To ask DS to contribute 'rent'?

[herladyship]

DS is 18.

He works 28 hours a week at a gym, and is a retained firefighter.

He pays his own phonebill & car insurance/petrol, but this still leaves him with around £600 disposable income every month. We've talked about him contributing to household, and he agreed (we didn't specify a figure!) but I've been talking to friends with teens & popular opinion seems to be against me! Most people have commented it is 'old fashioned' or that it's mean if we don't 'need' the money..

DH has suggested we set an amount & then put it away for DS to have in future, but if we are doing that, maybe it would it be better to just encourage him to manage his own saving?

What does the MN jury think?
(ps: would prefer not to be flamed, as this is first ever AIBU )

YANBU of course a working adult should pay for his keep. Nobody can live on fresh air.

My son pays £70 per week which covers his rent, food - usually cooked for him, laundry done, gas, electricity, broadband, phone, sky TV,

I think he gets a pretty good deal actually. Mind you, so does he to be fair.

Perhaps this is why he's living at home and he's 25.

Neither of mine paid anything. If dd now comes home she will buy her own food although there is no need. She will also ask if I need anything from the supermarket and will buy it.

oh and I don't save the money for him. I use it to pay bills.

I had to pay 20% of my take home pay, up to a maximum. (The actual amount is lost in the mists of time.) I intend to do similar for my DC, if they live with me as adults.

I certainly wouldnt be doing an 18 year olds laundry. And I would be expecting him to take his turn shopping and cooking.
This kind of thing really makes me despair tbh. There are so many threads on here from women who have husbands who can't/won't do things to run the household, and this is where it starts-with mothers continuing to do it all for grown male children. I have seen it with my mum and my brother, and she wonders why he can't hold down a relationship.
Young adults still need mothering, in that they need emotional support, guidance and a stable base to come home to, but they do not need someone else to do their laundry.

As previously posted, DS can & does cook! He also will shop if required but majority is done online. He drives his grandfather to appointments & assists in caring for him, cares for his sister (12), helps in garden, and is very mature & responsible.

He also holds down 2 jobs, one of which is an 'on call' position as a firefighter, so he rarely drinks alcohol or parties late at night as he may be required to attend a life or death situation.. Yes, I do his laundry. Mainly because I often need to 'make up' a load & it is no more effort!

Please don't waste your 'despairing' on him or on my parenting of him.. Surely you can find a more worthy recipient of it.

fwiw, amongst DS's friends it is more likely to be the girls who don't cook/iron/help around the home

From what you describe herladyship I would be looking at the marginal cost of his keep (ie what he costs extra). This will mainly be food cost (that healthy gym diet probably isnt cheap) plus a little bit for bills. This part you could perfectly happily take from him each month and keep.

If you wanted to force him to save but not let him have access to the savings then you make this up to a sum that you think is reasonable (say 25% of take home pay).

I would be honest with him and tell him how much he is paying for food/housekeeping and how much is 'saving'. This way when he is ready to look at moving out he knows how much he has available for a deposit and also has some sense of costs. He can enjoy seeing his savings grow and also the real costs give you an opportunity to discuss the costs of running a household.

I had to pay 25% of my net income when I was your son's age. Most of my friends paid 10%, so I wasn't over impressed with paying so much, but my Dad's standard response was "If you can find anywhere cheaper to live, feel free to move out.". He kinda had me over a barrel there!

FWIW, I think I had to do my own ironing, but Mum did all the shopping, cleaning and cooking etc. She was a SAHM, so perhaps didn't mind doing must of the household stuff, and when I moved out to live by myself, I was perfectly capable of looking after myself. OP, your son sounds lovely!

I had to hand over 1/4 of my wages at that age for 'rent'.

I've seen threads like this before where people have replied along the lines of 'I didn't have children to make money out of them' - which sounds a bit more like your friends, OP?

I agree with the majority of posters that adult children no longer in full time education should pay rent. Both of ours are currently at uni but we may be getting one back after graduation this year, depends what the job situation is like.

DH's view was we should take rent, save it and give it all back when she buys her own place. I'm not happy to give everything back. I'd keep a portion for food and utilities, then give back any rent element. My food bill more than doubles during university holidays and I don't understand why a working adult should not pay their way,

I think it also comes down to respect. I'd much rather have an adult child that ran errands, babysat siblings, occasionally hoovered, made the family dinner & did their own laundry etc. stay at home for 'free'. Than have one who did sweet FA and paid £100 keep.

I resented paying 'rent' because I did all the above. I was responsible as a teen. I had a part time job from 14. As I said life is tough as a teen/ young adult the last thing I'd want is to make it even tougher for my child. Your children remain your children for life regardless of age.

Rant over.

Obviously it's reasonable to expect some kind of financial contribution.

