It’s amazing the things you learn about your parents as you grow older. When you’re younger, you idolize them, think of them as infallable superpeople who are impervious to disease, distruction, and natural disasters alike.
But then they do shit like this. More specifically, my father…
My parents made an arrangement with my sister that they would pay for her first year of school, so they passed on this offer to me. They never told me about this, they just started paying it. After my first year of college, I found out about it and told them to stop paying it. It was an additional $250 bucks or so a month that they didn’t need to pay, and I knew I was going to have a shitload of debt anyway, and what was another $10,000?
So, a few months later they decided to refinance their mortgage, and pay off all of their credit cards, their cars, and a number of other things so that they would only have one monthly payment. Sounds fair enough. But, because I took back the loan, they offered to pay off my car, which was equal to the amount of the loan for my first year of college. They did this BECAUSE I took back the loan, and was not part of any deal we hatched to exchange loans (this is an important distinction).
I was talking to my father yesterday, and expressing my idea to sell my car to pay off my immediate debt and give me a little cash cushion when I start my life after graduation (which is in 3 weeks!). Because I am in Boston and the car is in Pennsylvania, I asked him if he would be willing to handle the sale, and I would be willing to give him 5% (which would be at LEAST $500, because I won’t sell the car for less than $10,000). Sounds like a good deal, right?
He proceeds to tell me that, because he is permanently disabled, there is a way for him to get loans he signed for BEFORE he was permanently disabled forgiven, which would include my first year school loan. Fantastic! That would really help me out in the long run, because it would be $10K less that I’d have to worry about repaying!
The next few words out of his mouth were the ones that shocked me. He claims that, because this loan might be forgiven and they are still paying off the consolidation loan they put my car under, that I should give him $8,000 from the sale of my car.
WHAT?
At first I thought he was joking, but he really wasn’t. He thinks that, because he is changing the circumstances, that I should just give him $8,000 in cash? $8,000 that I’m trying to use to start my life debt free? Remember, my parents were the ones who OFFERED to pay off my car BECAUSE I took back my first year loan… something I did because I was concerned about THEIR finances, with no regard to how it would affect me in the long run.
Wouldn’t you think that any other father would see this as a gift for their child? What person, in their right mind, would automatically jump to the conclusion that I should just hand over $8,000?
Dad, thanks, but no thanks. If that’s the price of your GENEROSITY, I think I’ll pass. I’ll just pay for the loan myself, LIKE I PLANNED TO DO FROM THE BEGINNING.