In an ideal world, parents and children would get along. Children would grow up and remain friends with their parents. This doesn’t always happen.

Sometimes children and parents have different yet equally strong beliefs and values. Sometimes the differences are to the point where the relationship between parent and child is completely severed.

One Reddit user shared a story of how she came to be disowned by her parents when she was a young adult. It all started when her Christian parents wanted her to go to a Christian college. Eventually she got her way and was allowed to go to a non-Christian college, but her parents told her they weren’t going to help her pay for her education. She went to her chosen school anyway, but she was struggling to make ends meet.

Then, one of her friends gave her some advice that helped her financially but caused her parents to disown her when they found out. Her friend said that “the strip club she was working at was hiring. I have been dancing my whole life and have a good figure so I was hired pretty fast.” She eventually dropped out of college because she was making so much money stripping. 

Nine years later, she is no longer stripping. As she explained, “Stripping has a short lifespan.” However, the money she made as a stripper has allowed her to make a life for herself. She wrote, “I own my house outright, a Tesla, don’t have debt, I also own an apartment building that I rent.” In addition, she has money invested.

Now, her parents are struggling financially. She wrote, “My father lost his business during COVID, my mom has always being a SHM, they declared bankruptcy and are really struggling (they live in an old camper). Also apparently my mom is diabetic now and my dad has always had heart problems. They wanted my help.”

She refused to help them but is feeling guilty about it. She told them, “No, I don’t have parents anymore.” She added, “According to their religion and church my money was earned while sinning so to use it is to damn your soul to hell and I really didn’t want that for them. My mom started crying and my dad said that they didn’t know where they went wrong with me.”

Now she’s wondering if she should help them anyway. She explained that the money “would make a really big change for them but I won’t even miss it that bad.” She turned to Reddit to ask for advice.

Most Reddit users explained that it’s up to her whether or not she helps her parents, but whatever she decides to do, she shouldn’t let them make her feel guilty about it. One comment reads, “Help them and ask them to reconcile the fact that you are the fallen one but you had more compassion for them in their time of need than they, the god-fearing saints, had for you in yours. Or don’t, but feel good about it. Either way, they don’t deserve you guilting yourself over them.”

Another person wrote, “You don’t owe your parents anything, but you owe yourself a clean conscience. If you’re going to second guess yourself – and it sounds as though you are – just write the check and move on. You can then go ahead and forget about them again. You might want to let them know that there’s nothing more for them – that this is one and done, so they best make good decisions about how they use it.”

Yet other Redditers point out that it sounds like the parents are only willing to contact their daughter because they need money and that they should at least apologize first. One comment reads, “They all need to apologize first and repair the relationship (if that’s even possible) before any help is considered.”

Another person wrote, “Ask yourself, if they didn’t desperately need the money, would they be contacting you or even thinking about you at all? They sound like they would have been happy to continue the disownment for life if they’d been doing well. If they’d shown a little remorse or apologized for anything maybe, but this just sounds like a money grab on their part.”

Do you think the daughter should give her parents money to help them out? Do you think the parents should apologize?