to expect my teenaged son to pay us a decent rent now he's working full time?

[julesbd]

My 19 year old son decided after A levels to take a year out, so he's been working full time (at min wage take home £180 per week) for the last 6 months and paying us £25 per wk housekeeping/rent. He was supposed to be starting an HND this Sept, but he's decided to carry on working instead of going to college, which is ok. My husband says that he should be paying more rent (£50 per wk) as he's now a wage earner not a student. He is horrified although that would still leave him with £50 + per week disposable income after all his bills (car ins, petrol, rent, phone bill). We are both professionals on good salaries with the usual bills and 3 children and we do not have £50 spare per week each to spend on ourselves. AWBU? Bear in mind he has really good food, internet, nice big warm bedroom, avoids household chores if possible and gets to have his girlfriend to stay. If he lived in a rented flat he'd have to pay way more for much less comfort.
What is an acceptable amount to charge a young worker living at home?

I think if parents want to charge 'on principle' its entirely up to them.

They are not abusing their children or profiteering.

Its a parenting choice like any other.

YANBU infact you are treating him a valuable life lesson. Nothing is free even in the house of Mum and Dad. I never lived at the home past college but I always bought and paid for my own holidays clothes and contributed towards food.

Fabby your attitude is shock so you would be happy for your adult children to be freeloading off you! What are you going to do when they are 30,40,50 and still freeloading off you, god you are a pushover.

The money that op son is paying is an absolute bargain. Where in RL can you find that sort of a deal. £50 for room, bills, food, clean laundry, bargain! However if I did not need the money it would go into a savings fund for my dd/ds. You go into a supermarket and a weeks worth of shopping can cost half of that, plus you would have the rent of the room to pay for.

Some parents are making rods for their own backs.

Or perhaps some parents worry that their children will not visit them if it isn't worth their while.

I agree you CAN charge on principle, absolutely. My point is that you shouldn't feel you HAVE to charge in order that they learn from it.

Nobody is being financially abused here, the op son is an Adult he is also an earner. what if he did not have his parents he would have to pay between £80-150 for a room per week, on top of that he would have to contribute towards bills, buy his own food, do his own laundry. The parents are teaching him a valuable life lesson, that stuff costs, nothing is free in this world. Better be in that position, than struggling on his own in the outside world.

I had to pay 'rent' the minute I earnt my first wage and actually i didnt think of it as wrong at all.

It taught me the value of money as I had to survive the rest of the month on what was left!

The real shocker being leaving home and the sudden realisation how little parents do ask us to contribute!

Its a valuable lesson to all our kids I think. When they are earning they should have to pay a small % of the costs. If its anything like my house they eat most of the food, use and abuse the house and run up the bills anyway!

I am totally agog that some people are prepared to subsidise working adults!

Oh and fabby just because dd is my child and I gave birth to her, does not mean I have to pay for her for the rest of her life unless of course she was sick or disabled, and I had to, that is a different, I am not a heartless cow, or she was going through a bad time in her life. That is where my role of a parent comes in and I help her, but I will not be taken advantage of either.

yes yes yes - lay out his choices. 1. move out, 2. pay £50 3. another of your choosing - plent ideas here. Time to grow up - you earn or learn that's the deal! If you don't need the money, I would say save it for a deposit for a house/car/future help/holiday for him without him knowing.

They don't suddenly stop being your children at 18 you know

US, nobody is suggesting that OP should have suddenly disowned him on his 18th birthday

I know usual but also you don't want a freeloading adult on your hands either, children become adults and with that comes responsibilities. As I said I would be there and help them if they needed but also don't want to be taken for a ride either.

No they dont usual but they do become adults with all that entails.

I dont have the same relationship with my 8 year old now as I did when he was 2. I dont wipe his bum because that wouldnt be appropriate. My 3 year old dresses himself even though I could dress him myself. But he is now 3 and should do it for himself or what happens when he goes to school and doesnt know how to put his coat on?

I dont expect to treat my adult children as if they were children. With the freedom and shift in the dynamic adulthood brings comes additional responsiblities on both sides.

I would expect my grown children to act like caring and thoughtful adults eg. to pay their way. In turn they expect to be able to make their own decisions about their lives and not have to ask my permission to stay over at a friends house or be told what clothes to wear.

The OP son is getting help from his parents, in the real world do you think that you can get room, food, washing, bills paid for £50 a week, I don't think so, only in a parents house you would

My son takes home £240 per week and pays £30 per week plus any phone calls he makes.

thefirstMreDeVere You make a very good point there. It is definitely about giving adult children the tools to look after themselves.

