To not pay for driving lessons

[Candy150]

DS is sulking as we’ve refused to pay for driving lessons. He’s 24 and has his own job, lives at home. He doesn’t contribute to the household expenses including to food so his wages are all his own.

Admittedly he only started working earlier this year after graduating a few years ago so hasn’t got much savings but AIBU? I feel he should learn to stand on his own feet starting with this. Especially as he’s had what I would say is an easy ride since graduation. He’s very upset and says we can afford it. I’m feeling a bit guilty as he’s now skulked off to his room, would appreciate some views on this. Thanks.

My parents paid for 5 when I was 17. I paid the rest myself and then the extra car insurance for my parents car - I worked pt

Yeah, I really wouldn’t allow a 24 year old to live in my house rent free. He’s incredibly entitled and you need to stop enabling him.

Trouble is it sounds like he has never had to think about looking after himself financially. He’s 24. I always knew if I ever lived at home and earned a wage while not in education, I’d have to pay my way at home. It’d a hard lesson but he needs to learn it.

24 😂 tell him to get a grip and grow up

Cutting the strings is hard but best done quickly and without anaesthetic.

I’m guessing he didn’t work whilst he was studying at Uni, either?
At the moment, he knows you are financially secure so he believes it’s YOUR JOB to bail him out and so isn’t worried about his future financial security. That’s a risky road to travel.
Paying for driving lessons AND contributing to the household expenses won’t cause him hardship but will start him on the path to being a financially responsible adult.

Giving him a comfortable existence doesn’t undo the suffering in your upbringing and he won’t have inherited your resilience.

I think children need to experience something of relative hardship to help them thrive in adulthood. It doesn’t have to be as extreme as your own childhood. (Mine was tricky too with an alcoholic father.) Otherwise, how will they cope when life throws them their first curveball?

If you don’t want to fight now, why don’t you tell him now how lucky he is and that when he turns 25 you will expect him to be paying digs money or he’ll have to go elsewhere.

That may sharpen his mind. He’s had it easy with the bank of mum and dad bankrolling him. Quarter of a century is well old enough to be contributing.

Did you say he has a part time job rather than full time? That’s not acceptable. He needs to be working full time like everyone else unless he is in education which I believe he is not now?

He does sound a bit lazy and entitled. It’s a fine line but if everything is handed to you then you don’t really learn about money, responsibility, sacrifice, saving, prioritising etc. The things you need to know so you understand others situations. ‘Let them eat cake’ esque.

I worked since age 16 and paid digs until I got my own house. My mum paid for one driving lesson. I paid for my licence and all the many others!

PS once he passes his driving test who does he think will buy him a car? I think you know the answer! You could offer to match his savings for a car and buy his provisional but he spends his own cash in the lessons and gets a full time job as he also has to pay digs aged 25 ?

Definitely nbu!
He's an adult! When I was 18 I was paying over half my weekly wage for driving lessons and paying board to my mum. I'm 30 so that wasn't even that long ago.

Gosh sometimes I think I Iive in an alternate reality. DS1 had 10 lessons for his 17th birthday and GPs gave him some money for his test, also as a birthday, present. The rest he worked for and paid himself. I thought he was very fortunate!

He's cheeky!!
I paid for it all myself at 17, including buying my own car on a part time wage. My parents did pay for my first years insurance for my birthday.

DB on the other hand learnt to drive when he finished uni at 23, mum and dad paid for him to do a 5 day course as he'd got a job and would need to commute (long story short he didn't think commuting through when he applied for the job) on the understanding that he would pay them back, AFAIK he did, but it's not my business. I'm only a couple of years older than your son so I don't think it's a generation thing as someone said upthread.

I think the major issue here is the last two years of barely working - how did he fund his travelling? That along with not paying for his expenses now is just totally unrealistic - how does he think the world works??

I'm one year older than him, and was also supported through university by my parents. I never went back to live with my parents after university but I'm 100% aware that I could have if necessary, siblings did, and I could if I got into trouble even now. I was gifted driving lessons at age 17 and was bloody grateful for them. If I'd for a second shown any expectation or entitlement, they would have stopped.

In a lot of ways I was cosseted and had an easy life - but if I moved back after university I would have been expected to get a job - any job! - and pay something towards my expenses. More than that, I would have been really embarrassed not to be able to!

I think you've got a lot right if he's generally polite and tidy and cooks - you just need to drive home the reality that 1 living costs money and 2 entitlement of any sort immediately removes the possibility of that thing happening. Sulking is not an attractive trait.

These threads always puzzle me, unanimous that OP should charge him keep when that's not what you ask butniif anyone asks for advice on what to charge there will be a large proportion of posters horrified at the idea of charging your own children anything.

