Living at home as an adult means you have to come on family holiday?

[ThisCoralMember]

DH says you are part of the family household or not and if you are you join all of the household on the family holiday. I say this as DS 24 has said he does not want to go on the annual family holiday next year. DS has ASD and ADHD, he woks full time and I am confident he can live independently. DH is an anxious person and the one time a few months ago when when DS was downstairs talking to us he realised he forgot to switch his bath water off and the bath was nearly full to the top with water. This means DH does not want him left alone for a week unsupervised. DS has only ever done this once ever.

DS will expected to contribute to the holiday so apart from being expected to come he will need to pay his share of the holiday too. However, we allow DS to live here rent free when he works full time as he has done since graduation from university.

What are peoples thoughts?

It’s a holiday not a three line whip.

In other words a holiday is an optional event. Of course your DH is being ridiculous. However I’m not especially keen on leaving my adult DC in the house when we go away because they are messy and careless.

I would not expect a 24 year old to be forced on a family holiday. 15 yes. But not a working adult.

Does your DH also have ASD and/or ADHD to be such an anxious person?

I've voted YABU (ie your DH is) as you haven't stated where you stand.

Of course a family holiday shouldn't be mandatory for a 24yo.

I didn’t expect my 19 year old to join us on holiday - but I did expect him to keep the house reasonably clean and tidy.

The issue here is how to get him to be careful and not cause a problem.

He shouldn't be forced to holiday with his parents if he doesn't want to. If there is really a danger of him flooding the house though perhaps you need to agree some ground rules before you leave him there!

It would likely do DS the world of good in terms of developing his independence to have the time at home alone.
I’d be quite firm with DH that as an adult DS can choose not to join the holiday, that this will be good for him and that, you’ll call/text home in the evening each day to check he’s done the locking up/switching off/bins etc.

Why should he contribute to a holiday he's not going on and doesn't want to go on? He's an adult, let him stay at home! And he's working and the bath thing happened one time.

We have left our 17 year old at home when they don’t want to come on holiday-that’s fine by me. They all come when we go somewhere hot with a pool though 😂

No, I absolutely would not expect them to come or pay.

I would hope your son wouldn’t be distracted by the bath running if there’s nobody else in the house! I’d have a conversation about that before going though, just to make sure!

Your DH is being ridiculous. I could just about understand it if your DS frequently left baths running, pans boiling over on the hob, front door unlocked et etc but for one instance, ASD or not, there is no reason for him to have to come with you.

DH is being ridiculous, of course a 24 year old doesn't have to go on a family holiday!

Having said that, I have different views about different of my children: 2 of them I would absolutely trust, the other might well leave the front door open all night without thinking about it. Probably nothing bad would happen but...

DH is wrong.

If he's anxious about what will happen to the house with DS on his own that is a different conversation

So every time your husband misplaces a key, breaks a glass or trips over a cat, he should be declared to be incapable of staying home unsupervised and should be required to join one of you on an activity he absolutely doesn't want to partake in. Something like WI meeting, cross stitching club or water aerobics would work splendidly to prove the point.

I think your DH is U.

He does need to work with DS on strategies to avoid him accidentally destroying the house whilst you’re away, eg by leaving the bath running.

I'm with you, I wouldn't force adult dc to come on the family holiday. I wouldn't even force an older teenager to go. They would be miserable on the holiday and bring everyone else down.

FWIW I am a neurotypical middle-aged woman and I once did the same as ds, got distracted and forgot about my bath running. I remembered, turned off the taps and everything was fine.

It's not really fair- holidays can be stressful and if he has ASD maybe he needs to use his annual leave to reset and prevent burnout. How long is the holiday?

I think your DH is not only being unreasonable, but he is being weird and controlling. Does he tell you what you can or cannot do?

Surely at that age you’d be encouraging them to move out. Not force them on a holiday if they don’t want to go.

This is 100% not fair on your son. It will be good for him and your DH to see how well he will do, the only compromise I would say is ok to ask is for DS to only have showers for that week.

Also, you can not order someone on holiday and then make them pay for it.

Why on earth would you want to compel someone to come on holiday who doesn't want to come? How bizarre.

He cannot be expected to go if he doesn't want to at 24! It's totally unnecessary, you can always send him reminders and check in with him if you're really that worried about the bath water! For the record, I recently forgot to turn the bath taps off - I forgot I was even running a bath and went off and did something else. Thankfully the water just went down the overflow so it didn't flood.

Your DH is being very unreasonable. My parents allowed me to make a choice from age 17, and that was 40+ years ago.

Not only does he expect his adult son to be forced to go on holiday, he expects him to pay for it.

Ridiculous. Is he always this controlling?

I would love my 17yr old to come on holiday with us forever as would my 13yr old. I would love for them both to always come.

However she’s already muttering about how she’s not sure she’s coming next year (even with me paying!), she wants to spend time with her friends, doesn’t want to use all her leave at work a family holiday, wants to go away with friends etc…I mean she will be 18yrs by then and I can’t force her to come.

Expecting at 24yr old to come is completely unreasonable in my opinion.

My 16 year old flooded the house the same way, my 12 year old has also done the same with less catastrophic effects. My best friend had to replace her own ceiling from leaving the taps on.

The point I am making is that it happens, a lot! That doesn’t mean your DS as an adult can’t be trusted alone. Maybe set the rule he can only shower while you are away if you must but he shouldn’t be forced to come.