AIBU to ask my 24 year old son to leave home?

[Jasmine1970]

After behaving very badly over Christmas I would like to ask my son to leave, he has been staying since September and plans to leave on April for a summer job abroad, he eill
doin turn 25. He dropped out of uni in his 3rd year and worked last summer at a sky jumping centre. He loves sky jumping and white water kayaking,
He was supposed to help me with my business but has done very little and over the last few months I’ve didn’t £1,500 paying a handyman to do jobs he could have done. I pay for his car insurance, petrol and food.
He says he wants a job but dues very little to get one. I had to redo his CV as it was terrible.

I know if I say he can’t love at home he will guilt trip me about it. But I feel that he’s missing out on vital life lessons that he would learn from fending for himself.
He’s quite happy, has a big collection of kayaks, some of which now reside on my kitchen, and he takes them out on trips in his old banger. Has a very sweet girlfriend who also comes round to the house from
time to time.
From time to time I lose my rag when customers phone me with complaints relating to jobs he hasn’t done, but promised to do.
He can be rude to me and act in an entitled way, for example we were in a shop today and he picked up a load of beef jerky that came to £40 and expected me to pay for it, I don’t have spare money for such expensive things,
should o ask him to move out and how should I do this in a kind reasonable way, ?

So many parents still paying for their adult kids petrol, food etc.
Stop enabling his lazy behaviour!

It depends what you’re suggesting- OP appears to be suggesting she’ll - for want of a better word- “kick him out”. He’ll have nowhere to go, and getting a job in January (by which time he’ll be in a pretty bad way) won’t help with that.

telling him to get a job is the answer but begs the question why, if it’s that easy, OP hasn’t already done this.

the job is only relevant if she does what others are suggesting- giving him a date in a few months time by which he needs to be working, saved a deposit and found a place and move out. Since he’s moving out in April anyway why not just use that time?

Difficult but how is he going to pay for alternative accommodation, a deposit etc? It is only until April so I’d let him stay. It’s a bad time of year for getting a job now especially if he’s leaving in April, he should really have tried to get a Christmas seasonal job but it’s too late now.

I’d give an ultimatum first before asking him to leave, he needs to be pulling his weight around the house and you need to set out what you will and won’t be paying for (food and bills, not petrol).
I would also threaten to “fire” him from your business, give a verbal warning as you would any employee, you can’t allow him to treat your customers badly. One more complaint and he’s fired.

Also the “bad behaviour” over Christmas are hardly capital offences, he’s been a little arrogant maybe as young people are inclined to be. Sounds like he’s being labelled as the “black sheep” of the family for being a bit different from the rest of you (24 year old men don’t usually care much about antique chairs)

YABU for 1) raising this bellend and 2) continuing to fund his life.

He sounds awful. I'd be embarrassed that he treats his elderly relative so badly. His manners are appalling and from your description he sounds spoiled and entitled. Why are you putting up with this?

I'd be telling him that he adjusts his attitude sharpish, and if that doesn't suit then he can leave and needs to be out by the end of January. And in the meantime the bloody kayaks need to be stored somewhere suitable - i.e. not in the kitchen.

Read him the riot act - he’s not fitting in with family life and needs a huge reminder that you won’t tolerate it.
mid teens are still teenagers at heart and he’s been allowed to slide. Cite his Christmas behaviour as the catalyst for this because none of the things you listed are acceptable at any adult age let alone 25

He needs to pay for his food and petrol as a minimum!

And make a decent family meal at least twice a week ( he’d have been doing all his own cooking at uni

He needs to work for you at a acceptable standard or get a job or sign on to fund this, and he must find alternative storage away from your home for his kyacks by mid January ( the kichen is not the place for them! )

id let him stay until April ( wether he goes to his planned job or not ) but be clear now that his leaving date is xx April and that you expect all his belongings to be gone at that point.

Be clear that you’ll look forward to seeing him after his summer job but he won’t be moving back in

HIS JOB SITUATION: he’s going abroad in April to work as ground crew at a skydiving centre for the summer season. So this is hanging out with bums and highly successful people who can fund their extreme sports trips. It’s a very responsible job where he worked last summer and was very valued, he’s capable.
he also is often in charge of safety on kayaking trips. He can get up at 6 in the morning on icy days and pack up the car for these trips. .
Hes good a rallying up friends go go on trips and can post his stuff on social media.

im struggling to have the conversations as he twists it into an argument. (We mostly jolly along well) I want him out and i want to keep my dignity and I want it all in writing and understood that when he returns to UK in September that he cannot live with me. I agree with comments that i sm enabling his bad behaviour and I am very annoyed. Especially on crust as eve when i had a phone call from an unhappy customer about a job he hache done. I was thinking of employing a mediator to make sure he understands. Or putting it in writing. It needs to be understood 9 months ahead so he can plan.

in the mean time I want him to stay with his father in london. His father has space. He just doesn’t want to go there as his father will be harder on him. And not tolerate kayaks in the kitchen. I want him to also face these conversations with the other family members and men on that side of the family.

