to expect back up from ym DH with this...

[purplepeony]

my adult son has come back home after being at uni and it's causing all kinds of problems with me and DH. Son was working for a while, now unemployed despite having a higher degree.

He recently had a birthday and received money from my brother and my best friend ( his Godmother). he has made some but not much effort to thank them both- phoned and they were out. I have constantly reminded him as I knw they both get rightly peeved about not being thanked ( not just by him but by anyone) and he just ignores me and says he'll do it later . Reminded him last night again just as DH was taking him to the oub for a "pep talk" re. being unemployed and applying for work. I suggested he made the thank-you calls before they went out- DH just let him off the hook and didn't back me up. We had a major row- one of many- where I feel I am on my own and he is not setting similar standards.

absolutely you and your DH should set acceptable standards of behaviour ITS YOUR HOUSE!!!!! Regardless of his age or his higher degree, he should respect your wishes.

Very kind of your brother and friend to send him money for his birthday - in my family that all stops once they reach 21 - he should be polite enough to thank them.

I would expect him to offer some housekeeping to you even if he is on benefits. He is an adult now and capable of working.

Purplepony he's overqualified for a menial job?
I employed many people with degrees and masters in my restaurant and within the entire industry this is common practice. Most waiters bar persons have degrees.
When I graduated I worked in a call centre and all but one person on my team had a degree of some sorts!!!

It is difficult to get a full time permanant job if it is seen as being "below" your skills / qualifications, becuase they know it is a stop gap. But agencies, bars and supermarkets aren't bothered as their turnover is so high anyway. But you do have to be incredibly persistent and motivated.

Re the original OP - is it right your DH didn't want to remind him about the thank you calls immediately before taking him out for a pep talk? Maybe he thought it was more important to focus on that, and was aware he was going to be getting on his case a bit anyway!

Temporary work also includes short term contracts. I have a good degree and I also have lots of other qualifications. I have never been refused a job based on being overqualified.
I have been made redundant three times in the last 18 years. Each time I have taken low paid temp work until I have found a decent permenent role. And each time I have found that it stands me in good stead to have done that.
Four months is more than enough timt to have found temporary work.

You don't have to throw him out but you do need to step back. All you need to do is say "You will pay x per week for board and lodgings. You supply your own food, your B and L covers bills. It's up to you how you earn the money to cover that."

At the moment you are facilitating his laziness.

Purplepeony, am feeling a bit sorry for you as you are getting a bit of a slating but your son needs a serious wake up call! If someone has two applications in front of them from similiar candidates do you take the one who has worked in a supermarket for 4 months or the one who has sat on his bum sponging off Mum and Dad and benefits for four months!!

If he has a problem getting paid work then there are tons of voluntary opportunities out there that require professional skills, point him at your local voluntary services organisation. Voluntary work can also help him start building contacts.

With regard to agencies, they will give him work if he turns up every day, suited and booted asking if there is anywhere they can send him. I have several friends that did this and none waited that long for contracts. While others ARE doing this he will get nothing.

LOL at 'overqualified', I work with someone who has a PhD and is a former Oxbridge lecturer. I also have a higher degree. We're both doing jobs that don't even require GCSEs because it pays money!!

All our Admin temps in the office here have at least one degree (some have more). Can he sign up with some agencies? Quite a few of our temps have ended up being hired for good by my employer and then being promoted out of basic admin roles.

You don't need to kick him out if you aren't ready (although at 23 he should leave home IMO) but you need to take at least half of his jobseeker's allowance which will be 65 a week paid fortnightly. Leave him with about 30 quid max to pay bus fares, phone credit and sundries. If he gets 65 quid in his pocket every week he's not likely to have an incentive to do a lot. 65 quid is more than most people have disposable income per week. Most people on JSA are paying food and bills out of that so he should not be any different.
I'm sorry you have to be so harsh with him but so many young people seem to find it hard to realise that the world doesn't owe them a living, especially those who have been supported through uni by parents (sorry) I was supported to the tune of 500 a term (still very generous) by my folks but still had to work all the way through. I got a 2:2 when I could have got a 2:1 but in the end that didn't matter to my career and I learnt the value of a dollar.

kat I do agree with you- I thought he would get £65 per fortnight.

we currently pay around £300 a month for our daughter at uni- so have no spare cash for someone who is unwilling to get out there and find work! we are doing without a lot of things which in our middle age we deserve and could afford without dependent children!
unlike you, we have supported them at uni financially so they could focus on their studies and not have to get a job, but there is a limit and I have reached mine.

Does he not have friends he could house share with? Can he not just get ANY job?

Only that is how the offspring of some of us more elderly parents have tended to deal with the realisation that first degrees often equals little more than the chance to come home and live in that strange zone that is neither childhood nor responsible adulthood.

Can you not encourage him to get out and do something constructive that'd look far better than "idling around pissing off my parents" on the CV?

the secondcoming- have you any idea of costs? if he could get a bedsit and live in it and pay food, council tax and fares, on a mimimum wage- great- show me the bedsit, when we live just north of London, and I;ll take his stuff now.

No, his friends live either at home, or a long way away, or have 1 bed flats or houses.

