When it came time for college, my stepdaughter (my husband’s daughter) received a generous gift from her mother’s family: four years of tuition, room and board. When we asked whether we could contribute, we were told it was unnecessary.
My husband and I have two children together, and we were able to save enough to cover about one year of undergraduate tuition, room and board for each of them. The rest will have to come from loans.
My stepdaughter has now been accepted into a doctoral program, but her mother’s family cannot cover the cost. She is angry that we saved for her siblings’ college educations but not for hers. I think graduate education is important, but it is hard enough to save for a bachelor’s degree, much less a graduate degree. She now has a bachelor’s degree and no debt, while her siblings will have substantial debt when they graduate, and even more if they go on to graduate school.
Are we responsible for saving an equal amount for all three children? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Your stepdaughter’s case is that you saved something for her two sisters and nothing for her. Your case is that she has already received far more educational support than they are likely to receive. It would obviously be good for her if you could help cover the cost of her graduate education. But if you can’t offer the same help to your other daughters should they pursue further degrees, you are not obliged to do so for her.
Of course, her anger may also reflect the way children from a first marriage sometimes fear they matter less than the children of the second, and that fear is worth addressing on its own. Assessing fairness, though, requires looking at the whole picture, including advantages that arrived from elsewhere. Loving children equally does not mean spending on them equally.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader who was debating whether to pursue a fraught friendship. They wrote:
When I was in high school, I had a close relationship with a male teacher. My parent was dying, and this teacher became an important figure in my life. … When I was 17, that relationship changed. He made a pass at me, and we ended up having a secret sexual relationship for several months. … In retrospect, I understand it was an incredible abuse of power. … I have never publicly named him or taken formal action. … Recently, one of his daughters reached out to get coffee. She is in the same career as me, we have many mutual friends and I’ve seen her socially at parties over the years. … I feel deeply awkward, especially because I genuinely like her. … Part of me feels she should know what he did. Another part feels it isn’t my place to tell her. … What should I do? — Name Withheld
In his response, the Ethicist noted:
You’ve made a decision that is yours to make: not to name the man publicly or take formal action against him. … Morally speaking, there’s a problem in building a relationship that has concealment at its core. And would it be fair to keep from her something that, if she found out about it later, she would have reason to think you should have told her? If you did tell her, you would be giving her information she may be entitled to. But as you’re aware, it would also be devastating, unrequested knowledge with consequences for her and her family you can’t predict or control. … Psychologically speaking, how easy would it be to sustain a truly close relationship with this man’s daughter without telling her the truth? … You should hesitate before entering a friendship that could require you to keep living in the shadow of what he did. You have no reason to protect this man; you do have reason to protect yourself.
(Reread the full question and answer here.)
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Can the letter writer be sure her father didn’t push his daughter to contact her as an avenue for him to hear about her and eventually see her? The same way he manipulated the letter writer to get what he wanted, he may be using his daughter. It doesn’t sound like that would be beyond him. I would avoid this contact. — Sher
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It is tempting in these situations to tell ourselves that we have healed, that we are strong enough to handle whatever may unfold from a connection to the abuser’s daughter. But the writer has worked hard to make sense of this egregious abuse, to do the therapeutic work and move past it. Any proximity to his family is dangerous territory, and may reactivate this trauma for her in ways that she can’t predict. And while I understand how unfair it is that he still affects her decision making in any capacity, she would be wise to steer clear of any situation bringing her back into his orbit. — Rebecca
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I can’t help wondering if this abuser had other victims, before or after the experience of the letter writer. Allowing him to remain undiscovered protects him and no one else. — Lisa
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I think the abuser’s daughter deserves an explanation — even a minimal one. “I’m not comfortable being around your father. He abused my trust when we were young.” Something like that. — Anne
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You can have coffee with someone without inevitably getting on a glide path to becoming close friends. It would be weird to be very standoffish with her, since you will be seeing each other professionally and socially from time to time. But you get to decide what you talk about over coffee, and you can keep it very neutral and professionally focused. At worst, she’ll think of you as a very reserved person. — Jeanne
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