So, yes I agree, the kayaking is the World of Bums, but it makes him happy and I don’t begrudge him a time for being a bum at 25
if he’s loving life. Having hobbies and passions is great and I hope it will give him a reason to earn money. The gear is not cheap and you need a place to store it. It’s not my choice for him, I would rather he used his 20s to graft in the world of work like I did.

i’m a single mother, who’s worked her sicks off to be sole provider for the family. im just struggling to dish out the tough love required, im thinking of writing him a letter, i just don’t want it to read like a character assassination.

he’s had amazing opportunities since September to get involved in some very interesting community / charity projects im involved with that need young people to do work experience. Very disappointed that he’s not taken any of these. We are now teaming up with the local uni, to offer these to students. There are also two new business ventures, quite fun work, that he could have got started and would given him
easy money, aldi the customer he keg down was overworked with a rapidly expanding business and was needing helpers, which was all pointed out to him,
.

Well in that case if he has his Dad’s place to go to I would send him there until April. Also tell him it’s not going to work if he moves back with you in September unless he has a job lined up, but definitely no more kayaks in the kitchen

He sounds like an absolute over indulged brat ! I mean why would he want to leave when you are funding him, he is a grown man swinging on chairs to get attention A grown up man ! I would be mortified if my children acted like this, my suggestion is to stop funding him give him proper work hours in your bussiness and if he doesn't shape up you tell him he has to find alternative living arrangements.

Just stop paying for his insurance / petrol etc.

You are enabling him.

I would let him stay in the house but stop financially supporting him.

Show him your maintenance costs etc, and tell him that as he is not paying his way ‘in kind’ and due to customer complaints you are sacking him from your business so he needs to pay some rent.

Be firm and clear and stick to it.

More power to you for admitting that you've raised an obnoxious spoiled thief - i don't know if I'd have the cojones to do that, even anonymously. Why are you fixated on getting everything in writing? You can't even tell him to stop swinging on a chair, are you really going to enforce a written agreement?

Just tell him he's got to go and live with his dad or with the "really sweet girlfriend" 🤮 and stop discussing it further.

It seems that somewhere along the line he has learned that if he argues, then he gets what he wants - and so have you!

A boundary isn't something to be abandoned when someone argues with it. It's something you keep firm on whatever those around you are doing - otherwise it's like letting neighbours build on your land, or burglars have your stuff, just to avoid arguing with them.

So you tell him you are no longer paying for any of his expenses. If he starts trying to 'twist it into an argument' you walk away saying 'you can argue all you like, I'm not paying anything for you any longer.' Then 'broken record' technique. Or just let him argue with himself and say nothing.

Same with him coming back in September. "You cannot live here in September, because it hasn't worked out this time". Change your locks once he's gone if you need to.

Personally, if he was leaving kayaks in the kitchen I'd be chucking them out the house every time. But I'm stubborn.

I wouldn't try to get him out before April because I honestly don't think you are up to it. You'd literally 'ask' him, and he'd say no, so what's the point? I'd start with stuff you can control without his agreement - so stopping the financial support.

JFC.

You're not doing him any favours by subsidising this lifestyle.

Where you’ve gone wrong is allowing him to get to the big age of 25 frittering about doing ‘nothing’ jobs when he feels like it. I’m a couple years older than him and already had 7 years of full time corporate experience by 25. The difference is my mum said when I left education at 18 that I had no choice to get a full time job because she wasn’t having someone bumming about in her house, would no longer be buying me clothes, handed my phone contract over to me and told me to get on with it. And I did. Also self funded my driving lessons, car and insurance entirely myself. Last had a holiday abroad paid for when I was 10 years old, but have been able to travel all over the place once I had my own dime which felt amazing.

What motivation does he have to work if he doesn’t miss out on having anything by not working?

I would just tell him he needs to go to his Dad's today. It's not like you're kicking him out on the streets, so I don't think you need to give him time to find alternative living arrangements, he's already fortunate enough to have options.

