty hours a week (and full time during the summer) to contribute toward your living expenses and tuition. You’ve taken out a hefty amount of money in student loans as well. You know that money is tight for your parents, and you are grateful for the help that they can provide. Your mother, for example, sends generous packages of food, and your father and stepmother pay for your car insurance. But money is still a constant concern for you.

Recently, you discovered that you could qualify for a particular scholarship and a grant—money for college that does not need to be repaid—if you can prove that your income falls below a certain threshold. The only way to make that happen is to declare yourself independent from your parents’ care. But that would have some negative financial consequences for them, as they would no longer be able to claim you as a deduction on their tax return. You decide to discuss the issue with your father, hoping that he will see the situation from your point of view, but he does not. In fact, he becomes so angry that he threatens to cut you off altogether—no more car insurance money and no place to live during the summer internship you’ve arranged near your father’s town. He tells you that if you want to be independent, you should be completely independent.

Either way you look at it, your relationship with your father has been affected. If you do declare yourself independent, you will lose his assistance and gain his wrath. If you don’t, you will resent him deeply for causing you additional financial stress. You want to repair your relationship with him . . . but how?