Chip Chick
I know so many people who had to get braces when they were kids or avoided getting them for a long time, didn’t wear their retainers, only to end up wanting to get braces or something like Invisalign when they got older because they didn’t like how their teeth look.
One woman is refusing to pay for her 20-year-old daughter’s braces because she turned them down when she was a kid, and now they’re extremely expensive to get.
She’s 40-years-old and a divorced mother of three kids. Her eldest is her 20-year-old daughter, who is in college and lives on campus in a dorm. When her daughter doesn’t have school for a while, she usually goes home.
“I pay her expenses of cell phone, car insurance, and a couple of other small things,” she explained.
“I give her gas money and money for other things if she needs it. She has a job on campus working 15 hours a week or so, so she doesn’t usually need money. She got two years of college paid for, some partial scholarships, and I am taking out parent loans as I want to be able to help her earn a bachelor’s degree with no student loans.”
Recently, her daughter has been complaining about her teeth. While her teeth aren’t a disaster, they’re a bit flawed, and she has an overbite. When her daughter was 11, while she was still married to her husband, she tried convincing her to get braces, but she didn’t want to for years.
Then, right before the pandemic a few years ago, her daughter felt ready, and they had appointments booked with an orthodontist. However, she backed out at the last minute, and the pandemic hit.
“It’s been four years ago, so I cannot remember exactly what I said to her, but it was something along the lines of if she ever got braces, she needed to get them while she was still a minor,” she recalled.
“Now, she finally wants to get braces this summer. Her dad and I divorced three years ago, and right now, I have really [bad] health and dental insurance. She got a consult, and it’s going to cost nearly $400 a month for 18 months after insurance. I asked her how she would pay for that since she was home for the summer, and she looked at me like I had two heads. I do not.”
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