How dependant are you 20 something year old children on you?

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For instance, do they still live with you? If so do they financially contribute? Do you cook all their meals and wash their clothes? Drive them to places? Etc etc

My 19 year old is a fulltime college student. She works weekends.

She drives herself wherever she wants to go. She keeps her room clean. She pays her own phone contract, car insurance, petrol, any clothes she wants and make up. I buy clothes she needs. There's a difference between what she wants and what she needs. When I do the monthly shop I pick up shampoo, deodorant, sanpro etc.

I cook her meals with the rest of us. She cooks her own if she wants something different to what we are having. I mostly do her washing and ironing with ours. If she wants something specific washed or ironed she does her own.

She doesn't contribute to family income as she is still in full time education. If she wants something different to what we are having she buys her own.

I support my kids because they are both full time students at university. I expect to support them until they are in full time work and perhaps 3-4 months in

Ds 24 old has graduated and lives in an apartment with friends.
We give no financial assistance, I sometimes do his laundry as a treat.

Ds 21 - In 2nd yr at local Uni
He works to pay his rent & socializing
We give him an allowance £200pm
I sometimes do his laundry too.

I sometimes drive them to playoff the public transport routes but for the most part they are self sufficient.

At 20 I moved out and was renting my own flat/own car without any assistance from my parents

DC is a full time working young adult.

Pays 'keep' and all own expenses.

Has done own washing and ironing since early teens.

I do the cooking majority of time, but happy to sort themselves out.

I do lifts but if I'm not available DC is happy to get cabs.

DC is brilliant financially but could do better with helping with housework.

Mine have been able to support themselves from leaving uni, or 19 in one case.
We help out here and there but once they leave home they are pretty much on their own.
They paid board from first starting work, no we didn't run them around as there are busses.
They cooked and did own laundry from being about 11, because I hate grown men children syndrome and wanted them to be of use to someone.
Looking at responses it's easy to see where the men children come from tbh.

I'm 21 and live at home with my dm and my ds, I do the weekly grocery shop and cook majority of the meals, we split the cleaning between the two of us and dm gives me lifts when she can or sometimes I would jump and and get out of the car wherever she stops if it's closer to where we're going.

DD is 21 and is in her last year at Uni. She lives away and supports herself financially by working and being very careful with her money.

She comes home once a week for work as she is only 45 minutes or so away. DH or I will often drive her home after she finishes work that one day a week but that’s just to spend a bit of time with her and have a chat as she has some mental health issues and she seems to find it easier to talk in the car.

We struggle to give her much financial help but we do when we can.

DS is 20 and at uni. He has a student loan but we pay him extra to top up his living expenses. He is responsible for managing/ paying all his bills out of that. He earns a bit extra from paid gigs (musician) and other casual work.
We pay for a small car which he can use when he's home.
I tend to do his laundry when his home as it's more economical than him doing small loads. We eat as a family, but he cooks some of the meals.
He's perfectly capable of being independent, but he lets me mother him when I want to .

My older son is 20 and a second-year uni student.

He lives in college accommodation term-time so does his own washing and cooks when he's not insanely busy. He has a scholarship which gives him a small amount of extra cash but also means that he's there for a considerable part of the vacations (for which he gets his rent paid).

We haven't given him any money since he left for his first term - he's eligible for the full loan and the university tops it up with a bursary. We had more money earlier in his life so he has some savings from NS&I bonus bonds, but I don't think he's used them.

He spent about four weeks with us in the summer and two after Christmas, during which time I did his washing (because it went in with everyone else's) and he ate with us. He did some of the cooking tasks because that's what he's always done. If he'd been around for longer I might have suggested he do some meals. The thing is, husband and I both have a lot of time on our hands so it's only sensible for the household tasks to fall to us rather than the two who are studying. We didn't ask for any financial contribution.

He got a lift to the station last week but for socialising he walked or got the bus (though I expect I would have driven him to RuralFriend if the occasion had arisen). He's made his own way around the country since the first journey with all the stuff, apart from at Christmas which is complicated and which we're there for anyway. He doesn't own a car, and hasn't got round to driving lessons.

We leave it to him to organise himself and expect he will ask if he needs anything.

To answer the question in the thread title: very. In some ways, not in others.

My 22 yo ds is at uni. He does his own cleaning (probably not much!), washing, shopping and cooking there. When he is at home he cooks for himself, mostly, although he’s welcome to eat with us but prefers his bodybuilding type diet. He organises himself pretty well for uni.

