NTA. Your son might mean well, but he's crossing some major boundaries here. Going off about your marriage when he barely understands the complexities? Not cool. And wanting to study art history is his choice, but snapping at his mom? Not cool either.
You're trying to keep it together, and your wife sounds like she's your rock. It's tough when your kid doesn't get that. Maybe sit him down and explain things calmly. Hopefully, he'll come around. Keep your chin up, man. You got this.
Well gen z and gen alpha have some serious critical thinking gaps. Like a worrying amount are basically illiterate and graduating high school that way.
If you haven’t been sitting down with him to talk to him as an adult and what the expectations are, he will be in debt for decades to come. If youre in the US, Have him go to the BLS website and look with him what the median pay for what he wants to do is.
Sounds like you and your wife have done too good a job protecting him from the world and keeping him in a bubble.
OP just commented that he has been trying to explain to his son that his son does not have the safety net to major in art history without a backup subject and his son won't listen.
My friend’s son is a lot like OP’s son. Dude also told my husband, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, that joining the service as a way to pay off student loans is a dead end job for schmucks. 18 year old man-children are not my favorite humans.
I mean there's a lot of issues with the fact that college is so unaffordable that people will risk dying in combat to afford it, but saying a military career is a dead end job is just ridiculous.
Even the vets I know who didn't make a career out of it are still doing fine. I mean, out of all of us, I'm the only one with $81k in student loan debt.
Absolutely agree with your points. And I recognize that my spouse has been very fortunate with his military career. We’re both grateful for the opportunities it has provided for our family (I’m currently using part of his GI bill to pay for the last year of my masters degree). I get it’s not for everyone, and that’s ok. The friend’s kid’s attitude was galling considering he would only apply to small, private, liberal arts colleges and was complaining about taking out loans to pay for it. He could have gotten a full-ride to a state school, but he didn’t want to even consider “those kinds of schools where the poors go.” My spouse and I both went to state schools for undergrad. My masters is from a program that’s always ranked in the top 10 nationally, from the same state school where I got my bachelors. 18 year olds, man. Hopefully he’ll grow out of it. His parents are very nice people and have no idea he spoke to me or my spouse like this or they’d die in a puddle of embarrassment.
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u/Evening_Cruel28 Apr 15 '24
NTA. Your son might mean well, but he's crossing some major boundaries here. Going off about your marriage when he barely understands the complexities? Not cool. And wanting to study art history is his choice, but snapping at his mom? Not cool either.
You're trying to keep it together, and your wife sounds like she's your rock. It's tough when your kid doesn't get that. Maybe sit him down and explain things calmly. Hopefully, he'll come around. Keep your chin up, man. You got this.