Not to want to pay for my 17 year old DD's mobile phone?

[Absolutelylost]

She earns about £40 a week for a couple of sessions of washing pots at a local pub whilst studying for A levels and insists that absolutely everyone else has their phone paid for by their parents. It's only me that's totally tight and unreasonable. Apparently it's her right.... She's having to save her money for something very important but it's not my business to know. I have paid her contract for 2 years but I think it's about time she took some responsibility.

Am I unreasonable?

married
I'm with TalkMobile.
ds is with Tesco.

Neither of us has ever had a problem with coverage, except in the remotest mountains of North Wales (and that's the same for all providers). No idea about rest of Europe - never used them there.

We pay £15 a month for ds1 (15) contract with unlimited calls and texts. He has my old iPhone 3 gs and actually offered to pay it himself out of his paper round money but we agreed to pay it as part of his Xmas present. We're all on O2 as it's the only network we can get at home. We're on the north Wales coast, a mile down the road it switches to Vodafone.

I pay all my kids cell phone bills they are 20,19 and 17. They all work part time but are still in full time education so I told them Id pay till they finished college

lets not talk about the car payments and car insurance payments

I would tell her she can have a contribution (not the whole lot paid) when she starts making a regular, not nagged for and proper contribution to the running of the household: tidy room, basic chores (ironing, emptying dishwasher, putting bins out etc).

I like the idea, Eldritch, can't see it happening in my lifetime!

Yes, but by offering (and her failing to accept) then the reason she doesn't get a contribution is HER OWN FAULT and ENTIRELY IN HER POWER TO CHANGE.

I'm very keen on making reasonable offers that are bound to be unreasonably refused. It outmanoeuvres the opposition and gives one the moral high ground!

What does your DH think, by the way?

OP it sounds to me like you let her get away with it. You should tell her to do the jobs suggested rather than shrugging your shoulders and saying "not in my liftime........"

I amnot a particularly generous parent and DS2 isn't over indulged but I do pay for his phone (Contract, just under £11pm) as part of his pocket moey. PAYG is more expensive and he couldn't have the contract in his name until he was 18 anyway. I'll carry on paying while he is at uni - will ensure he keeps in contact and keeps safe, then he will be on his own.

I do, to a certain extent Lottie, because she wears me down. I have 3 other children, 3 part time jobs, a DH with a demanding job and a fair size house to run. It's easier not to get sucked in. DH is supportive, we agreed that we would restore her contract when she cleared her room. She is in the middle of AS levels at the moment so she claims, probably reasonably, not to have time. As soon as they finish, she won't have that excuse anymore.

I think she leaves her room looking like a squat to prove that she won't give in to my petty bourgeois demands for a semblance of order. Just seeing a square inch of carpet would be nice.