Adult DC BU? "I'm an adult" and "can't afford rent"

[Jellyb39]

My DC is 20 and doesn't drive but works evening shifts that usually finish at about 11. Sometimes they will pick a shift up and need to rush to work, making it my problem to get them there. Tonight, due to snow and cold but also general niceness I offered DC a lift home from work. Its 7 mins in the car.

I didn't have a Friday night drink and kept 9 year old up as DH out late. Me and 9 year old shivered as we drove to collect DC and when we got there DC came out as not quite finished shift and said lift didn't matter as friends were collecting them and going for a drive. I told DC that is out of order for the reasons above and DC went back in work and continued to text me telling me to go home and dared to say "I'm an adult" in the messages.

DC is worrying about paying lodge this month as on a zero hour contract and not had many hours. DC is looking for more hours or another job whilst trying to secure an apprenticeship. DC is asking for us to cover the lodge as a Xmas present. It's a bit late as I've already done Xmas shopping and that isn't a gift! DC feels we should support and be more flexible as won't be able to do much as will have no money.

DH is adament the lodge should be paid as a lesson in nothing in life is free. I could be more lenient but after seeing the words "I am an adult" I'm thinking DC can't have it both ways so lodge needs to be paid with no bidding for sympathy and reprieve?

It's two separate issues (the lift change of plans and the lodge money) but interested to know other people's thoughts and how you would handle either or both of the situations.

I am very cross with DC tonight at being happy to mess me about than just tell friends plans had already been made for me to collect!

I feel like the next time lodge is brought up I'm going to remind DC they can't pick and choose when to be an adult but maybe I am being childish with that?!

I can never understand parents who can take money from their children. Even worse is some parents expect and rely on their children giving them money.

Yes your DC was a rude, but I agree with the above. I wouldn’t be charging my DC rent if they didn’t have a stable job.
Where on earth is the money supposed to come from if they haven’t got it, on a zero hours contract?
Life is tough at the moment for everyone, but jeez this is your own child who basically cannot afford to give you rent and will forgo a Christmas gift to try to afford things. ( also whilst I get the idea of putting it into an account when you can afford to not take it - they need the money now so that seems strange to me).
….just out of interest is your DH the 20 year olds DDad?

PS the bit about you freezing / shivering in the car with your 9 year old is a bit OTT - I was out in my car last night it was minus 5 and I had a coat on and the heater, I wasn’t shivering.

I charged my children rent because my child maintenance, child benefit and single person's council tax allowance all stopped.

I worked out how much I could afford to cover and looked at what was left.

I considered that amount as a % of my dc's net wage and it still left them with a disposable income about 5x my own.

It seemed fair to me. I paid rent to my parents and never begrudged doing so. I wanted my dc to contribute to family expenses once they were adults. None of them ever complained. They paid so much less than they would in market rent that they saved deposits and bought their own houses.

Another way I know the amount they paid was reasonable is because when each child moved out, taking their rent money with them, which many pp seem to think was for me to buy luxuries and treat myself, I was a LOT better off. Without them and their rent money, I was better off.

Why are you a taxi for a 20 year old.

Why are you dragging a 7 year old out in treacherous driving conditions to pick up a 20 year old 7 mins away.

No wonder the dc thinks they can take advantage of you when you still treat them like a child.

This type of debate is very polarised as some are hugely opposed to children paying rent and some hugely in favour. Probably to do with socioeconomic factors in their own upbringing.

One thing is clear though - the young people in education get a tonne of support and are wrongly perceived as being poor. Full time workers on minimum wage get next to no support and are wrongly perceived as being well off….

@Robinni very few UK university students work part time, certainly not 15 hrs/wk. Oxford and/or Cambridge very strongly discourage such work. Also many do unpaid summer internships.

I think more would benefit from eg 5-10 hrs of part time work. But some STEM students are timetabled for 30 hrs/wk. Then they need to study. They really cannot do more

@poetryandwine

Your name is a bit telling…

40% of Oxbridge students have rich parents, very rich, the rest aren’t too shabby either…

I went to 2 Russell group unis outwith Oxbridge - STEM courses - and pretty much all of my cohort were working about 15hrs per week during term time. This equated to 55-60hrs per week with academic work added in, probably more with transit time and faffing around between lectures/labs. Most worked some/all of the summers too.

Yes you can have internships, for my subject it was either a few weeks here and there, or you took on masters and did an internship as part of this for a year, which was generally paid. All students I knew also had some form of parental support - be that staying at home for free, living in a flat/house their parent owned or having a car/other costs paid.

I think asking you not to charge him rent ‘as a Christmas present’ is unbelievably sweet. He’s clearly trying to work so I wouldn’t have a go at him about that.

i’d have been a bit miffed about the lift, too, but if it was only a seven minute drive away you did not lose much time. As for your not having a drink, meh.

They are two separate issues. But I'd certainly go cool on offering lifts for a bit.

DC said it themselves, they are an adult! They need to pay their rent and sort their own transport out like they would if they weren’t living at home.

Take the lodging money from them as normal this month and no more offers of lifts even if the weather is rubbish. It might make them speed up their job search too as given the time of year it sounds odd that they can’t find something with more hours…lots of seasonal jobs around at the moment where they would easily be able to get full time hours.

