I think it depends on the child. My son has an extremely large sum of money coming towards him because of an insurance settlement, and I am well aware that he will have very poor judgment. Despite all of our financial input, he is not financially savvy. So we are in discussions now on how to deal with that. A large sum of money to anyone, much less than 18-year-old, can be very overwhelming.

I believe in 90% of cases, If you give an 18 year old their college fund it's no longer a college fund

Why is this illiterate chucklefuck getting reposted? An orangutan could smear clearer prose with half an hour and a sharpie. OP is dim, self-important, inconsistent, and power-mad. No wonder his kid wanted to get away for a bit. Sheesh.

I am amused at all the people saying the kid is not old enough to recognize long-term consequences of his actions. Since this cash was a result of many years of savings and sacrifice by the parents, I would have thought the topic should have come up on a regular basis over the years. "You will be receiving your college fund at 18. Your choice what to do with it." 18 IS old enough. 18 is a legal adult. They can do everything except drink and smoke at 18 without parental permission. I personally believe THOSE restrictions should ALSO be lifted. Make it ALL 18 or ALL 21 or ALL 30. Wherever you want to divide it. This is on the kid. Not his parents.

I can see dad's side, my only concern is when dad said, "I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear to you." The fact that you may not have fully explained everything coupled with the fact that you would've given him money to travel with anyway? Pay for his school. Not everything has to be an, "all or nothing" situation in parenting and in fact, the greatest parents are there for their WELL MEANING children that maybe fall a little short of expectations. He wasn't irresponsible it appears to me that communication was lacking, which is in both of you.

The son should just be grateful to have the college money when they gave it to him! Don't give him anymore as he obviously doesn't seem to appreciate it that much

What is with the Dum-Dums United presumption that 18 is adult?! The brain is not fully developed until 25, so that means there's 7 MORE YEARS of possibly making bad decisions until the switch flips. The only way that's avoided is if necessary teachings are done by parents/teachers to somewhat negate those possibilities. But a lot of these parents do none of it until their children are "legally" able to be shoved out the door and bad teachers drop the ball.

They raised the kid. They should know if he is responsible enough to receive that large amount of money. Sounds like parents didn’t raise him to be responsible and then shoved him out of the nest at 18.

The parent doesn’t state in OP whether he taught his son financial literacy, didn’t answer questions to that effect in the replies from what this post shows, so I can’t make a definitive judgment.

NTA, but definitely an idiot. He could have put the money in a trust to handle distribution, could have made a contract with the son to make it perfectly clear that if he spent the money on "w/e" then he'd already know the consequences. Either way, just handing him the money was stupid. Clearly didn't teach your son how to manage finances or the value of money. Your son "won the lottery" in his mind, and >85% of lottery winners are broke within 3 years of their win. Congrats, your son is in the 85%.

Thank you for the information I really like traveling here because it has extraordinary beauty Therefore, if friends want to visit, we can visit together For further information, please visit our website https://travelingaja.com/

I was supporting myself at 18. This kid was lucky he had parents looking out for him (mine passed). He was within his rights to use it for travel, but coming back and wanting to dip back in to the pot was a little clueless, especially when he was told the money was for school.

I got 13k euros from my parents for my 18th birthday in 2008. They had saved it for me since I was a baby. It was for living expenses while going to university, buying a beat-up car etc. I wouldn’t have spent it on anything else, and it was clear I wouldn’t get any more money (like they had any more after that)

Why are people, specially in the US so delusional with the "18 is an adult" yes legaly yes but you don't just turn smart and responsible and adult over night because you turn 18, reality is most people actually "grow up" in their 20s...

Not the AH. First off, I would never give an 18 year old a lot of money and say do whatever you want with it. But he made his decision. I would not give him more. I had to pay for my own education. I was never given money for anything. Life generally doesn't work that way. He can get an education and work at the same time if he really wants it.

Biologically a brain is not full formed until mid to late twenty's. However, even though structurally the brain is completely grown at the start of puberty, the teen years are special because of all the area growth, fine tuning it does. So no. Eighteen year olds are not adults like a thirty year old. Brain areas grow differently also one adult from another. This poor boy didn't stand a chance.

Having a ‘college fund’ money given to you at 18 is such an extreme privilege that I don’t even see the point of discussion. Most young adults will not have a choice and will either go to uni with a debt to pay or go to work. This lad has it so well he can’t see how bratty he’s behaving g. No matter the parents decision here whatever their son does now he’s much better off than vast majority of people his age.

I spent my time reading an AITA. Can someone give me my time back?

If I were the parents and had the money then I would give it. I traveled a lot and went to university (although I paid for the traveling myself and got a loan for studying) and I learned as much by traveling as I did by going to university.

