Let my son sink?

I only shaped up when my parents stopped bailing me out if that helps. He will learn his lesson when he goes to get a car or house.

 

Yep, keep out of it, grit your teeth and know you are doing the right thing.

 

I've seen a similar situation. When the consequences of his irresponsible behavior start to hurt him, that's when he'll be interested in rehabbing his loans and getting his his credit cleaned up. Until he is denied something he wants badly, there's no reason for him to take the issue seriously.

Even then, cleaning up his mess should be his job, not yours. That's the only way he's going to learn the lesson.

Sometimes, we show the greatest love by stepping back and letting our loved ones reap what they, themselves have sown. If we try to remove the consequences of poor choices, what is the incentive for them not to make the same poor choices over and over again?

All the best to you both.

DemPooches

 

You can't help anyone who refuses to help themselves. If he comes to you for help BUT, also has a plan to help himself such as a realistic budget then, your help will be invaluable. If you pitch in now with his current attitude you'll accomplish nothing. BTW, he ought to be thankful you're helping him with the lions share of those loans. You're pulling a pretty heavy load for him already.

 

I agree with the others as well.

We as parents want to protect our children and look at for their best interest, you have and he has not listened.

He will have to learn a hard lesson here all by himself. I know it's hard but we have to let them learn from their mistakes.

 

Thomas,

I empathise. Your son figures if he needs something Dad will be there to cosign again, so why worry about it.

Sometimes the best way to help someone is to learn how to hinder them less.

You hinder their growth everytime you step in to bail them out.

Get outta the way and let God do his job.

I know it's hard.

 

i agree with all the above post
EXCEPT when it concerns credit.
Credit is power. and bad credit is like slavery and things are going to get much much worse for those with bad credit (clean those reports). as someone who has been rich, poor, and then rich again. with great, bad, average, etc. credit. I believe you should help him on his loans, however, with some type of written, notarized document making you his creditor. If he doesn't make payments to you, then you can take him to court or some such action to teach him a lesson, but don't let his youthful arrogance and ignorance put him in credit hell for the next 7 or even 10 years. Then he will really be relying on you.

humblemarc.

 

I, as mom of 2, empathize. But I also agree with all who've pointed out that his credit problems aren't "real problems" to him until he badly wants and needs credit and can't get it.

Being sorely behind on all his Sallie Mae loans has already damaged his credit for several years to come. Your paying off those loans at this point won't remove that damage now.

Instead, it will only reinforce his gullible thinking that "Dad will always bail me out."

The best and greatest gift of advice we can give our children is "hitch up your pants and be a man!"

He has no incentive to do that if you come running to the rescue now. Indeed, he's likely already thinking that since you're haranguing him about his credit and are wringing your hands over the damage being done to it that any day now, you won't be able to stand his "suffering" anymore and will do just what you're thinking of -- bail him out -- again.

BUT THINK OF THIS: In the time it will take from your bail out to turn his credit rating around (years, remember?), he can learn the valuable lessons he needs to.

You can't swim for him. And, as I'm sure most of us have been told by our own parents, "I won't always be here for you."

Would you rather give him fish, so that he eats for a day, but goes onto get into more credit trouble because he didn't learn his lesson; or you have him learn to fish so that he'll never go hungry again -- even when you're not around anymore???

 

Sorry, we misunderstood Thomas. Certainly, I can see your point in wanting to advise him about credit.

And this board may just be the best place for him to start learning if you can convince him to visit. It may be right up his alley if he's techno-inclined.

It will surely be a help to him to see just how long it can take him to climb out of the FICO quagmire and convince him to rehab and start now.

You might mention, too, that today's laides are pretty sharp. And that their own fathers and mothers will be advising them to look beyond the dazzling white smile of Mr. Tall, Dark & Handsome and ask about his finances and credit.

I know from my own experiences that "how he handles his finances/credit" became a deciding vote in whether I even continued to date a man after the first few "the wonder of me" dinners.

That's a huge switch from my own mother's days when women had no credit in their own names and never asked the "gentleman" about whether he paid his bills on time or knew how to go about getting substantial bank loans on his own, or even had investments and banking relationships.

Contrast that with the fact that I knew my hubby's FICO, Beacon, etc. scores and historical financial history long before he ever proposed to me.

I know I'm rambling, but my point is, if your son thinks he can wait until he gets married and wants to buy a house to clean up his act, he's in for a surprise (as I'm sure many of the women here will now attest).

Au Contrare! We women today want to know that our hard-earned credit profile won't be marred by a guy's willy-nilly Peter Pan thinking.