This.
Unless you really cannot manage without his contribution.

sidenote regarding rent/lodge. In a few months when we are back to having a good disposable income and no longer juggling, the money paid by Dc will be (unbeknown to them) put in a savings pot for them for when they want to move home.

This is a bad idea. Much better that you teach him how to manage money responsibly. If you are in debt yourself you don't want hime to fall into the same trap. Teach him about savings and banks and how to maximise his savings interest. Get him to open a fixed term saver and tell him you will put his "rent" in there if he matches it.

Don’t take money off the person to ‘save’ for them , it teaches nothing , if you want them to save then just say to them that you won’t charge anything but expect money to be put regularly into a savings account .
I also agree with them that they likely won’t be able to afford driving lessons out of their current wage .

Can you not see what a privileged situation that is to be in? Don’t judge what you don’t experience

How is my name telling, @Robinni ?

As a STEM graduate please define your terms for us: what do you mean precisely by saying 40% of Oxbridge students have ‘rich’ parents? And what is the quantification of ‘the rest aren’t too shabby either’? I suspect the latter would interest the many WC Oxbridge graduates who have testified to their various experiences on the HE board.

Perhaps things are changing over time, and certainly since Covid. My students are in STEM (also RG) and most internships are well paid, but extremely competitive. We are in the tier just below COWI and our students do very well with graduate jobs and PG placements but the average student cannot count on an internship. The internships are however well paid. Sadly the same cannot be said of summer internships across other disciplines.

The norm here is that from Y2 students live in rentals. AFAIK it is mostly parents of Overseas students who buy their DC properties. Very few student cars around. A socioeconomic mix, top to bottom.

I can never understand people who don’t understand that every family has different needs.

It might blow your mind to know I was paying for my mum’s housing needs at the age of 18. I still love her more than any hypothetical mum who didn’t have to charge me room and board.

Jellyb (op) said: "Oh - sidenote regarding rent/lodge. In a few months when we are back to having a good disposable income and no longer juggling, the money paid by Dc will be (unbeknown to them) put in a savings pot for them for when they want to move home."

That is very nice, Jelly, a good thing to do.

We need a name for this sort of adult child - brat lodger perhaps?

I still have on dc in full time education. She gets the full maintenance loan which pays her rent and bills. She works part time to buy secondhand clothes, secondhand books, public transport, food and the odd modest night out. She is poor. I feel that you know two young people and are basing your opinion on their personal circumstances.

I can never understand parents who can take money from their children. Even worse is some parents expect and rely on their children giving them money.

At what point does that end? I lived with my parents when I was in my mid 20s and I paid them housekeeping. I never begrudged this. It was a lot cheaper than me living elsewhere and paying full rent and all my bills. My dad got made redundant when I was 18 and although he worked again, it was for about a quarter of the money. So why should my parents have been keeping an adult? They did enough for me bringing me up to 18, after that, you do need to start contributing to your own upkeep in some form (disabilities that prevent that aside).

It might as well be poetryandwine(and a cheeseboardatthesoirée) @poetryandwine

40% are coming from private schools, or have I got that wrong? Which indicates the parents are very well off. There is a push to have more children from poorer backgrounds, state schools etc but it’s a work in progress. Respectfully I do not think Oxbridge is representative of the student experience overall.

From my experience the unpaid summer internships are as competitive and few and far between as the paid ones. Many students do end up in retail/hospitality roles unrelated to their degree year round.

I can imagine in Oxbridge, as we are talking about southern England, there may not be many parents owning additional property, nor students with cars. Elsewhere in England and in other U.K. regions it is more common to have an additional property and for students to have cars. Not at all just for overseas students.

Again Oxbridge is not the norm.

Ps I say this as somebody who rented a house that was bought to fund rent for the landlords children at Uni elsewhere. My dentist at one point was funding 3 children in rented accommodation.

Most of my friends either lived at home, in a parents additional property, had their parents give them a deposit so they got on the property ladder and used student loan towards mortgage, or had their rent paid. Where rent wasn’t paid they did get help with car costs or help with house deposit/wedding later.

Any who didn’t receive any of the help above simply didn’t go to Uni!

Where there is the culture of going to Uni there is the culture to help financially generally.

Where there is culture to go out and work after school, there tends to be this culture to take rent from children.

Most of my friends either lived at home, in a parents additional property, had their parents give them a deposit so they got on the property ladder and used student loan towards mortgage, or had their rent paid.

That's your circle and absolutely not a general average student experience. Ypu are doing here "me and my mates had rich parents so everyone does, no?". Ridiculous

They're an adult. So treat them like an adult. Kids rely on their parents for lifts and housing. Adults are self reliant.

You don't reward disrespectful behaviour.

@Sauerkrautsandwich

Actually I was an independent student and self funded… my friends parents some were doctors and dentists, but some were teachers, nurses, transport workers. I definitely wouldn’t call the latter rich.

I can imagine in Oxbridge, as we are talking about southern England, there may not be many parents owning additional property, nor students with cars. Elsewhere in England and in other U.K. regions it is more common to have an additional property and for students to have cars. Not at all just for overseas students.

Isn't it only 10% of people owning more than 1 property? I wouldn't call that anywhere near common