dd [21] objects to £50 pw rent

[mrsfuzzy]

title says it all, low-ish income house hold. dh reduced hours [26 per wk], i have medical problems so limited for work, ds on j.s.a, two in college, one in school. ddhi college full time, but works 14 -16 hours at weekends, takes home about £600 pm. self inflicted debt, wastes money on stupid things i.e £20 bet that her mate would throw up after chugging a milk shake, dd lost 'but it was a laugh' .
now she has told dm that she is 'paying £50 a week to share a box room with her dsis [3 bed house] and it's not fair because she's not at home much ! dm has just me this on the land line dd uses [dropped her phone - broken].
aibu, considering we cannot do with any reduction in income.

Apologies, AndNow and OP - I missed that.

I see no problem with £50 a week but the one on JSA should be paying close to that as well, if that is all his JSA so be it. He is the one that needs the life lessons. At least the bet was from money she earned, he probably has more spending money a month than his parents and siblings except DD21.

In the absence of further information from the OP, I did notice that the OP has stated in another thread that she charged her daughter £25 per week out of her JSA one year ago.

March 2015

our dd is on jsa and we charge £50 a fortnight, but then we have to as we have five kids at home and dh is on sick present, the other kids are in school and college. she is o.k with that, but we would not do rent free even if we could afford it as it wouldn't do her any favours in the real world when she has bills etc to pay, but i understand many people would disagree with our set up, but it works for us.

I find the idea of adult children living at home and contributing nothing really bizarre.

Maybe it comes down to how it worked when we were that age? It's sort of ingrained. Dh and myself both paid our own way from a young age - I left home when I started working full time and Dh did YTS and paid his parents a percentage.

This is why we take rent from our Ds and will do with the others when they start work. We feel it helps him budget and doesn't make him reliable on a high disposable income that he simply won't have when he has his own place.

Ds has never questioned it and as far as I now his peers all do much the same thing.

We love the bones of him but couldn't have him and his friends and girlfriend coming and going, using our stuff, eating our food etc without contributing something. He's an adult.

bornwithaplasticspoon , everyone to their own thing , I find it bizarre that people take money from their children , I never gave any money to my parents when I started work I simply started paying more of my own expenses , funnily enough I've managed to make it to my late forties without having any problems running a budget .

I paid 25% of my income so if I worked more hours, my parents got more money. I think that was completely fair as my parents were struggling financially at the time. I find the posters who lived at home, earn t money and did not contribute weird tbh.

Obviously if you can afford it then fair enough but the OP clearly cannot afford it and sees her DD wasting money which could be contributing to the household pot. My DD is only 20 months but I would fully expect her to contribute when she is old enough and working.

That's probably the divisive point, isn't it?

Those that grew up in a household that needed a contribution and paid think it is normal. Those that didn't think it is weird/wrong.

Well I think the op is wrong and I did give my parents money.

I think working adult children should contribute.

I also think the wider situation matters a lot.

I would expect my dc to contribute financially and in other ways and I hope that they grow up to be reasonably responsible young adults.

I wouldn't make a profit off the back of my children, I wouldn't treat them differently.

Personally I think the parents (OP and DH) are exploiting their DD. How can two adults with several children justify only working 26 hours per week between them? They should be supporting their DD with her studies. If she is at college full time and making the effort to work at weekends she should be entitled to keep her earnings. And as for a DS on JSA with no job and contributing nothing....well that is sexism pure and simple.
The excuses adults/parent make on MN for not working, and for then expecting their children to financially support them never cease to amaze me.

I agree with the previous poster. Why are the two adults working so little but expecting their 21 year old DD to study full time and work.

The adults and the son on JSA clearly need to work harder if you are all short of money not rely on the DD to pay the bills.

So how much do you all think is reasonable to charge if she was working full time but on a low (min wage ish) job? I am in that situation now with my dd and looking for advice! She is 23 and its her first full time job.

Blue, my son is in a low wage job and gives us 20%.

You don't know why the parents are working few hours, except that there are medical problems.
It is often easier for a young person to find work. Eg McDonalds types jobs are very keen on young people. They may be less keen on an unskilled middle aged person with bad health and childcare and carer responsibilities.
The 21 year old has chosen to do a part time job. They are earning, but propose to pay nothing at all for their keep, just sponge off their poorly paid and in ill health parents?

Do you think that parents should pay for their children's living costs at university, charleybarley?

charley I don't think it's odd to charge. A lot of families really cant afford to support adult children. I couldn't go to Uni etc when I was young, it's not my parents fault as they were both working hard, just in poorly paid jobs as their parents couldn't afford for them to stay on at school in order to get qualifications in order to get better jobs. They did however give us a stable background and what support they could and my brothers and sisters and I have all done well, and can afford to support our kids in a way that our own parents couldn't. I never grudged paying money for my keep.

The OPs case is slightly different in that they are relying on one child for the money when there are other ways that income could be increased.

The one or JSA should pay more and she should pay less, esp of she's hardly there. It is unfair as she will be using a lot less of gas / electricity / food yet shes paying more. Does your son on jsa share a bedroom too?

charley, I don't think you have any inkling of how some people have to live. I agree the costs may not be significantly increased, but any benefits that the parents were getting will no longer be there. So in effect they are less well off but till have the same costs.

In an ideal world, we would all be rich or all education would be free and parents would have the money to support their children as much as many would like to. I am hoping to be able to support my children through Uni if that's what they want, and yes I would try to pay for their accommodation if they are not at home. However, we don't have a big stash of cash and have no rich relatives able to help or inheritance to come. If DH or Is health were to fail or we had another economic downturn, we'd be fucked. Our priority would be keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table. If our, by then adult, children had to work to chip in while studying for their own future, that's just the way it would have to be.

I used to work from when I was 14 to pay the bus fares to school. Didn't do me any harm.

Charleybarley,

A student not having a job is going a bit far. Should parents pay for their students kids social lives too? My daughter loves her job as she has money to have nights out, travel, go to gigs etc.

Charley - the whole point of this thread is that the parents are in financial difficulties.
I sympathise as we are in a bad financial situation too. My DDs, age 11 and 13, have both started to do a bit of work to raise their own pocket money and start to save up a bit. Over time, that will add up to a useful sum, and gives them a sense of control over their own lives, and independence and work ethic. That attitude and the skills they are building up will be a great asset to them in the future, in comparison to the kids who sit at home expecting their parents, however, poor, to serve them everything on a plate.

Just saw your post, Charley. I should have anticipated before conceiving DD1 14 years ago that I would lose my job this year, and not conceived her. And no doubt OP should have anticipated the ill health that she is currently suffering, and not conceived her 21 year old.

charley, but who knows what the future holds though? And are you advocating that poor people should never have children? We are already in a position where there are simply not enough young tax payers to support our pensioners going forward. We could always allow more immigration for that but no-one seems to want that either.

Someone could have a very nice life and income and then one parent dies, gets a debilitating illness or walks out leaving a one parent family. They could go from a nice life to poverty in one swoop - it's impossible to send children back when they are here.