And if he's constantly in a money-crunch because he can't pay his bills and has collectors after him; can't pick up the check, has nasty messages on his answering machine from bill collectors (Yeah buddy, you better believe we listen if we happen to be in the room!!); has a 3-day stack of mail on the kitchen table that he won't open in front of us; is always flashing cash, but has no credit cards; needs a co-signer just to rent an apartment; or can't replace his clunker of a car because even the finance companies have turned him down; a guy whose buddies stop calling or hanging out with him because he never has the money/credit to pay his share -- we get gun shy reaaaaaaaall fast!

Believe me, he won't have to worry about getting married or buying a house.

You might want to mention this to him as this is something he CAN relate to!

 

YOU TELL 'EM, GIRLFRIEND!!!

nice female Dennis Miller rant.

humblemarc

 

Thanks humblemarc. I hadn't intended to get on my soapbox today...but there it is!

Well, I AM speaking from experience. So much so that when our wedding guest were kept waiting 45 minutes past the "walking-down-the-aisle hour", one of them (an ex-boyfriend, no less) mused aloud to the crowd that the hold up was most likely us in the backrooms fine-tuning the pre-nuptial agreement!

Nothing could be further from the truth (hubby had locked his keys, marriage license and the rings back at the house!! Can you say "N-E-R-V-O-U-S"!)

Both the wedding and the honeymoon were budgeted for and paid off in advance, by the way, so as not to begin married life in debt. (Take THAT MNBA!)

 

I have seen many situations of parents who "bailed out" their kids, with no thought for the future damage they were doing to the kids AND themselves.

If he is so irresponsible now, without a family of his own to care for, what do you think it will be like 10 years from now?

Unless and until he learns to be responsible for his own actions, and credit,and to clean up his own mess,even if it puts him in "credit hell",he will NEVER stop being irresponsible.

I have seen seniors lose their OWN homes, and have their OWN credit ruined because of the pattern of "helping out" they started.

 

I can tell you that I am VERY thankful that no one came along to help me out! Some- myself included- only learned (and made the decision) to pay bills on time and quit overspending when there was sufficient pain. I guess some people never learn and suffer needlessly throughout life. It is possible that if he does not REALLY learn now, with these loans that it could be much worse in the future and a house, car, $50,000 in CC debt, broken family, etc could be involved. I cherish the suffering I experienced because I have been spared (probably) from bankruptcy and forecloseure in my 40's and 50's! I am in my early 30's, so may not have the most wisdom with other people's situations, but this is what worked for me!

 

Thomas-
Is he currently living with you?
I am 25 and lived with my parents until I was 21, before I turned 22 I was evicted from that apartment, same deal as your son. Anytime I was in trouble dad bailed me out, if he couldn't help grandparents bailed me out. This was my hard lesson, when I couldn't pay my rent NO ONE bailed me out. Granted, I moved back in with my parents but STILL didn't learn my credit lesson. I spent and spent, often times spending before the money was there.

I am upset my parents did what they did the WAY they did, but I am not upset at the lesson I was taught.

Until I started getting my finances under control (but not my credit) did I realize the invaluable lesson I learned. They ARENT always gonna be there.

I was denied APARTMENTS, CAR LOANS, CC's you name it I couldn't have it.

Someone else mentioned helping him, but making him pay you and you pay the creditor. This will help him and NOT harm you, your name is still not on those loans.

If he is living under your roof, make this your rule. He pays you $xx a month while under your roof, if he doesn't he can live elsewhere.

Good luck either way.

 

With all due respect, I have to disagree. Unless Thomas is prepared to take all recourses that a non-relative creditor would, I doubt his son will take the "arrangement" seriously. I suspect he'd still see it as Dad bailing him out. In his mind, he might likely think "what's he gonna do? Repossess my car, evict me, report me to CRA's, sell my "account" to a collection agency? Ha! NOT MY DAD!"

Nope! I just don't see the point. That is, not if your intention is to point him in the direction of standing on his own 2 feet and taking his finances and credit responsibilities seriously.

 

thomas, The best things that you can tell him to do is: 1) He is on his own; 2) www.creditnet.com To fix HIS CREDIT!! Charlie

 

I've never been a parent - but I have been a child. I know myself that when it came time to having my mom stop helping me pay my utilities my first year in college that I was forced to learn to budget. (I never understood until I moved out of the house that things like toliet paper and shampoo cost money - LOL!)

At least you have protected your own credit by paying on the loans you co-signed. He will get the credit game eventually. You're doing the right thing.

 

As a 24 year old who has been through the mill and am now paying for my ways, I see where your son is on his way to...CREDIT HELL!

It sucks here. Maybe you should print this thread out for him and let me him read our responses.

For a $110,000.00 education, he should be more than educated enough to know what he is doing is wrong.

You are going to have to just give him the information and let him take action for himself.