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Father bringing us down
I'm a 15 year old female girl and I'm fed up being patient with my father. For the past few years, my dad has been developing this product. He hates working for a boss or anything, so instead since I can remember, he really enjoys trying to be self employed. The problem is, it has been years and this product is going nowhere. He keeps insisting that he's making progress and a ton of connections and that eventually one day we will be millionaires. The thing is, he's using up all our money.
My mother works a steady job and brings in a steady income. My dad however, isnt, and he keeps continuing to spend thousands of dollars. He keeps saying you need to spend money to earn money, and whenever I confront him about spending too much, he says I don't know anything and that im being ignorant and stupid.
The worst thing is, everytime any of the kids try and talk to dad about us being worried about our family's finances, he always blames this on us. He always tells us we are spending way too much money, way too quickly. I'll admit, I am a regular teenage girl, I do want new clothes each school year and money for school trips and such, but other families are easily able to do the same. I don't even get alot of the major brand name clothes. My birthday is coming up next week, and it is my sweet 16. When I joked around to my dad asking what I wanted for my birthday, he got very angry with me and said I was being selfish and expected money grew on trees.
I guess my main problem is, I dont know what to do about this. I do all his online contacting and such, and because of this im fully aware of how much money he is spending, and I am also aware that none of the people supposed to be helping him finance this product are. I mentioned today Im worried about our money, and he told me not to be because we have none, and that I should stop complainning because the future of our family relies on if this business will work. Honestly, I dont think its a good product and neither do anyone I know that has talked to him about it.
Im sick of my mother having to bring in all the income and dad spending it, yet saying we have to rely on him.
I don't know what to do anymore... any ideas?
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Families?
Stop talking to your Dad.
Talk to your Mom.
Although it might be true that other families can spend more money on their kids, that's a choice those parents made. YOUR parents, are allowed to make a different choice and spend less on you.
So DON'T use that argument. It's unreasonable and it selfish, but most importantly, it's not going to help you get anywhere.
Talk to your Mom.
And when I say talk, I mostly mean listen.
Tell her you are scarred, ask her if she is too.
Tell her you don't entirely trust your father or his business scheme, ask her if she has doubts.
Ask her how she deals with those doubts.
Tell her you are scarred there is no back up plan if this goes wrong, ask her if there is one.
Ask her what she would do if the product thing never works out.
Tell her you don't like it, not because you can't have what you want, but because it scares you and you don't what to do to make it less scary.
If someone tries to tell you that you are too young to worry about these things you can admit that yeah, you are young, but you are also WORRIED anyways and you really need some help from you parents to deal with your fears.
The truth is there is little you can actually DO. You are a minor living in the household and the money is theirs. Financial decisions about the family are between your mom and dad. If you don't trust them with financial decisions, the best thing you can do is get a job and start making the best money choices you can for yourself. The good news is that you are young, and whatever money whole they sink you in you can pretty easily dig yourself out of. It's always nicer when our parents give us a firm financial footing in the world, but they don't have to. Just accept that, and start looking for ways get to what you want from life regardless of them, you're old enough to begin making some of your own choices, and money.
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