We all hope that our precious babies will grow up into human beings we actually enjoy being around – but as hard as we try to do our best, sometimes it just doesn’t take.

OP made two promises to his four children while they were growing up, and kept them (for the most part).

I (49M) have four kids, twin boys (both 27), one girl (25F) and another son (21M). This post is about my youngest son, Jack.

Since they were children, I promised my kids two things, one, I’ll fully pay for all of their college expenses (housing/tuition/food etc) and two, once they graduate college, I will buy them a car.

I kept that promise for all my kids, except with Jack and now I want to know if I am a jerk for that.

His youngest son has been trying his patience (and his bank account) for years.

I paid for Jack’s college expenses, but I am refusing to buy him a car, below is some of the reasons why:

I co signed my name on the lease for Jack’s room that he rents with a friend, and I send Jack his portion of the rent every month. The friend started taking advantage of my name being on the lease and stopped paying for rent too, knowing I will cover the amount because I don’t want missed payments on my credit score.

I asked Jack multiple times to ask his roommate to pay his portion, but the boy did not care to even respond to me and I ended up paying for six months of his friend’s rent too until I finally solved the problem by getting my name out of the lease.

Jack have a very rude and entitled attitude. He speaks to us like we are his low performing employees, the only time he contacts us is when he wants money and goes no contact otherwise, and we don’t know what we ever did to him to treat us that way.

Last year when my wife had to be hospitalized, all of my kids flew back home to be there for their mother. Jack didn’t want to but one of his siblings bought him a ticket and talked him into flying out.

Instead of being glad to be beside his very sick mother at the hospital, he spent the entire visit making everyone run errands for him (his sister has to cook a very specific type of meal for him/we had to drive him to the gym at a very specific time he demands etc) and acted like it was one huge inconvenience for him to have to fly out.

No one understands how it came to this.

I even talked to my other kids about whether we were bad parents that caused Jack to act this way but all my other kids don’t know why he ended up so entitled and spoilt.

The rest of my kids are extremely different from Jack, we all get along with each other and care about one another. For the rest of my kids, I spent maybe $100K on each kid’s total college expenses.

With Jack’s careless spending habits and unwillingness to save us any money, Jack’s college years ended up costing me $180k. So I refused to buy the promised car.

Jack’s upset and has gone to his grandparents complaining about me. My MIL already hates me and now is calling me a jerk saying I am playing favourites because I bought everyone a car and not Jack.

Does Reddit agree with some of the family who think OP owes the kid a car? Let’s find out!

The top comment says it’s time for the kid to find out about consequences.

The commenters are saltier than the dad!

They say the lease thing was dad’s fault, not the kid’s.

Good kids don’t behave this way toward their family.

It appears OP’s parenting journey is not over.

I hope this family is about to get to the bottom of things.

Or the youngest is going to be left out in the cold.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.