One at Uni, one at work…

[BelleClapper]

How do you square this without causing resentment?

Dd (17) is working full time on an apprenticeship course. We are charging her rent/keep/petrol equivalent to 25% of her take home.

DS (18) up until now was planning to leave college and get a job. He announced yesterday that he is now accepting the three University offers he got a while back. As an aside he’s just split up with his GF of two years who was absolutely definitely in no way the reason he wasn’t going…

So we will be in a position of taking money from DD and sending money to DS. Which has totally changed the dynamic. I’m really conscious of causing resentment from DD who already suffers a bit with middle child syndrome and jealousy.

If you’ve been in this situation what did you do? I want DD to contribute for lots of reasons, none of which go away just because DS now needs three more years of support.

Actually yes Bee would be like, a fight on MN? You are spoiling me.

Everyone deals with grief/funerals differently. I had a close friend who was on Facebook after her dads funeral. Not once did I think she was not healthy.

This was her way of coping or pretending everything was fine by focusing on something else. Don’t judge people on how they handle things happening in their lives.

It wasn’t a malicious post.

Hope you feel a bit better today @BelleClapper - you came to MN to garner a range of opinions, and people have made personal attacks.

My mum caught up on her soaps the day after my dads funeral.
Literally anything to distract herself and feel normal

I’m boggling that anyone lecturing on here about behaviour and judgement would do so from the position of having zero idea of how grief works and even less empathy .

It wasn't a malicious post.

Haha. Pull the other one, it's got bells on!
Seriously, if it wasn't meant maliciously, then it was lacking support, humour, empathy and intelligence. Or was it meant as a bitchplop?

“ I mean if nearly 2/3 of people had told me I was clearly favouring one child over the other, It would have me at least think.”

The opening post literally states that their choices mean one child is effectively favoured over the other going forward and asks what others would do/have done on the situation so pointing it out repeatedly is just basically being Captain Obvious and his Merry band of Obvioustrons.

At no point in the opening post does it say randomly attack me for being a shit friend and posting on the internet on the day of my my friends funeral instead of wearing black and a veil for 3 months and shutting the curtains. Oh and while I’m here can someone inform the Media about this thread as it’s a slow news day.

FWIW ds has been doing 4 A-Levels and Arkwright so we told him he didn’t have to get a job through A-levels to pay for shit. Has he been doing the usual 3 we would have expected him to start taking some financial responsibility. And although we’ll bung him some cash at uni I also expect him to get a job and some work experience.

As for the 25% from a 17 year old that’s ideal. She’s left with £187 a week to do what she wants with and all her meals and utilities are covered, and still has help when needed from mums taxi’s and the the bank of mum etc than that sounds ok to me.

yep HoneyDragon - every word of that.

Wow.

Utterly bonkers thread. The 69/31 split is not an argument considering the number of posters who clearly haven’t RTFT! Even if you can’t read the whole thread at the very least read the Op’s comments. Is Op to wait until DC3 is ready to make a decision about uni versus apprenticeship just in case she has to treat him/her differently. God forbid you give one child 50p more than another.

At no point has she said she is taking money from DD in order to send to DS. One action was not dependent on the other.

A 17 year old with a take home income of nearly £1k per month can absolutely contribute towards her own outgoings and once petrol costs and mobile phone and lunches etc are accounted for then the ‘keep’ us pretty minimal. Whether it’s saved to give back as a lump sum or used to offset petrol and phone packages etc I think the Op is quite right to get DD used to the fact that her wages can’t all be for fun stuff.

To keep the 69% happy OP take DD off of your mobile contract and let her make her own way to work (cause she isn’t at school). That would of course probably mean a taxi ride as you have already made it clear that there is no public transport route. That would be a lot more than £250 per month.

I am sorry about your best friend Op, I think you are getting an unfair hammering here.

@BelleClapper

Do you know, in a thread of pretty shocking personal attacks on my parenting, morals, choices etc, that post has just about finished me off.

