My 16 year old has just told me...

[itwasadarkandstormy]

... that all his friends are given £200 a week by their parents as spending money. I'm calling bullshit.

Actually, I feel like I've had the stuffing knocked out of me. I thought I was generous at about £80 a week.

So, AIBU?

£80 a week! Do you spend that much on yourself? Presumably you buy food, heating etc. But to just have it as spending money... and at 16, what’s he buying? That could pay towards uni if you saved it for him, driving lessons or a house deposit. Tell him to get a job and bung him a tenner.

darkandstormy so how much does he spend on travel and food ?
I assume lunches ?

"He pays for all good and travel out of this money. It's not total burning a hole in his pocket money."

So how much is left after food and travel?

But I wish people would stop saying "get a job"! It's really not that easy.

Is she for real? Tell her to get off her butt and do some housework if she doesn't already! At 16 she can work, maybe as a cleaner or something?! You have to earn money, not simply be given it!

" At 16 she can work, maybe as a cleaner or something?"
Almost certainly not. The job market for 16 year olds has changed a lot since you were that age. And even more since I was.

DS13 and DS15 have a 1 day per week milk round ( more in the holidays) and get £15 per shift a week.
I buy their clothes and hand over the odd £10 but its not a weekly set amount.

We are not rolling in money and since they started thier job they have a better understanding of how earning is not easy.

I could not imagine even if I had money that giving them £80 pw is a good thing.

Cosmic- that is almost certainly illegal.

DS17 gets £50 per month from me (recently increased from £25) and has wages from his job which averages about £60 per month. I buy his monthly travel card, give him money for food and drinks, and buy any school essentials such as clothes, trips etc. All he has to pay for are lottery tickets, Xbox games if he wants them, and any additional clothes etc. He usually saves more than he spends.

Why are you giving him£50 a month???

No offence intended but clearly you are A. Loaded (which is your business) and B. Not interested in teaching your kids the value of money and how it works within the world.

He is free-loading. £80 is not teaching him any work incentive and giving him a strong message of entitlement. Those things won't help him at all in the world.

He's lying about the friends getting £200 pw. No GROUP of parents could be that daft. The Beckham kids have had to earn their pocket money FFS.

Yes Bert just as paper rounds are illegal.
I really dont care if it is tbh.

Its a Saturday morning, does not affect their schooling and teaches them a hell of a lot more than me giving them £80 per week for nothing.

001 if that was aimed at me, because I am fortunate and can afford to. DH recently stopped smoking and DS is learning to drive - currently he's using a block of 25 lessons booked as a joint birthday present from us, my parents and his older brother, but at some point may need more which he will fund. DH and I didn't have much money when we married and our own parents struggled financially, so now that we are able to, I like to treat him. He is not entitled, grabby or demanding, and is happy to wait if he wants something but hasn't got enough money that month. He understands that money doesn't grow on trees and is actively seeking a better paid part time.job - when he is able to get one we will probably stop the £50 per month.

It's pretty pointless anyway unless we know what comes out of the 80 quid. 80 quid spending money is bonkers. 80 quid to cover a week's expenses not so much.

I never had to buy my own toiletries or pay my bus fares to college etc while I Iived at home. It certainly didn't make me feckless with money and neither did I think money grew on trees. I have never relied on credit cars or even used car finance.

I sometimes think certain parents use the 'teaching them the value of money' argument to justify their meaness.

It seems odd to pay for clothes and toiletries but not give him money for food (is this just lunches?) and travel (does this include travel to school).

I would do things the other way around i.e. pay for lunch/travel to school but not pay for clothes and toiletries beyond essential as the former seems much more important. You surely don't want him to be hungry at school because he is trying to save money by not buying lunch?

Surely everyone just chucks toothpaste, shampoo and soap/showergel etc in with their shopping or are we talking perfume/aftershave and make-up?

I just put whatever is on a deal at the time of purchase into the bathroom and let them get on with it. Nicer stuff is given for birthdays and christmases but my boys don't really bother very much, they don't mind smelling of strawberrys or apples or whatever happened to be the best deal that week. :)

...and it wouldn't occur to me to charge them for it from their pocket money or even to work out who is using what.

I sometimes think certain parents use the 'teaching them the value of money' argument to justify their meaness.

I am a single parent with 4 DC and money is not in abundance. Not being able to give them loads of pocket money does not make me mean nor does teaching them that mobey has to be earned

My DSs found the job themselves it was not my idea and earning their own money has had a positive impact on them on how to budget and learning to work for what you want.

Its soft arse parents that spoil their children and give them everything they want that are breeding a generation of spoilt entitled lazy brats.

I'm not sure that the most appropriate ground for a discussion of economic inequality is the terrain of parenting - it so often ends up with a descent into bitch-slapping other mothers and calling children names.

Economic inequality is a pernicious wrong in a first-world country. I think it would be better to come together and argue for greater wealth distribution, so that all children (and adults) have access to high-quality public goods.

As an example, it's pretty pointless to say that children who are raised in affluence will somehow have fewer life-skills - with the attendant, though unvoiced, implication that this will somehow impede their 'getting on in life'. This so clearly isn't the case. There is now less social mobility than there was in the late 1960s. Privilege is clearly replicating itself.

The trouble with discussing inequality on the proxy terrain of parenting is that you can't deal with this evident truth, and thereby can't begin to build an alliance to argue for the abolition of income inequality and its concomitant effects on life outcome.

I know that this is a parenting website, and it's almost inevitable that discussions which start from the particular, real and lived experiences of individuals will veer in this direction - but still ...

Let's not divide ourselves about this.

Good post cat. I come form a background where my brothers, sisters and I all had to work to suplement the family income. I didn't get pocket money ever in the sense that i was given money with no purpose attached. That said, if my parents could spare it they would give a few pence for the sweet shop or a bit more for a cinema trip. If they didn't have it then that was that.

I'm in a position now that whilst we are on below or about average income, we can pay for my DSs to have some opportunities and to have some pocket money and for them not to have to work. I give £40 a month and that's just for their own us. I think that's generous and they save most of it. I think now at 17 and 16 it would do them good to get a job just to help with social skills and the like.

However, they are far from spoiled brats who don't know the value of money. They don't ask for anything and in addition to school work etc they do volunteer in the community. I'mnot convinced they wold be doing it if it wasn't for DofE though, they are teenagers not saints!

Giving people things doesn't make them spoiled or unable to function just as working from a young age doesn't make you more virtuous.

I emind them often what the minimum wage is per hour and therefore how many hours someone would need to work to pay for whatever it is we re talking about.

My 17 year old gets £5 weekdays only for food, so £25 a week and this is only during term time to pay for his lunch at school. He has a couple of jobs so he is earning for other spending money.

£100 a month for lunch seems insane to me but then mine take a packed lunch and always have. I couldn't imagine shelling out £200 between them. It costs a fraction of that to send them with lunch.

He used to have packed lunch but both mine have school dinners now. Youngest is free school meals. Prices at upper school are high I think but then teenage boys eat like a horse.

Yes they do eat like horses hence the packet lunches! I reckon i costs about a tenner or so a week for the two of them - filled sandwich/wrap, couple of pieces of fruit, a biscuit or something and maybe an egg or chicken drumstick or sausage roll or some cheese and biscuits etc. Fill a water bottle and job done! They don't like school lunches becasue it takes too long, there's nowhere to sit and unfortunately there is nothing within walking distance that they could go to buy stuff so money is of no use.