An Argentinian woman filed a case in family court to be allowed to stop supporting her 22-year-old daughter financially because she neglected her university studies and didn’t have a job.

The unnamed woman told family court judge María Laura Dumple that her 22-year-old daughter had been enrolled at the National University of Río Negro since 2020 but had only completed 11% of her studies and had no intention of getting a job. She explained that cutting her child off financially was the best way not to allow her to continue doing nothing with her life. Argentina’s Civil Code establishes the obligation of parents to provide resources to their child until the age of 25, provided that the child cannot support himself due to studies or work.

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“It should be noted that for the maintenance due by parents to their children, based on article 663 of the Civil and Commercial Code, the child between 21 and 25 years of age must prove the continuity of his studies to acquire a profession or trade and, thus, be able to enter the labor market in better conditions,” the family court judge said. “In addition, they must prove that this prevents him from obtaining the necessary resources to support themselves.”

Judge Dumple told Cadena 3 that young people are of legal age at 18 and that the alimony can only be extended past this age if it is proven that the young person is studying and cannot provide for themselves. However, this didn’t seem to be the case of the 22-year-old youth who had been going to university for 4 years but had only completed 11 percent of her training.

Article 663 of the Civil Code is designed to help young people who are pursuing higher education or learning a trade but cannot yet support themselves, either due to the difficulty of the degree they are pursuing, or to the schedule of classes and internships, which may be distributed at different times of the day, making employment difficult. However, in some cases, the parents’ duty to support their adult children is being abused.

“We cannot be rigid in applying the Code; we must consider the social reality of each case,” the judge said, adding that the woman’s 22-year-old daughter did not appear in court to defend her position in the judicial process.