Do any of you enforce curfews on adult kids?

[Usernamesgain]

DS 20 lives at home and is getting later and later coming home. He works full time and has a really early start but is out most evenings until 11-12 and on weekends picking up mates and driving around until 2am some nights.
He’s constantly exhausted, comes in from work and falls asleep immediately until about 7pm when he goes out and drives around with mates again until late.
DH and I both work full time and it’s disturbing us, I can’t settle properly until he’s home and when he comes in he’s making some noise just opening and closing doors, using the bathroom etc.
I’ve tried reasoning with him, I don’t like to impose a curfew as he’s an adult but I am getting sick of this. Again this afternoon he went out bowling at 3pm saying ‘I won’t be late’ and here we are at 10.30 and he’s still not back.
There’s a small part of me that worries he’s had a car accident or something as he rarely responds to text messages either.

AIBU? Do you just let them get on with it?

He should be quiet when he comes in for sure.

I do think it's a bit silly that you can't settle until he gets back. He's a grown man. That is not his problem, it's yours.

As for people saying you wouldn't tolerate housemates coming in at 2am are you having a laugh? How exactly would you enforce a curfew on housemates?

@Usernamesgain

The biggest issue is that he’s on a really good apprenticeship with a global company who selected the students carefully. They expect 100% focus and being tired or under par won’t go down well I’m sure. He gets increasingly exhausted through the week and he looks dreadful by Thursday/ Friday. I don’t want him to mess up this opportunity and risk them not keeping him on. He’s in his third year and doing really well but the lure of a girl (as I’ve now found out it is😂) is obviously keeping him out v late.

I told him last night when he got in (12.15) that if she cared about him she’d understand he has responsibilities to make sure his job comes first at the moment.

So you're assuming that she's forcing him to stay out late? Really? It's not her responsibility to ensure he gets home early.

I thought drugs may be a possibility as well. Driving round aimlessly at night usually involves something like that.

you can't enforce curfews at that age but out of curtesy he should let you know when he'll be home.

that's a rule in our house, no matter how old anyone is. if nothing else it's rude to make people wait for you if your being late negatively affects them.

Driving round late at night does not always involve drugs, come on.
OP, you sound overly involved if I’m honest. He’s an adult, he’s doing really well in his job, you’ve said that yourself. Him looking tired is neither here nor there. Can’t you remember being 20? You can do incredible things on just a few hours of sleep!

11/12 isn’t even that late, though? I was in at that time all the time when I was younger than 20. Then when I was in my early 20s I used to work lates and came home at 4am! Sometimes later if I decided to grab a McDonald’s after work and give my friend a lift home.

You can ask him to be quieter but the issue here is yours. He works and has a social life, which is great. He’ll learn himself how to regulate how late he is out so he isn’t tired the next day. You need to learn how to sleep earlier without him being home so you aren’t tired in the morning.

I think part of the reason he is never home for the time he says he will be is because he knows you’ll have an attitude about it. You need to say to him that you don’t care how late he’s out but you’d just like him to give you an honest estimation so you aren’t worried.

Well you can't tell him when to be back in, no. If he loses his apprenticeship that's his fault.

But you can have strict house rules about noise between eg 10pm and 8am. And you can charge him rent (even if you secretly save it for a flat rent deposit for him). And you can insist he does a share of the housework.

Being an adult - rights and responsibilities. He has a right to choose what hours he keeps. You have a right to ask him to move out if he's unpleasant to live with. He has responsibilities to pay his own way and do his share of the housework! Even if you don't feel you need him to contribute, do it for his benefit. He needs to learn.

It’s not his problem you can’t settle until his home, that’s your problem. Maybe you should address it instead of trying to put the responsibility on him.

Just seen the update about a girl being involved. Some of the responses are laughable, drugs, really?

Do none of you remember being 20 and sitting in your car til the wee hours talking to someone you liked? Come on.

A curfew at his age is absolutely ridiculous, and as for not being able to settle till he is home, I’m afraid that is your problem.

YANBU to insist that he is quiet when he comes in and considerate to others in the house. But he is a grown man now and you can’t continue to parent him like he is a teenager.

OP,
Separate issues.
I have several children around that age.

I wouldn't do a curfew but the noise disturbing us when they do come in, wouldn't be tolerated.

The alarm buzzing is so selfish.

But I think you are wrong not to be taking money from him.

He's working, he should be contributing to his keep, however small.

In real life we have to pay our way.
Allowing him to think living costs are dirty words, is not a good idea.

He sounds selfish, and you are tolerating it.