He doesn’t drive so we do give him lifts when we can when he's home but he’ll get a bus or train if we’re not around. We contribute towards his rent at uni and towards food as his loan doesn’t cover it. We pay for his mobile phone, haircuts, extra books needed. And I seem to regularly bung him cash for gym membership, bus passes and assorted other xtras.

When he finishes his course he’ll come home. We won’t charge rent or bills but will expect him to get work. We probably will do his washing as the cleaner does most of it. I won’t make doctor or dentist appointments for him but will pay for the latter.

I’d add that I’m needed far more than I ever expected to be in terms of emotional support. I thought he’d grow up quicker and need me less. So I have regularly listened to problems, helped when he’s had mental health issues (and organised and paid for a counsellor) and sorted out various problems where he doesn’t know what to do. I’ve only recently felt he doesn’t need me quite as much. I also get calls with questions like “can I reheat rice?” (NO!) and I don’t mind that at all, I sometimes ring my own mum with cooking questions. It makes sense in that they say their temporal lobes aren’t fully developed until 21 or so, it feels that way to me.

DS (21) has graduated, got a full-time job and lives two hours away from me with his girlfriend. Not financially or physically dependent on me at all, except that I acted as guarantor for the flat as he didn't yet have the credit rating, employment history etc to get it on his own, and his girlfriend is still a student. I do sometimes get asked for advice on domestic things, personal finance and that sort of thing. He is perfectly capable of cooking, cleaning and washing for himself.

DS is 22 and a full time student living at home. He is subsidised completely by us but does his own washing, cooking and cleaning of his part of the house. We provide lifts and emotional support.

Older DSes are both working, live in their own place and are financially independent. Emotional support is still often needed and is provided whenever necessary via a chat, cup of tea and a hug.

Financially independent since he was 17yo.
Hoping to buy a house in 3-4 yrs.
He's in the Army, though, and apparently that is something to be avoided.

19yo ds still lives at home and is employed.

He cooks one meal a week for all of us but eats evening meals cooked for the rest of us the rest of the week, unless the times don't suit him; then he'll run up an omelette or something. Sorts himself out for lunch.

Contributes a percentage of his salary towards general household costs.

We take it in turns to run the washing machine so it's filled up, but he does his full share so no complaints there.

Doesn't expect us to drive him places: if he needs to get somewhere after public transport has stopped running he will either walk or pay for an Uber. He knows offering lifts would be difficult anyway, as I don't drive and dh has a long commute so isn't really around in the week.

Dd lived at home on the same terms for 2 years after leaving school- though we were perhaps a bit more generous with lifts as she is disabled. Most of the time she would get a taxi and pay for it out of her salary though.

She is a bit of a special case now: having missed a lot of secondary education she is now at a HE institution which is not UCAS-affiliated so gets no student loan. Her fees and living costs are paid for partly by her own working (though difficult due to combination of disability, recent severe illness and intense nature of course), partly by money left her by her grandmother and partly by us. She is very grateful for the help and does her best not to overspend.

She also needs more emotional support than ds, but that is due to her peculiar medical situation. She works hard on becoming independent but I think we all accept that she is still playing catch-up from a difficult start.

DS is a full time OU university student living at home, he works 2 days a week and pays 25% of that as a contribution to the house but we pay most of his living costs on the condition that he saves 50% of his earnings as a long term savings for a deposit for his first home. He was able to work full time last summer and may be able to do the same this year with the same proportions (50% save, 25% us, 25% him).

Oh, in terms of practical stuff he does his own laundry and sorts his own breakfast and lunches, he cooks one or two meals a week for the family, he helps with DIY and gardening tasks as and when needed. He hasn't passed his driving test yet but both he and our teen daughter will walk miles and quite happily use buses to get to most places, he gets to work by bus.

DD is 22 and graduated last summer. She's still living with me and aside from a seasonal job, isn't working but is deciding her next steps. The decision making process is taking longer than I expected .... she has said this is unfair of me as I went straight from university to train in London, and I wouldn't have dreamed of living with my parents as it was stifling.

However, she does everything in the house - cooking, cleaning, washing up, laundry, bins, etc. We tend to eat separately so buy some different food, split all bills, although I won't take half from her (more like a third).

The difference is that our household has been just the two of us for 22 years and I have always worked full time so she started doing a lot of household stuff early on.

I'm a bit worried about our codependence and how comfortable we both are, and don't know how to put this without her thinking I'm saying that I want her to move out. Which in truth I do, because part of me thinks she "ought" to be building her life away from me.

DD is 21 and moved home after graduating last year, she’s now in her first year of her Masters
She works part time, pays for her clothes, going out etc she also does some of her own food shopping
We split the laundry between all of us, as well as washing up, cleaning, cooking