I feel mixed on this one, I get the lesson he is trying to teach but, if he put money aside for his education then you should have only given it to him for that reason. It's really the dad's fault for the stupid way he handled it.

Good thing they weren't into guns, kid wouldn't be around anymore. Giving an 18yo that much money without some serious preparation over the years shows the father doesn't have as much common sense as he thought.

Just because you stated "clearly" to a teenager that that was the whole ball of wax, you are deliberately avoiding the fact of whom you were speaking to: a teenager! His brain development regarding impulse control is not done until his mid-20s. Sure, some random 18 year could decide better than he did, but like when your 2-year-old fell down and scraped his knee, did you lecture him about his booboo? Or put a band aid on it? He is 18, looks like an adult, but is not! If you're financially able to, I suggest you have him work for you doing home repair, volunteering for the elderly, a food kitchen. Then pay each year's school fees in turn is response to his volunteerism.

Idk, my dad was similar, self made, had several rentals my whole life and built a small 1-owner construction company. He also would do things like pay me per chore, rather than allowance, to teach me to earn. BUT, he ALSO set aside cash for my college and my sister's, flippinh one house each for us when we were younger and stashed college funds. There was also discussion of letting us start businesses instead. My mom (brilliant), Said no way, they'll do better with educations, so he had our 4 years of collegr, all costs, set aside. We both went to UW, graduated and got great jobs. Shortly after that, while searching for the next rental to flip, he concocted a plan, put down payments on condos for each of us, we'd pay the mortgage, then one say sell and he'd recoup the down and we'd split the equity one day. He got a guaranteed renter, and we got homes and a new lump of money from the sale to role over into our next homes. He was really smart and made us learn how to manage money.

The son spend TWO years blowing up his money. This is not some kind of celebration for end of high school, start of adulthood. This is reckless indulging. Good of the dad to not cave.

Bro, pay for your kids college. I'd say not the a*****e, but that's your kid asking for your help to succeed, and you said it's not a problem for you financially. So saying no does indeed make you an a*****e. Help your kids folks.

Finding himself always translates to partying and involvement with the opposite sex.

Key words are COLLEGE MONEY. The money never should have been given for anything else but an education or a skill that was going to be beneficial to build a foundation for his future life. It’s like pulling the cart before the horse. The traveling should have occurred after he received a college degree. Now that he has traveled and has now found himself, he must now find a way to stand on his own two feet and educate himself. On special holidays or birthdays I would write a check directly to the school and let the son know that the gift was given to help decrease his debt.

PARENTS: Please stop comparing how you was to how your child is and think they will make the same smart choices on their own or think they can be as mature as you was at their age. Its nothing like that, your child is not you. Plus it was common sense on why dad went into finance, its what he was good at trying to figure out, his son is not him. Than we want to say 18 is grown it's crazy cause now you have to be 21 to buy cigarettes so obviously the government don't think 18 year Olds can make good decisions. PLUS let's look back at history, a woman got marry at 14 15 in the early 90's before those times they got marry at 12. Now we feel like they are kids to young to understand any of that. But they knew how to be wives and mothers back than then now. So trying to say your child should know better at 18 because you did is a dumb way to think. I would have never gave him all of that money at once. A lot of older people would set up accounts only allowing their child to have access to

18 is not an adult just legal age to vote and serve time. Even the government feels that way. Reason why if the child is still living at home they still goes by the parents income for college until age 21. 18 to me is the time you give them little room to wiggle but know they will fall. If your child never had to learn hard lessons before 18 than they are not grown. They need to fall before getting back up again. My daughter just turn 21 and she is wise enough to understand her consequences of her actions and how to get herself back up. But I kept an net under her from 18-21. I would have never gave no 18 year old child a lot of money at once. That was dumb if you ask me. They are just coming from being a dependent and doing dumb things and you want to trust them with a whole heap of money. That was dumb on their part of parenting.

Best thing would have been not to say there is college money until they say they want to go to college. That simple!

I like how some of these commenters logic is "Well my parents threw me out with only a can of soup and basic reading skills and I barely made it past poverty so F this kid."

Well sounds like he didn't ask because in reality he really didn't want to hear what he already knew. So he employed the ignorance (or in this case, pretend ignorance) is best.

I only WISH my parents had given me a choice to do as I please with that kind of money. I probably would have bought a house (because at 18 I thought women should be nesters), but I've spent my 20's, 30's and 40's wishing that I would have had an opportunity to travel worldwide. Not travel/sightseeing but travel and live in other countries. Not sure what this kid did while traveling but, it may have been more of an education than what college could offer. If I were him, I would see what kind of opportunities for college are available in Europe. My cousin went to University in Wales and apparently tuition was free. Plus, what he learned living there....priceless!