If he doesn't value his apprenticeship, he will face the consequences but in your situation Inwould be telling him he needs to move out.

I wouldn't tolerate ANYONE disturbing my sleep through selfishness.
Neither would my husband.

Ours is 18,1/2 & we do have a week day curfew of midnight.

Purely because we got fed up of her coming in, banging around, using the loo right next to our bedroom & putting the light on activating the fan & getting really arsey when we asked her not to. I don't use the light at night so as not to disturb DH & vice versa as he's often up very early for work. She's been surprisingly okay about it

My oldest is the same age and he doesn't come in no later then 10 if he went out. We agreed this as I have 3 young children and he did use to disturb them when he came in an he said it wasn't fair himself.
MY FLOOR BOARDS ARE SO SHIT YOU COULD HEAR A MOUSE GO ACROSS THEM!!!
this doesn't help haha but if he is late he stays his girlfriends or a friends !

@PizzaCrust

Just seen the update about a girl being involved. Some of the responses are laughable, drugs, really?

Do none of you remember being 20 and sitting in your car til the wee hours talking to someone you liked? Come on.

I swear some mumsnetters don't grow up, they just appear as fully formed middle aged adults.

Whilst I most certainly am a middle aged adult, I remember the lure if sitting in a car with someone I liked, not drinking or doing drugs just enjoying being young.
Anyway teens and young adults aren't wired to go to bed early, when I was that age it wasn't unusual to go to work the next day without going home from the night before.

I think he's trying to have it both ways. Being an adult and a kid. I'd start charging rent, for a start. If he can afford a car and going out every night then he can afford rent.

Not to be overly dramatic but the stats for car accidents for men in his age range driving at night with friends in the car are horrendous. Especially if he's tired all the time. Young people's brains don't mature fully until around 25, they don't judge risk correctly until around then.

When I was living at home after university (same for my brother), my parents were very clear that if we were coming back after they went to bed (11pm during the week, midnight at the weekend) then we needed to be super-silent and not wake them. It's about respect for other members of the household.

Nothing you can do if I’m honest except tell him he has to move out or tell him he has to be really quiet when he gets in. As PPs have said, it really isn’t that late - when I was that age and at uni it’d be uni 9am-3pm, work 5pm-11pm then off for some drinks until about 4am and repeat it all the next day Ahhh to be young and have endless energy!!!

the lure of a group of youngsters parking up in a quiet, deserted office car park is

There's a group of them sat in a car park? Sure he's not involved in county lines?

There is no lure to sitting in a car park. Pub yes. Park yes. Riverbank yes. Car with girl yes. Group of young people sitting in cars in car park no.

I live near a car park off a main A road - there’s a McDonald’s etc. You girls and lads sitting in cars is a thing. They car race/screech tires too. Obviously they must chat and mingle.
You need to speak to him. Your house your rules. His lifestyle is compatible with a house share not older parents who need sleep and to be up early for work. It’s like having a newborn. Go to bed at 10pm then be woken up at 12/1. Then you can’t get back to sleep. Just drop off, husband wakes you and then his alarm he’s ignoring wakes you. So sleep in 2 or 3 hour chunks. Not sustainable.
Either he lives at home with all the perks and comes in by x time on a work night or he moves into house share etc.

Yeah you can't really give an adult a curfew but definitely tell him not to disturb you. Not much you can do about worrying about him, that's just life as a parent really

Do you have a fit bit/Apple Watch on OP. It will show how much your sleep is disturbed - you can’t live like this.

No curfew here but DS works a weird twilight/early night shift and gets in about 3am 5 nights a week. I’m a light sleeper and was quite worried but he is really quiet. He needs an hour to wind down and also eats something only issue we had was him cooking his eggs to go on his noodles. The smell of spices wafting upstairs woke me up so no more five spice eggs was agreed.

The alarm resetting is ridiculous and very selfish of him.

I think it's totally fine to tell him that if he's coming in after midnight he needs to go straight to bed and can't be slamming around in cupboards etc. He needs to show consideration if he's coming in that late.

I don't think at his age you can ask him to come in earlier because you can't sleep without knowing he's home, although I do totally sympathise.

No. My DS lives at home at 21 and I haven't enforced a curfew since he was about 17 and had left school. As long as he doesn't wake me up, I am happy for him to do as he pleases - I wouldn't have accepted a curfew past 18 myself. Thankfully he is considerate and actually I can count on my fingers the number of times he has stayed out stupidly late or not come home. If he isn't coming home he texts me, but there's been none of that since Covid because he's paranoid about catching it and spreading it to his great nan.