Thinking it’s weird for kids to pay parents rent

[User788889]

My friend has a daughter (17) she charges rent. My family did the same to me growing up? Am I the only one who think it’s setting your kids up for failure and greedy to charge your kids for staying in their childhood home. I’d want my kids to be able to afford their own place not make it harder for them. Only thing I would do was pretend to and then give it all back to them…

This is quite clearly financial abuse, so no, not okay. But these hyperbolic anecdotes are just silly in a debate like this. Really, what the OP is about is whether children and young adults should be asked to pay rent whilst they find their feet, most functioning adults do not wish to live with their parents and therefore most of the time everyone has a mutual goal - the young adult wants to strive for independence and the parents want to see their children stable and happy. If parents choose to charge their children rent that mutual goal becomes more and more unreachable.

You can try to justify charging your children rent by telling yourself you’re teaching them a life lesson, but the reality is you’re making their lives unnecessarily harder and teaching them that they have no real safe space to fall back on. My goal as a parent is to always be that safe space, so that my
children can take risks, make mistakes and succeed and eventually find their feet enough that I am not needed so much anymore. But truly I have failed as a parent if they feel they cannot turn to me, and I do think charging rent would make our relationship too transactional, they can return the favour by being a springboard for their own children.

There are exceptions to every rule, so of course a household shouldn’t go in to debt providing for a young adult, and no fully grown men shouldn’t be financially abusing their parents but bottom line is - if you can you should. If you can provide a home for your children whilst they find their feet then you should, and this should absolutely be free of charge - I will die on that hill.

@SallyWD "Does everything think this is ok?"

No, of course not. Don't be silly.

Nope, absolutely not weird to expect working adults to pay for the things they use. Also hate the whole “taking rent and giving it all back to them when they move out”. Does them absolutely no favours and I’ve found, particularly for men who’ve been allowed to stay with mummy for free, they don’t want to pay their fair share of bills when they move in with another woman.

I dont think anyone should be taken advantage of, either kids or parents.
I don't feel too taken advantage of at the moment, so happy not to take rent because I can afford it ( yes, it is a privilege). Plus we are in London and it's really hard for young adults. That may change, of course. But both my DC are happy to go into a shared house with strangers and are working towards that.

I think I will ask DS to buy all his own food when he starts earning as he eats a lot. DH is a big softie so will push back even against that!

No absolutely disgusting

Will he inherit the house?

This is exactly how we see it. We want our house to ourselves at some point in the future. I’m not having working adults living under my roof for free, us paying for their food and utilities while spending all their wage on booze, clothes, holidays. We will support them financially if they’re actively saving towards a deposit for a house.

Hasn't she gone to college and then planning uni?

I'm very surprised that people lose £600 a month when their dcs turn 18.

OK then so those dependent on benefits who will lose £600 a month may well need their dc to top up the loss.

In familes where this isn't the case and all they are losing is 80quid a month CB then no, the DC should save every spare penny towards their futures. If still at home whe earning a good wage and in their 30s then yes fine.

'And I realise that many mumsnetters seem delighted to have their adult children living at home, DH and I kind of do want them gone at some point'

Totally agree and they'll have enough saved for deposits so they won't be at home at 30 paying our bills.

Isn’t it the opposite of setting them up for failure but actually teaching them to budget and prioritise bills over luxuries?

No it’s not weird, and it sounds a bit privileged and naive to say that it is.
If they are earning and not in education then they should be paying something towards living costs.

Yes quite. Infantilising young adults or teaching them it's normal to have a whole wage just to spend on clothes and fun is actually not kind.

So people who aren’t in as fortunate position as you are “setting their children back”? Must be lovely up there in your palace judging everyone. My dad became terminally ill and could no longer run his businesss and my mom had to give up her well paying job to look after him and my younger siblings when I was 17. Without my contribution from leaving college and getting a full time job, they wouldn’t have able to afford to have me live there. I suppose they were bad parents for “setting me back”? Should they have not charged me and let my siblings starve?

They pay for their own clothes, their social lives, their takeaways, their phones their taxis etc. All the stuff we pay when they are in edication. Any extra they save so they can move out and aren't paying your bills when they are 30.
Teens need support to get on the housing ladder.

