To tell DS i won’t pick him up from the airport at 2am or drop him off again after how he behaved today?

This post is from April so I’d imagine it’s all sorted by now. 😆

Who is your daughter sharing a room with?

No, don't give him a lift. No need to. Didn't need any of the background by the way, it's too late and he can use whatever money he is using to fund his trip abroad. Or book a hotel near the airport and use public transport in the morning.

So what if he’s tired and grumpy? That’s a foreseeable consequence of his decision to go on his trip. A luxury trip he chose to make.

Taking his grumpiness out on you and other people though? That is TOTALLY unacceptable and needs coming down on like a ton of bricks.

He blames you because a man abused you. Read that out loud and think about how messed up that is.

He’s responding to that by manipulating you with his strops. That is abuse. He’s treating you as his low-value, servant punchbag and is a trainee abuser. He’s creating similar environment for his younger siblings as the one he grew up in. That needs addressing, fast.

The sooner he gets out into the world, finds a job and gains some responsibility the better.

He’s living a lifestyle that promotes ill-health and depression. By choice. If you wanted to induce depression in an otherwise healthy person, depriving them of daylight, good food, exercise and purpose is exactly what you’d do. He needs a reason to get up in the morning.

The only way he’ll get a better job is to be in a job, gaining skills and experience.

I think it’s time for some difficult conversations.

I’ve read all of your updates.

It sounds like you need to sit down and have a proper chat with him. He needs to find the motivation to do something because you cannot support him forever.

Do you think he feels like a failure because of his Maths, college, theory test, previous relationship, previous jobs…? If he does, he might now have a bit of a “fuck it” attitude where he feels it’s better to not try at all than to try and fail again.

You can lay out the boundaries with him:

• Either he joins you for a family meal and eats what you’re all having or he sorts his own food. You won’t be guessing what food he wants you to buy in.
• He is not to disturb his brother from his sleep. It’s his own fault that he has decided to have a ridiculous sleep schedule.
• He is to show respect to you and the family. You won’t be bending over backwards to get him to the airport and back if he cannot even be civil.

If he can’t or doesn’t want to agree to this, he moves out.

Do you think there are 950,000 job vacancies out there that these young folk are just too lazy to fill? 🤨

I’ve read all of your updates.

It sounds like you need to sit down and have a proper chat with him. He needs to find the motivation to do something because you cannot support him forever.

Do you think he feels like a failure because of his Maths, college, theory test, previous relationship, previous jobs…? If he does, he might now have a bit of a “fuck it” attitude where he feels it’s better to not try at all than to try and fail again.

You can lay out the boundaries with him:

• Either he joins you for a family meal and eats what you’re all having or he sorts his own food. You won’t be guessing what food he wants you to buy in.
• He is not to disturb his brother from his sleep. It’s his own fault that he has decided to have a ridiculous sleep schedule.
• He is to show respect to you and the family. You won’t be bending over backwards to get him to the airport and back if he cannot even be civil.

If he can’t or doesn’t want to agree to this, he moves out.

While I agree he probably needs some tough love and to build resilience against normal workplace frustrations, I also think a lot of posters here don’t appreciate quite how depressing the current economy and job market are for young adults. It honestly feels like there’s no way through. The whole process of applying for jobs is broken because of AI spamming, and that’s on top of widespread slow down in hiring for entry level roles. There is such an oversupply of graduates compared to grad jobs and the old “it’ll do for now” jobs like retail, bars etc have been hit so hard by the decline of the high street and high cost of living. It’s an absolute shit show. Most people can accept things being tough now if there’s hope of improvement but a 21 year old has seen their prospects just getting worse and worse for almost all of their formative years and for many there’s no realistic way to build a good career. I’m mid career and just finishing a contract in what is supposedly a high growth industry. I’m very well educated and capable. I can’t get any interviews right now and don’t honestly see a path forward. Cold applications just go into a black hole and even professional networks can’t deliver because everyone is overwhelmed and every job gets like 20+ personal recommendations. He’s got to try but my god it is brutal.

