Her Father Demanded 3 Years of Beauty School and a Business Degree Before Investing—Then She Launched via Micro-Equity and Presales
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Imagine wanting to open a small business that’s all your own. What kind of preparation do you think you would need before getting started? Is it all about money, or would you need an education and experience first?
In this story, one woman wants her dad’s help with startup costs for a business idea she has, but he refuses to help her unless she goes back to school and gets a job in that career field. She doesn’t think this is fair considering he helped her sister when she wanted to start her own business.
The circumstances and business ideas are quite a bit different, and her dad seems to think that matters.
Is he being a jerk for not helping her, or did she overreact by calling him one? Let’s read the whole story to decide.
AITA for calling my dad a jerk for supporting my sister’s business but not mine?
5 years ago, my sister (25 at the time) decided she wanted to open a preschool.
My dad was completely on board, helped her pick out a piece of land, bought the land, got her set up with a modular building company, paid for the building, donated supplies, and paid for everything for the first year.
Every year his company donates thousands of dollars to her school. They provide backpacks, lunchboxes, and water bottles to each of her students every year, they donate food on special occasions, they fund graduation every year, and they provide teacher gifts for Christmas and ed of the year.
She talked about wanting to expand and his company donated a whole building and new playground.
Now, OP wants to open a business.
I (27f) want to open a salon. I asked my dad to help me open it like he did with my sister’s school.
He recommended I spend a few more years working then he’ll consider it.
I reminded him that he helped my sister when she was 2 years younger than me.
But he said it’s different because she started babysitting at 11, working at a swim school at 13, started working with preschoolers at summer camps by 15, and got a job as a preschool teacher fresh out of high school. He also said she had a good understanding of how the business would work and had great ideas for location and specialization to attract parents.
He is only willing to help her if she does a few things first.
I told him I do have good ideas but he’s just not willing to listen and spend half of what he did on my sister on my business.
He said the only way he’ll reconsider is if I get at least an associates in business, get a job in my field and keep it for 3+ years, and save at least half of the start up costs. All of this has to happen within 4 years.
We got into an argument and I called him a jerk for supporting my sister and spending tens or hundreds of thousands on her business but either refusing or making me jump through hoops for me to get half of what she got.
He says I’m being ungrateful and unrealistic and can’t expect something just because my sister has it.
It is possible that OP doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into by wanting to run a business, and her dad may just be watching out for her. I’m not sure what experience she had working at a salon, but it sounds like her sister really was well prepared.
If she wants her dad’s help, she could get her dad’s rules and promises in writing and then go for it. Would he be willing to pay for her education if he wants her to get an associates degree?
Let’s see what Reddit suggests.
This person wants to know how much experience OP has.
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Another person wants to know her work history.
Everyone seems to be pointing out the same thing.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who deliberately kisses his newborn nephew while sick with a cold, going directly against the parents’ explicit wishes.
Another person points out a lot of problems with her thinking.
It’s impossible to know if she’s capable of running a salon when I have no idea if she has any experience working at a salon or not. I don’t think her dad is being unreasonable. Let’s assume she has no experience. She should work at a salon for awhile, and it wouldn’t hurt for her to take some business classes. She’d be much better at running a salon with that experience.
It’s her dad’s money. She isn’t entitled to it. If she wants his help, she knows what she needs to do.
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