I want my 24 year old son to leave home...

[Tigerzmum]

My son is 24 years old; has dropped out of uni 2ce; with a large student loan now. He does not ask for advice on how to move forward and does not share his information.

My pension does not cover my costs, my son lives in my home rent free, paying no bills and feels this is his due as I am his mother and he has no income.

He has been told he does not qualify for JSA, as he does not have enough NI credits;

He does not want to apply enough care in my home for hygiene and protecting items in my home. (A 3-bed house). He has refused to accept my rules for my home.

I live on the state pension having spent a huge amount of my income on private education for my son from the age of 2 years to 15 years.

The only options I see I have, are to sell my home or rent it out and move away, but the latter is a scary option as I like to be alone and love the corner in buckinghamshire where I have chosen to plant myself, even before I became his mother. (As a single parent.)

I just want to be away from my son. I have given him verbal notice to leave over 12 months ago, and have put this in writing 2 weeks back now. He doesn't believe I can enforce this.

I really do not want to spend the rest of my life, servicing him, forcing him to meet my level of hygiene or cleaning up after him.

I feel I am being coercively controlled by my son to fund his cost of living.

Further, I am really not living the life I had planned. I am 66 years old. I just want to be free to live the rest of my life as I had planned in my own home alone and not having to meet a confrontation to force a 24 year old man to meet my requests and standards for my home.

Isn't 24 years of age old enough to live independently? -Surely there is government support to help him to get on his feet.

I'd love to hear your views.

I'll say again making him homeless could be the best thing ever

my nephew was a nightmare. He was made homeless and now has a great supervised home share and it’s fantastic for him

You could be right. Or he will freeze to death on the first night.

I do support OP being robust and the man has to move out, that is clear. I just don't like the idea of OP waiting till he goes out for some milk and then changing the locks and that being that.

Put his stuff in bin bags outside, change the locks and inform the police of your actions to log it.

@Greenmouldycheese He needs to be adulting though, 24 ( presumably 25 this year) is far too old to be behaving like this, he’s not a teenager anymore.

I know a few parents IRL coping with adult children in their mid-late 20’s who are refusing to behave like adults and I feel so frustrated for them. The parents are treated like workhorses, expected to work and provide indefinitely. I bet that no one on this thread was behaving like this at 24.

The OP is 66 and on a pension, she can’t provide for him anymore!

I know! He’s only been a fully grown adult for 3 years!

He needs support and a mother who cares, not pressure to leave. Encouragement to find work - yes!

@Tigerzmum I think at 24, he may be still able to qualify for an apprenticeship.

If he has a diagnosis and goes to housing services, they may help him with a deposit, or the OP could, when she sells, put some money on one side for that. I'd do that, look to securing my own future and his at the same time, in a way that is sustainable for the future.

He will join the millions sitting on basic benefits in the UK, there are so many it's untrue. There are landlords who offer very cheap rooms and take housing benefit, I know someone who lives in one. It's fine, and a step towards independence. He won't be able to live at home on his mum's pension indefinitely anyway.

No it's not. Most men in their was live with their parents because house prices are so expensive. Do you have children or know anything about the housing situation at the moment? Yes I'd expect my son to have a jib at 24 but I'd never expect him to be moved out of the house and homeless.

Ah really no one is saying she’s saying he’s been in bed all day she’s literally going to kick him out of bed tonight and make him sleep in the garden

What a horrible post.

@Greenmouldycheese As there is a limit to the the text length here, I have held back with some detail, but given enough to give an understanding of the situation with my son. The thread has given a wide breadth of possibilities on how to move forward. -And am grateful for this. The situation as it stands at the moment is not tenable, I need to help my son to be independent at 24. I will balance the best options for myself and my son, as my incapability is stalling me from giving value to others in my family, work and society at large.

@Obscurity Oh come on, what were you doing at 24? I expect that you were working and paying bills like I was. Being an adult isn’t a choice, we have to do it.

My goodness. He's TWENTY FOUR, FFS! An ADULT.. He should have stopped being OPs responsibility years ago.

I agree with this - he needs a timeframe and practical help.

Throwing his stuff out on the streets and changing the locks is cruel.

And 24 IS young.

This is cruel. I hope you haven't got children.

So many vicious people in here.

If you don’t feel able to throw him out can you withdraw home comforts. So buy very limited food and keep it hidden, don’t have broadband, don’t pay his phone.
In tandem ask godfather/uncle to speak again and offer to accompany him to Welfare rights/CAB to see what assistance he can access.

Are you one of those people who threw their kids out at 18?

You can give him a month’s notice. If he ignores it then bag up his things and ask for your door key. If he’s being awkward then get your locks changed and do not give him a new key. Tell him to go to the council house with his suitcase and present himself as homeless. They will call you to confirm the story. He should get a temporary hotel room, while he’s on the waiting list for council accommodation. My mum went through the same thing with my brother and he was almost 30 when he finally left. He was horrible to live with and very lazy. My parents had to pretend to sell up to downsize, to make him leave! If you don’t be firm, then he will be in your house until the day you die!

To be honest, @Tigerzmum forcing his hand may do him good in the long run by pushing him along the path to independence. He isn't your responsibility any more - we are doing our kids a disservice by supporting them to this extent for so long.

I've helped people through homeless services so I know exactly what's available.

Yes, the housing crisis is rough for young people as they are not able to buy, but there are rentals for that sector, and if the OP throws him out, making him homeless, then he can register with social services, esp if he has diagnosed MH or other diagnoses (and I suggest those are recorded for exactly that reason) and they will assign him a housing officer and try to get him into a private room somewhere.

If he ends up homeless, the OP can take him back in, it's not a for ever once situation, but he's not working, not doing anything, not getting diagnosed, eating the OP's food, not tidying and basically refusing to leave, and without any motivation to do anything else, there he will be in another decade and personally I see it as an important part of being a parent to shove them out of the nest a bit, with lots of support, a deposit, a listening ear, and to come back if it doesn't work out, but shove them out nonetheless. Making it very comfortable to live at home for free, and not adulting, is not happening in my household as I think it can keep people psychologically unable to develop and if that doesn't happen in their twenties, when is it going to happen? Mine can always come back for a fixed time to save for a deposit or if in crisis, but basically I'm not running a multi-generational household where the children stay children for life which I'm starting to see happening around me.

I have a sibling who lives independently after being forced to move out and it was by far the best thing that happens, he has MH issues and may be on the spectrum, but he has built up a limited but nice life and deserves that for himself.

I don't really understand that sentence but when people say "change the locks" they mean just that. He's out. If he can't (or more likely, doesn't) find a place to stay at a few hours notice, he might very well be in the garden.

That's the reality I would be scared of if I was OP.

No. I am a 43 year old woman that moved into a shared house a week after my 18th birthday and had two jobs on the go to cover my bills. Like an adult.

He just needs a kick up the arse to get a job or sort out housing benefit

All he has to do is ask for help, within the family and and have a conversation, to show is open to accept advice discarding his ego. (We are a large educated family, many ready to give support to him directly).

And how old are the adult children in your home right now?

There was once a story in the paper about an Indian son who was suing his father for lifelong financial support. His argument was that he hadn't asked to be born and his parents had selfishly brought him into the world to fulfil their own needs, so they owed him a living.

When I first read the story, I thought it was crazy, but now I've had kids I can see his point. We bring kids into the world for entirely selfish reasons. If they go on strike as adults and refuse to support themselves, I guess we're ultimately on the hook.

@Tigerzmum - good luck.