To be shocked that a mother would clean for a 21 year old student?

[jennymanara]

A colleague at work was moaning on Monday that they were tired as they had driven many miles to their son's shared house, and spent hours thoroughly cleaning it, so he would get his deposit back. I was shocked. Surely a 21 year old man should be doing his own cleaning?

DHs parents are flying out to help us move house! The majority of the help will be childcare, but they have helped with the cleaning/gardening on previous moves.
We are more than capable of cleaning. We also only have one pair of hands each. An extra pair of hands can make all the difference.

@TinklyLittleLaugh I agree

And yes I did shell out for the deposit for my kids' student lets. But they were then supposed to use that same money for their next deposit. If they had lost it by being too idle to clean their house properly, they would have had to earn themselves a new one with their summer jobs.

I think that often it's a case of time: when I moved out of my uni houses there was often only a very small window between people having to move out and then handing back the keys, so you often need help to get the whole house sorted. In a shared house we'd have several parents helping to move out belongings because they'd come to pick up their children (granted we were all 20 or 21) but a student at that age usually doesn't have the resources to do everything alone: a car to put things in, the man power to move stuff, the hands on deck to clean the whole house in one afternoon.
It's not always entitlement or young people being helpless or lazy, it's just sometimes what parents do to help. Not all, of course, but I was very very grateful to mine for helping me move out.

being assertive with peers about them doing their share.

A skill I am still working on. If anyone knows how to get a brother in his 60s to help with the care of his mother, I would be very grateful. Three in DDs flat worked together. There was no way the fourth was going to do anything. The challenge instead was to get through the year without confrontation. Ditto with joint University work. DDs group cooperated well through two years largely thanks to the high emotional intelligence and great negotiating skills of one of their group. Other groups struggled. Getting others to do their share is a real skill that many adults dont possess let alone 20 year olds.

@Tinkly. I would normally agree and both DCs now clean to an infinitely higher standard than I do. However I did go and help one of them with an end of tenancy clean because I had paid for two deposits (DC and impoverished friend) and I wanted my money back .... so very much incentivised. On top of which three of the five students had moved out early leaving shedloads to do.

Getting others to do their share is a real skill that many adults dont possess let alone 20 year olds.

Surely something as straightforward as cleaning your house to get your deposit back is an ideal situation for them to practise and develope these skills? Much less chance of learning if mummy picks up the pieces every time.

Shock horror - mum helps child clean. 🤦🏻‍♀️Jesus Christ OP. Of all the things to want to moan about. Ok. You get a star because you were an adult and cleaned your house. Happy? 🌟

My parents will still help us around the house/do gardening or with jobs like this and I’m in my forties. It’s called being helpful. We work full time and they like to help.

On the other hand DH helps them with DIY jobs or other tasks they can’t do themselves. I helped my sister clean when she moved. Surely it’s just being kind and helpful?

Yes Tinkly you would think so. Instead not getting your deposit back is the fault of evil landlords. Nothing to do with right on Corbynistas not taking responsibility for meeting contractual obligations.

Plenty of 20 year olds are still pretty daft. You are an academic I think. Have you ever had to explain that not submitting work on time could well impact degree classification, and been ignored. If academics cant get students to do the work required, what chance do 20 years, desperate not to be seen as flat enforcer.

And this mummy helped, along with the other mummy, two very hard working girls. Not our fault if other mummies see being 'poor' as an entitlement, which involves them and their children sitting back whilst others work. An interesting life lesson. My best guess is that the ones who knuckled down, albeit with help from parents, will do better in life than those who dont see any responsibility lying with themselves (or their children).

There is snobbery at play I find too. 19 year olds that work as housekeeping staff in premier inns or as refuse collectors or as Tesco shelf stackers on the night shift are not beyond hard graft are they? But we pamper our darlings at university.

I do sometimes think that parents who constantly pontificate about life lessons and smugly withhold assistance from their kids fall into two main groups. One group have probably led quite privileged lives themselves where they've never really felt the sting of real hardship so take satisfaction in creating artificial life lessons for their kids. Losing a rent deposit is not a huge deal to these people because they've never really been without a background cushion of financial security. Then there's the second group who struggled themselves and resent their kids having things what they perceive as easier than they did themselves so delight in forcing Life Lessons on them in a "you don't know you're born!" kind of way. I also think that knowing someone has your back as far as they are able to is a far better producer of sensible, practical people than the "you are on your own" crew. Children remember this stuff. They may toe the party line now but later when they have their own families they'll resent that you made things harder than they needed to be. Also hoping none of you are expecting much hello and support from them when you get old and frail.

Most people I know in real life love their family and want to make life easier for them at times if they possibly can, which I think is a nice balance.

Totally agree Carol

They had arranged with the landlady to pay for a cleaner - losing twenty quid a head out of their deposit seems far preferable to me spending hours there.

Presumably not in the UK.

Yes, in the UK! Not London. As I said, they'd arranged it with the landlady (no agency involved) - £150. That has to be 10-15 hours of cleaning - how long are these parents spending there if that isn't enough? This particular landlady always has the house empty for two weeks each summer for maintenance between tenancies, so perhaps she is accounting for cleaning up after repairs etc and doesn't need it to be sparkling? I have no idea, I just know what actually happened!

@CarolDanvers well said!

CarolD I'm not in either of those camps. You're very narrow minded in your views. I just hope your dcs don't follow your ways.

My ds1 didn't ask for help. If he was struggling I'd have gone through but he encouraged the others and finished it himself. He was very proud how clean it was and the landlord was happy.

CarolDanvers

You’ve missed the third group, the “I’m a significantly better parent than you” crowd.

I just hope your dcs don't follow your ways.

Oh I hope they do. I'm there for them and they know I always have their back and they're doing brilliantly in life despite being disabled. I hope so much they do that for their own families too.

I am genuinely surprised how many people here have helped to clean their DCs flats. I have never lived in a houseshare where anyone's family helped out.

First houseshare we didn't get our full deposit back because of things like dust on the skirting boards and not defrosting the freezer. Lesson learned, the six places I have rented since have all been cleaned to a standard where the full deposit was returned.

I kind of thought they were covered by the two groups I mentioned @JacquesHammer. A common theme between the two if you like, but you may be right.

Haha was this me? I went and helped my DS the other week...and this is why....All of his shitty housemates buggered off a week before him (when he was away) and left all of the communal areas utterly filthy. Since us getting the deposit back depended on the house being left in a reasonable state (we paid it, not him) I went up armed with rubber gloves to help him out. It was a large house and would've taken him days to do it alone. Are you sure she did it FOR him and didn't just go to give him a hand?

I also think that knowing someone has your back as far as they are able to is a far better producer of sensible, practical people than the "you are on your own" crew.

Spot on caroldanvers

I agree with @CarolDanvers.

And I know my kids are going to follow in my ways because they already have and I couldn't be more proud of them.

I'm not surprised at all. My BIL is 27 and lives with us while he's doing his own house up and MIL usually does his washing. I'm fully expecting her to do all his housework too when he moves into his house. She had a go at me for not cleaning up after him when I was heavily pregnant

I did not and do not clean up after him, I never have and I never will.