Most responsible adults aren't looking for handouts, they would rather have the tools to work things out for themselves.

'They don't suddenly stop being your children at 18 you know'

I'm currently helping fund DD through uni, and DS through college. Neither is paying rent. We are not talking about dependent children, but independent adults earning a wage. Why are you using paying and providing everything for them as a measure of how much you love and care for them?

Fabby would be horrified by me then. Ds2 failed his first year at university as he decided he wanted to change to another subject. He didn't bother asking the university for months though and by the time he did, they agreed to him changing only if he passed the first year of his current course (despite the fact that he had more than enough UCAS points for the course he wanted to change to). Of course he hadn't been working nearly hard enough to pass (so I think this was his fault - he should have asked them earlier and then he would have got his finger out!). He spent this past academic year doing a further qualification in the subject he wants to do and is going back to uni in October.

First of all, he wanted to stay in England to do this qualification rather than come back here so I made him pay half of what it cost to keep him in England (not all because we would have had to feed him and pay higher bills if he'd been here). He had money we'd saved for him until he was 18. It's all gone now but that was his choice - he wanted to stay with his friends and girlfriend.

Secondly, he can't get a loan for a second first year so we have to pay it. He's doing a summer job at the moment and will be handing over most of his salary to me to start paying me back for the fees. I will expect him to do this over the next two summers as well.

We thought we would be paying for three years of living costs when he first when to university which is already a huge financial commitment, not four plus £3000+ for fees. Do you really think we should pay this Fabby?

My children have never freeloaded off of me, my son put HIMSELF through Uni I didn't pay a penny, he left Uni after four years and got a job paying 600 a week take home, he has been in that job 2 months.

He knows what it is like to have to pay bills he has lived in rented accoodation for three years after halls. He done it all on his own.

He now pays half rent which costs him £800 a month, TV licence, council tax etc.,

Children do grow up they don't need pushing.

My youngest 18, is also putting himself through Uni.

Christmas 2012 will see my eldest with a bonus of 40 to 50k, and I know he will give me 10k, he is also proposing to buy me a house when he is 30k.

Freeloading! ha. My children know what I have sacrificed so that they can go to Uni, they know what I sacrificed to be a single parent, and they show their appreciation in the way they treat me and how they expect theirs and my future to pan out.

I've raised two fantastic children, and that is not just through sheer luck, but through how I have brought them up, my ideals, my beliefs.

My working colleague has a Uni graduate living at home too, who works and has got her degree, she doesn't charge her anything either.

I guess it depends on whether you want to push your children or help them grow. I know which I would prefer.

I don;t get arsey when people comment on how I have raised my kids, because no one can fault them, or how well they both have progressed as young me or how their futures will pan out, I've to take some credit for that because it is all down to me.

Fabby...then why did you have to be such a bitch upthread ?

You have had a hard time on this thread since you added your offensive post...and you deserved every word of it

oh, and stop boasting...you aren't even bothering to make it stealthy now

I don;t get arsey when people comment on how I have raised my kids

No, you just get arsey and abusive about other people's choices.

And if your friend has a freeloading sponging graduate living with her she's a mug as well.

The boasting doesn't cut it. You just have no manners...if your kids are "fantastic" they've obviously turned out ok despite you. You still encourage sponging and freeloading though.

I wouldn't presume to have the right to comment on how you've raised your children Fabby. I just thought you'd think I was being mean to take money from ds2. He knew when he stayed in England that we wouldn't be able to afford to pay for him to stay there but he chose to do it anyway. His choice.

We're paying for him through uni because he couldn't get any sort of maintenance loan being an EU student. Working as a student is a bit bizarre here in Belgium (where he is registered). You are only allowed to work for 46 days a year on a student contract, 23 of which have to be in the summer. There are no Saturday jobs. (This is because of how much an employer has to pay in social security payments if they take you on for longer than 46 days.) You can't get a job (or leave school) until you're 18. You can do babysitting and odd jobs cash in hand but none of that is enough to pay a year at university.

Fabby I am speechless that you berate other parents for taking money from their adult working children...and makes statements like I didn't have children to make money from them at all, I knew when I gave birth they would cost me until they left home to live in their own place.

Later though,you admit you clearly are making money from your children and a large sum of it at that.

Christmas 2012 will see my eldest with a bonus of 40 to 50k, and I know he will give me 10k, he is also proposing to buy me a house when he is 30k.

I don't ever expect my DC to give me lump sums of cash for a Christmas holiday, nor buy me a house.