PP - I do appreciate why you are supporting your kids and I think it's wonderful. I bet your daughter isn't a lazy sponger though is she Seriously, boys are far more likely to go 'back home' rather than deal with the unpleasantness of living independently, whereas girls see the benefits as outweighing the negatives. My parents gave both my youngest brothers (who never moved away to uni) deadlines for moving out, which was age 20. That gave them plenty of time to find full time work (which they did, in a kitchen and a bakery respectively) and save up. They never asked board and lodgings but expected them to save 250quid a month. Now one brother lives independently and has 4 grand in the bank at age 21, and the other is on his way to that much and looking at flats to rent with his mates. Will your DS hand over half his JSA without a fight? Will he ask to 'borrow' money from you when he has spent it all 3 days into his fortnight? The key is to make rules and stick to them. You will be doing him a favour in the long run.

Honestly, I would have been if I was living at home age 23.

Purplepeony,

I understand that you do not want to throw him out in the circumstances, but it looks like he could be doing a lot more than what he is currently doing to get himself out of this situation:

• 6 months doing nothing will not look good on his CV when he goes to those City interviews. My DH worked as a shelf-stacker in Boots before Xmas while he was doing the milk-round thing. His Oxford degree did not seem to hinder his application for a menial job, and he was not put off by the 1hr 30m commute each way. Actually at the end of his contract Boots offered him a job on its graduate scheme as they could see the potential. Could he at least do some tutoring for people preparing for A levels or undergrad exams etc?

• he says he wants to be an economist, but it looks to me like he has not even bothered researching the opportunities - economists do not only work in banks (and by the way, all of my friends who are economists in investment banks have PhDs, so that's sth else he may want to think about). But what about:

• FSA, Bank of England, Treasury, Inland Revenue: these also need economists, and are less likely to be influenced by the economic cycle;

• law firms with a competition law dept will need macroeconomists

• economic consultancies (loads in London)

• accountancies - again, they have been affected by crisis but not as much as banks, so they will still hire economists.

• Other financial companies or newspapers e.g. the FT, Reuters, Thomson Financial etc

• Could he also consider financial fields which need similar skills to financial economists? E.g. capital management actuarial jobs (loads of jobs even in crisis as there is a huge shortage of these skills).

And I am sure that if he put his mind to it he could come up with more. I do think you do need to have a face to face conversation re: how you expect him to behave in your house, contributing to your budget (even a tenner if it's all it can do) .

You say you cannot do that as he is 23, but given he is not behaving like a grown up, is he?

I'm not commenting on the necessity of him being at home - others have done that brilliantly, but one thing caught my eye. He has an economics degree and lives just north of london. Get him to explore the Government Economics Service for oppotunities in real economics, they're usually crying out for bright graduates. There are various routes in but at a starting pay of around £20k I think he could easily start supporting himself...

And for what it's worth I found myself on my own at 22 having lost both my parents, my only assest was their house worth a bare £30k - I had nothing, nowhere and pretty much no-one else. I managed...

Thesecondcoming... I know... it's just that it really bothers me to see people with skills and potential waste their time like that...

One can only hope

What about volunteer work? At least it would fill a gap on his CV.
A friend of ours worked in a charity shop for a few months as a voulunteer.
At 23 I had 2 children and had lived with my partner for 3 years. I was paying bills and earning a living from the age of 19 / 20.
My brother is now 23 and still lives with my parents and works as little as possible to have enough money to fund his lifestyle. I would have been if I was living like that at 23. Maybe it is a boy thing lol
Point out to your son that very few ladies will be impressed by an unemployed 23 year old who lives at home with his parents

I thank you all for your replies- too many to respond to in detail but just topoint out a couple of things...

I have never said that my son would not take a job "beneath him", ever in this thread. Neither has he. What I have said is that it can be hard to find temp work in this recession. I have also said that supporting yourself entirely on the minimum wage in the SE of England is not easy or even possible.

Re. the list of job opportunities and the suggestions of the Bank of England etc etc- my son is aware of all of these and has applied/is going to apply for all of this stuff, but if you know anything about the application process you will know that it starts this month, and that the intake is greatly reduced due to the recession. Some companies and organisations are not recruiting at all.

I am not here to defend him- my OP was about thanking friends for gifts and my DH's lack of support re. my stance on this. This thread has now moved into other areas, nad without giving more details that will "out" me or him, I think it's best left now. Thanks for all the positive support and suggestions from afew of you- but I don't need any Daily Mail type slangings.

thesecondcoming- You don't know me at all, but your opinions re. me are way out of line and totally unnecessary thanks.

I hardly think that asking for info on benefits is showing a lack of motivation- just for your beenfit, I have spent most of today on the web looking at gov.uk, in order to find out. The reason for that is so I can have the "ammunition" I need to be able to tell my son that he won't get what he thinks he will, and the only answer is to find work.

The reason I don't know anything about benefits is that I have worked for 30+ years, and all the time I was at uni, and have never taken a benefit in my life even when I might have been eligible to.

thesecondcoming- I think you are confusing two issues. I asked about the "thank you" issue re. my DH. I did not ask for advice initially about my son 's unemployment situation.

I have not made excuses for him- I have given you facts. That is not to say that there are no jobs at all, I am fully aware of that, and yes, he should be looking more actively.

I have not made excuses about the cost of accommodation in the SE. Rent alone would cost a minimum of £240 monthly, then there is council tax, bills, food and fares. It might be just possible to live on the minimum wage and be independent, but it would be a close thing. No one would be happier than me to see him scrape by and support himself.

It's not a case of my being "lucky" never having been on benefits- I have worked doing all kinds of jobs when a student and as an adult,and in order to find work at 21, I moved 350 miles away from home and family.