I mentioned this "hyperbolic" case because I'm interested to see where people draw the line. At what age should a grown adult child start contributing to the costs of running a house? Or maybe it isn't age related but salary related. If an adult child is earning more than their parents, should they start to contribute then?
I only raised it because I've seen many people say they will never take any type of financial contribution from their children. I find this odd. I understand if you have children in their late teens/early 20s who are finding their feet and keen to move out ASAP. In these cases, if you can afford to conrinue supporting them, then fine. However, these days there are an increasing number of young people choosing to live at home long term (into their late 20s and 30s) and I see absolutely no reason why they shouldn't be contributing.
Thankfully, most people have a more common sense approach to it.

Yes

Depends on the situation. I have a 19 year old DS on an apprentice wage so I don't charge him any board but when he moves up to minimum wage I will. I'm a single parent with a younger DD and he had far more disposable income to spend on himself than I do. I earn a decent wage for our area but I have many more outgoings than him. I won't charge him a lot when his earnings improve but having another adult living here does cost me money and it's important for them to learn about the cost of living and budgeting. All he pays for is his petrol, car insurance & spends the rest on himself. That isn't real life.

Well aren’t you the lucky one @User788889 ? Not everyone is in the same privileged situation as you.

So bloody judgemental!

No one in my extended family would dream of charging a teen or young adult.

You do realise that very many households have very finely balanced budgets and that the loss of just £80 is enough to tip that balance?

As I unfortunatly have to keep on saying, once they have jobs they are paying for all the stuff parents previously did. The clothes, the nights out, the phones, the petrol, the toiletries, the hair dos. Need I go on? It balances out they don't need to pay towards parents bills unless you want them living at home forever as they've no way of saving.

What’s the cut off for a young adult, it seems a bit odd that for example someone in their latish 20’s earning 50k a year isn’t contributing financially to the household?

She is in 6th form, she isn’t going to Uni because she can’t afford it and I can’t top her up.

When she is 18 I will lose her CMS that is £300, her share of UC which is in the region of a similar figure and her CB. I will also lose my 25% council tax reduction.

I don’t need her to “top up” the loss, I need her to contribute when earning to the bills that I have in the house.

It really isn’t for you to decide what anyone should or should not be charging their children based on your decision that all anyone is losing is CB

I also note that you say a 30 year old at home should pay, but say, a 19 year old should not? So when is your cut off point? It’s not ok to charge a 19 year old on min wage but it is ok to charge a 25 year old who may be on the same? Is there a magical “moment” then?

How sad

We sat down with our DS and showed him our bills and how much it costs to run our house. He offered to pay a contribution. We don’t need the money at all, we are in a household where benefits have never been claimed. It is good to teach fiscal responsibility. We taught him all about savings, compound interest and pensions. He is in a well paying job especially for his age, saving for a deposit for a house and has a decent pension plan.

I know I now live in a world that is very privileged financially. Child of a single parent as my Mother was widowed when I was 12. My Mother took 50% of my wages, she really needed it as no benefits back then and smaller children to feed. Regardless of if people agree or disagree with what I do it’s worked out for me.

I kind of wish my parents had done this for me. I am an only child and was doted on, but also babied if I’m honest. Never had to do chores all that much. My parents are not rich now and were not well-off when I was growing up, in act quite the opposite - but even as an adult they’d struggle and support me. All while I was having takeaways multiple times a week, spending a fortune on makeup and clothes and concerts and just stuff I didn’t need, working less than I could have because I had no ‘need’ for the money as all my money was just spending money for me to waste.
I moved out when I was 21, and going into the real world was a shock. Moved into a flat with my partner and didn’t really know how to do housework, how to budget, how to run a washing machine even. It’s all stuff I’ve had to learn as I’ve gone along and it’s been difficult, as well as going from spending whatever I wanted on whatever hobby I’d adopted that week to all these different bills and not realising until then how much life costs.

With my son, when he’s an adult/earning his own money I’ll probably charge a bit of rent and set it aside to give back to him when he starts looking at moving out. I wouldn’t feel right taking his money to run the house (unless we really were struggling financially and it was necessary) but I think understanding that life costs money would have benefitted me in my late teen years. I’ve always been self-employed and able to go ‘eh, I can’t be bothered to work today’ and now I need the money I’m very hardworking and a lot more driven. I think there’s a balance between helping your kids understand the value of money and ‘paying your way’ and taking the piss.