However, the rental market - particularly in London and the South East - is so impossible for young people right now that it would actually be better to do this: charge what you're owed for food expenses and extra bills, and also insist that some portion of his monthly disposable income is saved up so that he has a decent financial buffer which will enable him to move out completely later on, or to put a deposit down on a house.

I wouldn't charge an extra 'rent' fee on top of all that, which just disappears into your pockets. The older generation have had it quite a lot better than the younger generation financially, and the younger generation needs their support, not extra demands for money.

YANBU, ridiculous for an adult to be not paying rent. I lived alone on another continent at his age..and paid rent!

I'd much rather have an adult child that ran errands, babysat siblings, occasionally hoovered, made the family dinner & did their own laundry etc. stay at home for 'free'. Than have one who did sweet FA and paid £100 keep.

You say that like it is an either/or. I would expect them to be a contributing member of the family unless they were paying for maid service too.

jammybean Those are things that anyone in the family should be doing long before they're adults earning and needing to pay rent and would continue!

I can't see an issue with the OP doing his laundry, what would be the point in not doing the whole families laundry together to complete a 'load'. I think it would be quite nasty to specifically say he can't put his washing in with the rest of them.

Me and XH lived with my mum when we were in the process of buying a house. All our laundry went in together, yes I would put it on too of course but we are family, not lodgers!

When I had a lodger I often used to ask if she had any laundry to go in with mine - not really a big deal.

My brother lived at home until he got married at 25 as it made no sense to rent elsewhere when saving for a house and he turned out perfectly ok. He knew how to cook and put washnig on etc - just because my mum did it whilst we were at home doesn't make him useless, we all mucked in.

OP- your son sounds really nice and caring. I hope my boys turn out as responsible as him!

If my kids decide to live here while they earn then they can contribute towards the expense of running the home. I will never ask them to leave (except in exceptional circumstances) and they will always have a roof over their heads if I have anything to do with it.
My own introduction to rent and paid work was harsh. I got a job at 16 that paid me £1.96 an hour. I only worked 5 hours on a Friday evening to begin with. Once a month less than £40 would hit my bank account. I had to buy my mum 40 fags and give her £20. I wouldn't even have enough left to pay my bus fare to college and I ended up walking the 3 miles most days. As she was still getting child benefits and the appropriate amount of family credit (or whatever it was back then) she was doing well out of me. She stopped buying me clothes when I was 13 as she felt I should be responsible for buying my own things. That would have been fine but I had no money at all (never mind pocketmoney).

Sorry pressed send too soon. I also cooked, cleaned, looked after my siblings etc. I was a proper little skivvy. i'm not saying there is anything wrong with helping out in the home but the amount I did was disproportionate for very little reward. I am teaching my kids how to be responsible and to look out for each other but thats it. If and when they do pay keep it'll be a nominal amount. I won't be saving it for them. I'm already saving up for them. Not much but £20 a month each. Its all we can afford tbh. If they want to save its up to them. I hope they do but I won't force them to.

I lived at home on and off after Uni, ans between flatshares and living overseas. My first job (post Uni) paid £11,500 a year, in 1998, and I paid £200 a month 'digs' to my folks. I also regularly bought shopping for the house, and, of course, did my share of housework, cooking, etc. This covered my bed, board, bills, etc., and I used my Mum's car, with only having to pay petrol. My 'digs' were seen as helping to pay for insurance, tax, etc. I was lucky my parents were comfortable, but I did appreciate I couldn't just live there for free. This wasn't saved for me for a deposit or anything, I should add - it went into the costs of the house.

He definitely should pay rent.

I don't understand the "teaching him responsibility" line. The boy works, he is already paying for his mobile, petrol, etc; presumably he understands if you want a service, you pay for it. He sounds pretty responsible to me. I don't think young people need to "practice" spending money on bills. If a grown child is truly irresponsible, then tell them they must move out -that will force them to shape up quick.

If you want him to contribute to cover his bills, then fine. But don't take his money for the sake of it.

I also think it is patronising to take the money and put it in savings for him. It sends a message you don't trust him to do it himself.

Hope this doesn't come across as stirring , but I've been wondering if those of you who save your DCs' contributions to give back to them later as a house deposit would give an equivalent amount to other DCs who choose not to live at home once they've finished full-time education? It seems a bit unfair if not, especially as the ones living at home are already subsidised to some extent by paying much less than a private rental would cost (and therefore have a much better chance of saving for a deposit). I'm probably bitter and heartless from having chosen to leave home and support myself as soon as I got a job while my brothers stayed at home for free...

Also, I read recently that the average age that men move out of their parents' house is now 34 or so. Women tend to move out sooner (e.g. to flat shares). Avoiding the argument about whether this creates men who are helpless husbands and fathers I do wonder if it creates an economic disparity between the sons and daughters in a family?