I have 4 dc 3 boys 21 and 12 and 3 and a 12yo girl I split with my ex (dad of 3 oldest) in 2017, he was abusive and he’s not involved, the twins don't really remember him because they were only 4 but eldest does obviously and he did whiteness some of the abuse, he was also emotionally abusive toward him (that’s what pushed me to split when he started on eldest)

We moved into a 3 bed house as that’s all i could afford the older 2 boys share a room in bunk beds, eldest has the bunk with a double. DD shares and 3yo has his own bed in my room. I've I never lived with his dad FT but he does stay over though our relationship is complicated somewhat atm

The reason I haven't partitioned the elder boys room is because eldest was complaining about not having a double and he wouldn't have been able to with a sectioned room due to space as the room isn't huge as it is.

he didn't sit his GCSEs due to it being the covid year, but he did well with the predicted grades though he did fail maths. He started a catering course but dropped out after a few months, generally he was ok atittudewise etc though

He then got a job the following year which he hated as it was at a supermarket so very early shifts. He is obsessed with the artist Louis Tomlinson so he bought tickets to go and see his tour (in 2023 I think) but the manager said he couldn't have all those days off so he quit on the spot and used his trust fund money from when he turned 18 to go travelling around Europe and he was mostly travelling that year. I didn't exactly begrudge it as he was an adult and I imagined it would be like taking a gap year

However he didn't get a job straight away but after a while he did, he worked there for about 10/11 months and quit last march. He claimed his manager was treating him badly and quit over message. His gf broke up with him a few months prior and he claimed he was depressed and he’d stay in bed all day on his phone, sleeping in the day and on his phone at night with airpods so he wasn’t distubrting his brother but still. But he would complain when he’d get up for school as he’d wake him. He was prescribed antidepressants and offered therapy, he had about 3 sessions but he hasn’t for a while and he said the therapist isn’t helping

He doesn’t have many local friends but he would go out drinking a few times a week and was getting back drunk and sometimes disturbing us and other times staying out and not letting me know. I know he’s an adult but stilll he lives here it’s not a hotel

He doesn’t work still and last year Louis tomlinson announced he was going on tour which gave ds more of a reason not to work, he wasn’t pleased he couldn’t go to as many dates as before but said there was no point getting a job because he wouldn’t be allowed the time off. He’s now content with the 4 dates he has including one abroad and has said he will get a job when he’s attended his tour dates. He has been looking and applied for a few but not properly looking and he hasn’t heard back. He has a bf now and he’s in uni so hopefully he’ll want to do well too but i’ll believe it when i see it as he didn’t when he had a gf.

He left today (well yesterday now thursday) to go to the concert, he booked his coach to the airport for 4:50 in the morning so i had to drop him off as it’s a 20/25 min drive and he can’t drive. I agreed to it and woke up at 3:50, he had gone to sleep for an early night for a change and id already told his brother not to disturb him if he was playing on his playstation or watching something as eldest was complaining.

Ds wasn’t even awake so i went into him at about 4, he didn’t get up straight away and was complaining he was tired and when he finally did get up he made unnecessary noise and woke his brother. Luckily he didn’t have school today.

He was snappy the whole time in the car and even when i said i didn’t have to drop him off he still didn’t seem grateful.

He’s on the last flight home of the day on Saturday and the coach is 3.5 hours and isn’t meant to arrive here until 1;55 in the morning so i’ll have stay awake and then do a 40/50 minute round trip again

Would it BU to tell him i won’t pick him up after today? Or drop him off at the coach station again, he’ll have to make his own way there or organise something else

As a taxpayer I am pretty brassed-off hearing all these stories about inactive young peoples who can't get off their scrawny arses and get a job..

An estimated 12.8% of all people aged 16 to 24 years in the UK were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in October to December 2025.

The total is currently estimated to be 957,000, up from 946,000 in July to September 2025.

Outrageous 😡

I did speak to him at the time about it but he said he just wanted to focus on his MH as he had no motivation for anything and he was suicidal etc, again whether he was or not and was just being manipulating I don't know

He has applied to a few jobs at restaurants mostly but he hasn't been offered even an interview, he barely has anything on his CV and no qualifications apart from GCSEs and that's not even including maths so they don'bother as there's likely multiple people applying for the one role

I don't think kicking gum out with do anything though other than ruin our relationship and he already doesn't see his dad

He was working in a small shop at a petrol station and he didn’t like how he was often on a 6/7 hour shift on his own on the till as it meant that it was a struggle with breaks, he thought his manager spoke to him rudely and he didn’t get many shifts in a week. The final straw for him (i don’t know for certain) was him making a mistake and his manager”had a go@ at him and said that’s why he didn’t get many shifts, he was the one that did the rota i think. The mistake was to do with someone’s change and it was the only mistake he’d made in nearly a year of working there. again this is only ds’s side and I don't know for certain but they did have a high turnover of staff starting and then leaving shortly after starting