Shortly after, the OP discovered his daughter secretly changed her major to ‘Digital Content Creation’ and began creating content like makeup reviews and vlogs. When confronted, the daughter accused the OP of lying and being controlling. The situation escalated when the OP stated he would not fund the next semester unless she changed back or found alternative funding, leading to strong backlash from his ex-wife who believes he is sabotaging their daughter’s future. The OP is now questioning if he is in the wrong for enforcing the terms of their agreement.
I (48M) have always promised my daughter (19F) that I’d pay for her college as long as she was serious and honest. We agreed I’d cover tuition for any major except “social media influencer-related nonsense” (her words, not mine) because I didn’t want to fund a dream built on TikTok.
She told me she was majoring in Communications, and I’ve been paying her tuition at an out-of-state school. I just found out she changed her major after her first semester to something called “Digital Content Creation” and didn’t tell me.
She’s been making videos of herself doing makeup reviews, hauls, and “day in my life” vlogs.
When I confronted her, she said it’s her dream and I should support it. I told her I won’t pay for next semester unless she switches back or finds another way to pay.
She called me controlling and said I “lied” about supporting her dreams. Now my ex-wife is furious with me and thinks I’m crushing our daughter’s future over semantics. AITAH?
Conclusion
The father is currently positioned between honoring a conditional promise he made regarding financial support and respecting his daughter’s autonomous pursuit of a new, albeit vaguely defined, career path. The conflict stems from a perceived breach of trust by the daughter regarding her major choice, which directly violates the financial stipulation set by the OP, causing significant strain on the co-parenting relationship.
The central question remains whether the OP was justified in withdrawing financial support based on the specific terms of their initial agreement, or if his actions constitute an overreach that invalidates his commitment to supporting her education generally. Readers must weigh the importance of upholding clearly stated financial boundaries against the daughter’s emerging vision for her professional life.
Here’s how people reacted:
1- By offering to pay for her college, etc., as long as she’s honest and serious, I am 100% on your side. If they show they respect the gift/opportunity, and don’t feel they have to hide anything about that experience with you \[academically speaking\], it’s a grand gesture and she lied and theoretically broke that part of the contract with you.
2- But, by putting a constraint on the gift, I start gravitating to a little more sympathy for her. If I say “In 5 years I’ll give you 50k, but you may not use it for these kinds of professions,” I’m entering a world of potential pain because asking a teenager to swear they won’t develop a career interest in , no matter HOW aligned they may be in that moment to that kind of promise, is just not entirely fair to them.
Ex: My future in-laws offered to help pay for their daughter’s wedding to me (we were self-funding it), but immediately started dictating how that money must be spent. Turned down the $$ offered as a result. But my future wife and I were in a much stronger financial position and ABLE to refuse.
Ultimately it feels like gifts with strings attached are always too difficult to navigate.
If you’d demanded (instead) that she discuss BEFORE she makes changes, and be prepared to explain why she wanted to change her major, it gives her the opportunity she didn’t have – to talk you through what has changed for her to make her want to give something previously unthinkable a shot.
Experience: 2 daughters who had wildly different but equally varied paths through their college years and maybe in 10-15 years I’ll unclench enough to chuckle about some of it. 🙂
NTA, but neither is she?
As a GenXer and I often struggle to keep up with all the new content types needed. Your kid is going to be able to take and edit video, create graphics and visuals for all media types, she is going to learn how to write content which, trust me, is not like you posting to your Facebook about “these kids these days…”. She’s also going to learn how to look at the data from her posts and create a strategy for future content accordingly. Digital Content Creation is a combo of advertising, public relations, and community engagement all wrapped into one, those were all separate degrees when we went to college.
So instead of acting the Boomer my friend (because we as GenX are better than that), take a beat, do some research, and then apologize to your kid for jumping to conclusions just because you (we) are not native social media users. Quite frankly, that focus could be the start of a very fulfilling and lucrative career.
You also have to think if it’s worth torpedoing your relationship with your daughter with a knee-jerk emotional decision rather than an informed one. You can most likely speak to someone at the university and have them walkthrough the merits of the program your daughter is in.
In the ’80s, my husband had learned to code at his prep school. He would do his friends’ homework for fun. It felt easy and intuitive to him.
His father refused to let him study computer science. “I am not paying all that money for you to pay computer games.” He wanted him to be a lawyer.
One of the saddest aspects of college teaching is seeing those students who are shoehorned into their parents’ dreams and expeactation
You promised to pay for her school and should continue to do so as long as she has good grades.
Research shows that while STEM careers are declining, other careers such as art, writing, services, etc., will increase in the future.
Digital content will be taken over by AI.
Maybe compromise and let her minor in digital content or dual major if she also gets a degree in any standard academic field.
Digital Content Creation sounds like a concentration of a communications major
A program like that would make your daughter very competitive in marketing as communication is a common major alternative for those that don’t want to drink the MBA kool aid
Why are you trying to control your adult daughter’s career? Yes, you’re controlling.
That said, if she’s making content, she should be earning money and using it to supplement tuition.
BTW, I pay my niece, who is in her 20s, to do digital marketing for my company. It’s a real job.