FWIW mine paid from when they left school and had jobs, otherwise when do you start?

How ridiculous! By his age I'd graduated. Got a job, paid for driving lessons, bought a car and paid all additional like insurance, and bought a house without a penny from either parent.

He's a full grown man! Cant believe he's sulking that mummy and daddy wont pay for his driving lessons.

YANNNNNNNNNNNNBU, OP! I am gobsmacked that your DS thinks this would be reasonable??

I paid for my own driving lessons, my own car, my own uni costs, my own haircuts, my own opticians appointments, my own food etc etc etc at his age! Of course YANBU. He’s an adult and a totally reasonable part of that is earning the money for and budgeting for the things you’d like to have, rather than expecting your parents to.

My tuppence worth is that I stopped receiving pocket money from 16 (mid 90s) and got a job at a fast food restaurant. From them on I never received a penny from parents. Paid for driving lessons out of student loan and part time job at 18. Went to uni with student loan. When I started work at 21, paid mum £250pm. Not having to rent for my own place helped me save deposit to buy own home.

Just wow! Not only should he be funding his own lessons he should be contributing to the household too!
He needs to learn what it's like to be a grownup and live in the real world.

You sound lovely OP but he really does need to learn about finances. He's been extremely lucky so far. You should charge him 33% of his take home pay and with the rest he can pay for his own lessons.
My DD learnt to drive at 17 and we paid through birthday and Christmas presents. When she graduated and moved back home, I charged her rent and when she bought her first house at 24 I gave her all the money back towards her deposit. It's not a case of whether you need the money, it's teaching them real life lessons.

I'm afraid you're in danger of having creatiled a man that someone will complain about in a few years on Mumsnet, a cocklodger.

As many have said, by 24 I'd already started on a graduate training scheme, was a couple of years in and had a decent career with quite a lot of responsibility, I was renting a flat by myself etc.

It's hopefully not too late but you need to act now. You need to say that his behaviour has opened your eyes. He needs to be either paying rent (£500-600 a month, not a token hundred quid) and he needs to start taking responsibility for his own food bills and so on. If he wants driving lessons, he needs to earn them.

Honestly, you need to be cruel to be kind. He needs a career, he should be going out and doing what 24 year olds do. It would be very depressing for him to look back and think that he wasted his youth on your sofa loafing around.

I wonder who voted YABU

He can afford it too OP. Dont back down. Please

He needs to grow up (sulking in his bedroom?!), manage his money and pay his own way. He’s 24 not 14. If he feels like he can’t afford it then he needs to budget better and / or get a 2nd job. Yep l can see where generalisations about millennials come from....

[quote Candy150]@WiddlinDiddlin

Indeed! A conversation is definitely long overdue.
Will start with a written breakdown of the costs of running the house for one as a starting point.[/quote]
A good starting point is to write down all costs, including mortgage, utilities, contents and buildings insurance, food , cleaning stuff, plus cost of extras like window cleaner, gardener, cleaner, and divide it by the number of adults living in the house, so he can see exactly how much it costs to run your house. After that you can come to some arrangement about how much you are willing to subsidize his 3rd. If he was doing a house share or on his own, he would have to pay.

When I was 17 and in a residential job, I would be given back my "keep" when I went home for a long weekend, and I would hand it over to my Mum . Even for those days, in the 60s, I was very poorly paid (£12 per month) so the £3 keep money would have been very useful to me, but I had great respect for my Mum and it didn't occur to me to keep it. And that is the key in your case...where is his respect for you, and his self-respect?

@NoMoreReluctantCustodians
Thanks for the reminder.

I keep rereading all the replies so I don’t back down.
Harsh lessons for me too amongst the responses, which I have to accept.

I have a 24 yo dd still living at home. We gave her a block of 10 lessons for her 17th birthday (she was still at school). She paid for the rest out of earnings. She had summer jobs & a paid placement while at uni. She did live at home for uni and we supported her by not charging digs. Since then she has worked and given us dig money. For the last year she has worked PT and also studying for a Masters. She still pays dig money. She runs a car herself. She is saving for a deposit for her own place. All the dig money she has given me has been put in a separate account and we plan to give it to her when she gets her own place to help towards deposit / legal fees / furniture etc. She doesn't know about that yet, she just knows she is contributing to the household. It helps make her feel responsible for herself and not quite so entitled.

I paid for the first 20 lessons for my son for his 17th birthday. He was told right from the start that if he wanted more he had to fund them himself, which he did from his part time job. He also bought and paid for his own car [ 10 yrs old, but works fine ]. He also now pays board to me to help with costs.
At 24 your son is taking the p* for expecting you to pay for them. As he isn't contributing to the household by living there he has no excuse about lack of money. Tell him to grow up!