Do you feel good about that? Has it made you feel powerful, or clever? What did you get, personally, from posting that? A little frisson of smuggery? An inner pat on the back? Are you a better person for saying it?

Well dont ask then, you are in the wrong charging a 17 year old, end of!

ColdWine. You do realise your post exemplifies that you condone the personal vicious attacks on the op that were entirely unrelated to the subject matter in the opening post. Not to mention they used an utterly tragic event that’s left many users on here heartbroken to viciously point score. And you’ve condoned this action just because you don’t like one of their parenting choices?

@Coldwine75
She isn’t wrong. You just don't agree with her. Why so many people here think they have the right to tell other parents their upbringing is wrong. Not once did OP ask any of you to judge her parenting. Shocking how many here think they are some sort of perfect parents and ‘would never do this or do that’

Stop making parents feel bad or unworthy. Shame on the lot of you. There are a lot of things I wouldn’t do that some posters do but that doesn’t mean I am some better parent or they are.

And please don’t tell me to not come on MN if I am sensitive because I’m not. MN is not and never has been a forum to abuse people.

[quote Eatdrinkbemerry]@Coldwine75
She isn’t wrong. You just don't agree with her. Why so many people here think they have the right to tell other parents their upbringing is wrong. Not once did OP ask any of you to judge her parenting. Shocking how many here think they are some sort of perfect parents and ‘would never do this or do that’

Stop making parents feel bad or unworthy. Shame on the lot of you. There are a lot of things I wouldn’t do that some posters do but that doesn’t mean I am some better parent or they are.

And please don’t tell me to not come on MN if I am sensitive because I’m not. MN is not and never has been a forum to abuse people.[/quote]
Excellent post. There was a similarly nasty personal attack on one of the wedding and baby threads. . These nasty personal attacks have to stop.

I honestly think the best way not to cause resentment is sit down all together and decide what you're going to do. Then it's all out in the open and everyone is in agreement.
If DD lives at home then I think it's fine to ask her to pay for keep. Does she pay her own food etc or do you provide that with the keep? DS is making his own choice to go to uni and will likely be in a lot of debt when he finished whereas DD can save now and buy a house at a young age. There is no guarantee that uni will equal a better salary. Of my DH and his brothers, they all earn around the same and two have degrees. And not having a degree can mean less debt if you are sensible with what you make.

@VeganCheesePlease

I honestly think the best way not to cause resentment is sit down all together and decide what you're going to do. Then it's all out in the open and everyone is in agreement. If DD lives at home then I think it's fine to ask her to pay for keep. Does she pay her own food etc or do you provide that with the keep? DS is making his own choice to go to uni and will likely be in a lot of debt when he finished whereas DD can save now and buy a house at a young age. There is no guarantee that uni will equal a better salary. Of my DH and his brothers, they all earn around the same and two have degrees. And not having a degree can mean less debt if you are sensible with what you make.

I think given the DS course and the DD chosen profession it is highly likely he will earn much more. If he doesn't earn much he won't need to pay the debt anyway.

"but I dont get whole idea of charging your own child to live in their own home thing....my parents never did it for us"

This. Op is just trying to selectively pick the comments she likes to justify getting one child to pay for another. And sees nothing wrong with this. Amazing. Why don't you charge them for food, laundry, services op? At what age do you think kids start paying? If not doing gcses at 15 perhaps?

Um, at whatever age they get a full time job

There’s a clear divide here between people who would never expect their adult children to contribute and those who do, that’s fine. One way is not more correct than the other.

Do people really , REALLY not understand the idea of asking their children to contribute to the costs of running the household once a child becomes an adult or is earning?

when i was growing up it was totally expected. it was a pain but most of us were quite proud of the fact that we were earning a bit and contributed to the household coffers and paid our share.
It was considered a good educational tool - learning that wages are not spending money and that income requires budgeting and saving etc.

I get that some people don't do it. i'm not currently doing that with mine - although to be fair shes only worked a few shifts because of lockdown - but the inability to even comprehend its a thing and that perfectly reasonable loving parents commonly chose to do shows a shockingly limited world view.