You've been generous and accommodating with him for long enough and he's thrown it back in your face. Now he needs to face the consequences of acting like a spoilt teenager and if that means some tough love from his Dad, then so be it. Don't let him bum around sponging off you until April.

What’s the dynamic with his dad generally?? I feel this will be important here. Are you overcompensating for an absent/ unengaged dad? Either way I do agree with the others that this cannot go on, and the best way of tackling it is to withdraw financial support but keep a roof over his head till April but not after that.

Stop paying for his car bills and tell him he does the work and you pay him directly for this work or he doesn't do it and he's sacked and you will employ someone more reliable. I'd do as a PP suggested and say by the end of February he needs to have moved out. You do him no favours by accepting this poor work ethic.

I actually feel a bit sad for your DC discovering that some people literally get everything for nothing at such a young age - I can see how it’s really destabilising. I didn’t come across these people until I was mid career in my 30s at which point I was scrimping and saving and planning for DC and they were being gifted 4 bed Victorian houses in beautiful London suburbs.

Can you, through some careful conversations, help your DC find some rage in their belly rather than jealousy or expectation. It’s a very motivating energy!

The trouble is there is no career in kayaking. I know of several centres who have made their instructors redundant over the last few years, and then only rehired on zero hours contracts. And then it tends to be who you are mates with. They do not pay more than minimum wage and the cost of keeping your qualifications and equipment up to date is high coupled with the lack of affordable housing around kayaking areas. It's not secure employment and I know of only a couple of people in the industry (which is small) who are 'making a go of it's.

Its fine at 25. Not so much in your late 30s and definitely not in your 50s (yep know a couple of them. It's really sad). And injury screws you. And then there's the deaths. It's generally a safe sport, but then there's the day someone does something stupid and it ends in disaster - one of my friends who is a professional instructor has lost three or four friends he was reasonably close to because they did something daft. (It's almost always predictable unfortunately. It's the cocky lads who ignore all their safety protocols because they know better on that particular day).

Honestly if he's going to do that over the summer that's fine. But make it absolutely clear to him that he will not be returning and he has to have a plan for the off season next year and you won't be storing his kayaks whilst he's a away so he needs to come up with a plan for those too or they will go on eBay. He can be as abusive as he likes once he's gone in April and he's left his kayaks. You've warned him and you are not free storage. Put it in writing to him that storage will not be available and items left will be disposed of. Tell him he needs to save and his worse case is he can buy an old van and live in it like his paddler mates.

Honestly I know far too many paddlers who act like this. People I have a lot of time for and care about, but sponge off girl friends and parents like there's no tomorrow. One of them owes DH a couple of hundred quid which I'm unimpressed at as I told DH he'd never see it again and lo and behold he's 'forgotten'. DH has effectively written it off at this point.

He will treat you like shit forever if you let him. It's part of this culture in paddling so you very much need to be aware of. Don't be that doormat.

I wish I could say different but it's all thoroughly depressing.

Don't be paying for his car insurance and fuel. He needs to get a job and pay for those himself

Yeah. Sounds like he likes his hobbies and doesn’t know what the real world costs to live in. About time he pulled his socks up and learnt some responsibility.

Manipulation at its finest !!
You need to show him you know what's he's doing and it stops right now !

His dad loved him but was not a good dad in that he disliked him at times as he was a tricky child and father massively favoured his clever and charming younger brother and would openly say this, even upsetting his children from a previous marriage. The father never paid any maintenance or allowances and I paid even for their train tickets to see the father, he has always had regular contact with the father and has lived with him for spells. The father was an abusive partner and continued to be abusive throughout their childhood even though I left when he was 7. The father now feels guilty and is very sweet to me and has finally stopped disparaging me. So yes, this background of taught disrespect of mother and unkindness is a factor. And the failure of the parents to act as a team with the tough love.

ive taken my eye off the ball recently as I’ve been extremely busy at work and helping my mother who has had a stroke and to sort out my late fathers things. Also helping my sister who has two young children. They live far away, So the situation crept up as I was needing help. But the Christmas behaviour was disappointing and Ive had time to reflect, and I need to draw the line. I need him to be in the world learning the lessons the world teaches you.

im able to set the boundary, but I need to have the reasons clear in my head as there will be revisionist history going on after the event and he’s going to say I’ve been a bitch to him. Which I guess I am being in the short term, for the long term kindness.

Stop paying for his car and his food. Make it clear that if he works for you, you’ll pay him, but if he doesn’t, you won’t. You have to start treating him as an adult, not molly-coddling him as a child.