Son still won’t work

[Lostmum8279]

My son is 22 years old and still can’t keep a job. Should I give him money when he asks? I feel guilty if I don’t but it is not really helping him I know. I don’t know what to do

You need to get him out on his own. If you don't, he will never mature & grow up. You'll be applying "Tough love".
(It's time to kick him out of the nest & let him use his wings! C'mon Mama bird!)

If you do give him money he should have to work for it: oven clean, car clean etc.

⤴️I had to do that w/ my 5 kids.

Good Lord 🤦🏾‍♀️.

Some woman will be on MN soon asking for advice on how to get rid of him. Stop enabling him or he'll never learn to stand on his own two blessed feet

He's a legal adult Op, he either has to work or claim benefits, he can't be a parasite living off his family, it's bad for you and even worse for him. If you don't make him face his responsibilities now he will waste his life away. Surely you want better for him?

😂so true.

Time for tough love.

Other than giving him a meal if you're eating, I wouldn't be giving him anything else. Also, the fact he hasn't got a key to (what I assume is his childhood home) is telling me something - DD is isn't perfect, but she has a key as I want her to have a safe space.

If he’s out with his mates so much, it doesn’t exactly sound like the sort of debilitating anxiety that could stop anyone working. Sounds to me more like a very convenient excuse for being a lazy arse..

Forgot to say, he should be getting some sort of benefit and that benefit is for his essentials, which include food - even if he isn't giving you a weekly amount, he should be contributing a few food items here and there.

If he isn't working and he isn't getting benefit, how is he even affording to go out with his mates? Surely they aren't keen on subbing him all the time?

I would be putting my foot down. He needs to find a job - any job - and pay you some rent. It's not good for anyone to be aimless and unemployed like this. He's at risk of drifting into crime or depression.

My son has anxiety he goes to school because he is more anxious about me being arrested if he doesn't he literally goes nowhere else he is so uptight if he is meeting me in a carpark and I pull over by the road he will STILL walk to the carpark rather than get in the car while there is traffic in case someone beeps the horn or gets cross

That's debilitating anxiety

Anyone with access to medical records on nhs system one will tell you a lot of people have anxiety, often with depression but they’ve still got jobs.

He needs to get a job & stick with it and be grown up he's an adult now and has been for a while.
Or he needs to go to the doctor and get signed off sick and claim pip, lcwra & uc if eligible. He can not live off hand outs especially from Mummy.
Also you should not feel guilty in any way.

His friends will get fed up of paying for him. If he has no money and you don’t give him any it will force him to sort himself out. He is an adult. So let him adult.

Debilitating anxiety that means you can't function or work doesn't look like getting into a car and going out to see your mates. This is very very hard but you will have to make some hard choices.

anyone with access to medical records on the NHS system shouldn't be telling ANYBODY ANYTHING

If your only giving him 10 pound here and there, he's going missing and "just driving around with his mates" until 3am in the morning and NOT getting benefits he's most likely up to some dodgy shit 😵‍💫

So how is he supposed to get in? Or is that I control him from being out? I’m lost. Sorry. I worked 3 jobs when I was 18 and lived at him until I was 20. I still came home at 3am. With a key. I’m missing something here,

100% this! Thank you!

What is he anxious about as it doesn't seem to be hindering his social life? Stop giving him money and make him job search. If he was receiving benefits and they have stopped it will be because he hasn't attended his meetings or failed to show any work search efforts .

Do people honestly think that the job centre will find him a job.
They will send people without a driving licence to a lorry driving job - some job coaches haven't got a clue.

Anxiety and how debilitating it is or isn’t

is not a competition. You’re not ‘better’ if you plough on. That’s a little ‘I had two broken legs and I still had to walk to work’. We’ve moved past that. You have NO RIGHT whatsoever to decide on what is or is not debilitating anxiety for someone else who isn’t you.

That's high functioning anxiety.

Debilitating anxiety would be being unable to leave the house or having panic attacks when he did or not being able to cope in general society/public.

Not going to get much for that giving they're giving him £10 every few weeks. That's what, 5 mins of oven cleaning. Might have the oven clean for Christmas Day 2025.

They will expect him to treat job seeking as a full time job and submit evidence to that effect. Presumably he was sanctioned previously because he didn't do that.