To think the "Empty Nest" mum in the Guardian needs to come on aibu and be handed a grip?

[Winterbeaches]

Does anyone else read this? I wish she'd give her head a wobble. She has four adult children living at home, three in her twenties. I know this is increasingly common, but the extent to which she babies her children is not. Last week, her daughters had a tantrum over the house being redecorated, this week she's just got rid of her youngest, only to have her nephew move in. Apparently she has no say in this. Her adult children sound as messy and disrespectful of the house as your average three year old.

The woman needs to grow a backbone. I am not that much older than her eldest, and also lived with my parents for a while as an adult. I was expected to pay them rent plus contribute to big expenses like electricity bills. I took my turn with cleaning and cooking, and I respected the fact that it wasn't my house, though it was my home.

Seriously, I know how hard it is these days with housing, but since when did your twenties become an extension of the teenage years?

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/07/my-youngest-is-leaving-home-but-have-i-done-enough-to-prepare-him

It reminds me of that awful Julie Myerson column a few years back. She needed a grip too. And some grasp of boundaries.

Yes, I was thinking of her too- Life With Teenagers, wasn't it?

They seem to choose the oddest people to write their family and lifestyle columns.

Just read it. I’d be ashamed to admit my adult son couldn’t use a washing machine and hadn’t done any household chores. No wonder the older ones returned, it must be like living in a very cheap hotel. If she charges them any board that is. Which I doubt.

Exactly.

Talk about a rod for your own back!

It's the new Living With Teenagers. Total car crash.

With all the issues arpund anxiety and the emphasis on resilience,
I think many people are doing their children a disservice in not arming them with skills for life and an ability to fail and learn from it. Babyingand constant protecting is not good for them.

I thought it was just me getting old and stupid but I think the Guardian's gone right downhill these last few years with those daft articles by smug boring people.

Does anyone else remember 'Bad Housekeeping' that used to be a weekly article in the Guardian? I liked that and it wasn't all twee either.

I think it's gone downhill too. Full of articles written by navel gazing people in bubbles. There's the odd diamond in the shite, but it's mostly vacuous nonsense. Shame. I used to read it cover to cover.

I think that you prepare your children to be fully functioning Adults.I sat that as a Mum of two children with SN.

Other than that, i don't see anything wrong with what she is saying. I don't understand this attitude against buying new clothes, especially by people who can afford them.

I've browsed the rest of them, they're not that bad, she's just looking for stuff to fill articles.

In my halls in the early 90s there would have been at least 2 girls ready to fawn over him, laugh at how helpless he was and do his washing and cook his dinner. I really hope it’s totally changed but I doubt it....

I couldn't read any more of the first post after 'she needs to give her head a wobble!'

That saying makes my teeth itch.

I can't be arsed to read that column anymore. It's just words about nothingness of interest.

There's some right dull journalism going on at the Guardian these days. Needs to get a bit more lively to have my £5 donation. And it's a shame as it has done brilliant reporting and I would hate to see it fold.

That woman is pathetic.

That column is boakworthy

why would you admit in a national newspaper that your ds was fucking useless?

I thought that as I was reading it. My 14 year old is capable of doing her own washing, cleaning and making meals. Sometimes I think I’m a slack, cruel parent (I don’t make her do them, she is happy to!) but other times I am glad she’s not going to be a hopeless adult.

I can't believe people are still raising young men/women who don't do washing:cleaning.

She should be ashamed. I mean it. It's a basic life skill FGS.

I agree. It's a weird column. She doesn't seem to write her children as having any redeemable qualities.

It makes me laugh when one hand she moans about them all living with her and looks back wistfully on her own days of living independently in grotty flats, but on the other hand fully accepts their excuses that of course they couldn't be expected to move out of London/get a full time job/live in a less than luxury home/stop buying drum kits, bikes and other rubbish.

I know often in MN the 'move to a cheaper area if you can't afford housing in London/the South East' suggestion is deconstructed, and often for good reason - if you have a specific type of job, or all your friends and family are where you grew up and you depend on them for childcare, or your kids are settled in school, then actually moving 200 miles might not be viable, or much more affordable.

But none of her children have dependents, long term partners, or even permanent jobs. In one of the entries they talk about friends who have had to move out of London in the same sentence as others who share a bedroom for £790 p/m - i.e. an inconceivable, unfair living conditions representing an appalling downgrade.

Shit column. Unlike Living with Teenagers, which was sharp and funny and human.

I personally love the phrase 'give your head a wobble'. Each to their own. :)

As for the article - just tripe.

Sometimes why I hate the Guardian.

I read the article - what boring, dull, self-indulgent gibberish. Privileged mother of 4 sends her son off to University with much self-indulgent (but superficial) response. Hold the front page. Ugh.

On a more serious note, I sometimes wonder the more a mother publicly "frets" about her child, unnecessarily, the more she is trying to justify her own existence.

So another vote for Get A Grip. Or just stop writing bland stupid articles!

This is going to turn into a competition about whose teenager is made do the most at home, isn't it?
I also look forward to the inevitable post from a mum of a five-year-old saying her pfb does more than said teen, and thinks it's fun ...