Dear Prudence,
I love my adult daughter, but I can’t stand the person she has grown up to be. She is entirely self-centered, selfish, and materialistic. She is obsessed with status and fakes a wealthy lifestyle, but turns around and demands that her mother and I pay her bills. It has been a constant problem since she went to college and fell into a fast crowd. My ex and I grew up in very humble origins. We never had to worry about putting food on the table, but vacations were going to see Grandma, not Grenada.
My ex gave our daughter an old but paid-off car. She promptly traded it in for a flashy, expensive one—and couldn’t keep up the payments. She called and demanded that I take them over, or she is going to lose her job and apartment. I told her that wouldn’t be possible. My wife and I are in the process of adopting two of our foster kids. We can’t afford to take on more debt. My daughter made ugly accusations against my wife about trying to steal her inheritance and take me away from her. She used foul language to describe our foster kids and said she would never consider them her real siblings. I told her I was going to hang up and would continue to do so until she could be civil.
We haven’t spoken in a long while. I know through her mom that she is struggling and she refuses to accept any real help. My ex tried to get our daughter to either talk to a counselor or an accountant about her financial future. She refused. I feel so helpless. This isn’t how we raised her, and sometimes I look at her, and it is like staring at a stranger. Is there any hope? She turns 28 this year.
—Hurting