Child being exploited?

[Birdcatdog]

My 18 year old has announced she wants to move into her girlfriends family home. Apparently the mum is going travelling for 6 months and has offered my child to move in for £280 a month- not including food.
My child has just started their first job this week and the gf's mum knows it a decent wage -£27 grand.
I feel like the only person benefiting from this arrangement is the gf's mum and it feels like my child is being exploited. The mum would have to keep up the cost of her house whilst travelling as her own child will be living there. £280 is too much in my opinion? £50 a month would cover any costs but my child moving in wouldn't even be and additional person as the mum is leaving?
They live 10 minutes from our home and I have explained to my daughter that its a waste of money as she goes and stays at the gf's whenever she wants now. My child has specifically taken a year out to work and save for living cost when she goes to uni next year.
I feel like she is making bad financial decisions for no reason. She might not even know this girl in a year. They have only been together since February.
We dont have any strict rules at our house so I am confused on why she thinks she needs "independence". All of the things shes listed as independence such as shopping, cooking ect she could do at mine for free.
What am I going do to? Realistically I know I cant stop her. Im so sad

I think your daughter probably won’t stay very long as it will be quite a shock having to look after herself after being coddled by you for 18 years. She really has no responsibilities at all at home?

Personally I think it’s great. She’s right down the road, you know and like the girlfriend, she has a great opportunity for a soft start into adulthood paying pennies to rent half an entire house, backed up by a cushy job paying way more than any teen I’ve ever heard of. She can’t even get pregnant which should take a huge worry off you given your experiences. This is genuinely the easiest setup I’ve ever heard of.

I’d just make it clear that she’s welcome back any time without fuss and stop being so dramatic about it. The worst case scenario here isn’t bad at all and it might be the making of her to finally have the chance to grow up a bit.

A bit beside the point, sorry, but just to point out @IStillHearTheWaves@SeriouslyAreYouSureand others talking like £27k is a lot… it basically is minimum wage.

£12.71 x 40 x 52 = £26,436.80

Flagging because I feel like people who started work decades ago (like me!) have lost sight of what a starting salary actually is these days.

Respectfully this is your parent glasses talking- she’s 18, not 12.

It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Like it or not your child does not want to stay living at home, that’s the reality, she wants to try living outside of the home with a partner, having some independence, totally normal for her age! And gf’s mum is going travelling and so wants some extra cash. £280 is incredibly cheap. If they decided to rent somewhere together for a year she would easily be paying £700-800 for her share of rent & bills even where we are which is cheaper than most places.

They would not be renting a place together as gf is student could not afford to do that so this conversation would not be happening. If the mum had not offered this rental situation for her own benefit she would continue to just stay over and save her money like she has been for the last few months.

Honestly she does nothing here. When I ask them do unload the dishwasher they run away ! She slept in this week on her first day of work and had to ask me for a lift!

So it’s long past time for her to get some responsibility and independence. Just let her go. It’s the gentlest option to get her to grow up a bit. And honestly stop babying her. My 10 year old has weekly chores and responsibilities and my teenager has them too.

at 18 I ran away from home and was couchsurfing or sleeping in my unregistered and uninsured car. My mum had no idea where I was for months. She would have fallen to her knees in gratitude if I’d been living as securely as this setup.

The other mother is doing nothing wrong by treating your daughter as an adult - just because you want to keep her young doesn’t mean everyone else needs to do that.

That's quite pathetic, why haven't you been preparing her for adult life?

Usually if someone house sits, you pay them! Shes a cf.

honestly op, you have a few valid points but not about the money.

She’s not exploited, she is getting cheap deal for what it is and has other perfectly good choices. You are entitled to think her girlfriend’s mum should subsidise your daughter more than she already is with cheap rent. What you would do in the same situation is irrelevant, that mum is doing your dd a good turn.

I personally would want her to save the money too but it’s a very valid choice to move out and pay dirt cheap rent for a house with her girlfriend. She’s lucky.

overall I think you need to check your entitlement. But I also think this ‘exploitation’ is not your real issue here. Ask yourself how controlling you really are if your dd?

You’ve babied your daughter and she wants the chance to be an adult in what sounds like a very safe way. She’s paying way under market rent. She’s not being exploited. You need to give your head a wobble - you made bad decisions at her age and are struggling to cope with her flying the nest but that’s your issue, not hers.

Then you’ve done a very bad job preparing her for adult life, and you want to clip her wings further?

She’s moving in with gf so I’m guessing they’ll share !

OP the more you write the more I can see why she wants to move out.
She needs to get away from you.
Don't try to saddle her with your hang ups.
How you behave now will influence how you get on with her or not by the time she's 30.

That’s silly. The woman’s daughter is living there. She doesn’t need a housesitter.

She wants to try being independent and it sounds like this is a great opportunity. Presumably she has the option to come home if it goes tits up.

"My child has just started their first job".

"Their"? You mean 'her', you've said 'she'.

Your daughter is old enough to make up her own mind about this.

People are saying rent and bills - but it's bills only - unless she's getting her own room there.

At best, if 280 is the rent for the room, then it should be half that, since she's sharing the room.

If she'd been left to fend for herself applying for jobs on her own its unlikely she'd have even got a job. Its so hard now to even get a supermarket job as hundreds of applications for one position.

She's been spoiled and has no value of money and just frittering it away as its not been hard won, shes no value of it. Its not like shes spent 6 months applying for 50+ jobs week after week hearing nothing back, doing psychometric tests, tailoring cv after cv and writing long winded answers in online application forms - while working for free in a charity shop to build experience - then one day months later finally getting an interview, preparing for it and then trying her best during the interview - and then getting the job, but its in a shop and they dont offer full time contracts, just part time and maybe 20p above minimum wage - but she'd have been delighted after all her effort and value her first wage after months of no money or a bit of universal credit!

But your partner just gave an 18 year old a £27k job, because why, because she's your daughter? Nepotism at its finest here and your living the consequences.

She has no value of the money or the fact she has a good home offering free board. If she did value money she wouldnt be so careless to spunk £3.5k over the next 12 months.

You've skipped the character building part of life, removed the financial struggle and gave her a good job on a plate.

And youve done someone deserving out of that job, someone who has been sitting at home applying for jobs for months, whether thats their dream entry level job after uni, or an adult parent who's been made redundant and is desperatly applying for anything to pay household bills- of which you read about that on here week after week.

So yeah I think you've literally spoiled your daughter here. Spoiled her experiences of valuing finally getting a job and spoiled her value of money. Its hard to value things if its given to you with no challenge or a bit of suffering.

Not sure how you row back from this mistake and the consequences its now creating in terms of her getting into a financially exploitive situation - she wouldnt be in this situation had she not been just given her job.

Your just living a real life example of "you actions have consequences" unfortunately.

Regardless we all make parenting mistakes and Im wishing you all the best and hoping your dd sees sense somehow.

Idea - Can your partner revoke the job somehow, saying financially its not viable. Or say he can only afford part time like 12hrs per week? Then she can try and get a shop job to learn the value of money.

Seems like OP wants to keep her DD dependant on her, so much so that she is trying to sabotage her moving into adulthood by accusing the one giving her the opportunity of child exploitation.
OP, it doesn't meet the Oxford dictionary meaning for exploitation. The GFs mum isn't manipulating circumstances to benefit themselves, it's a mutually beneficial agreement. If anyone is trying to manipulate things it's you. Let your adult DD go and live her life, she isn't a child anymore.

That's a ridiculous and very manipulative suggestion. I've never had struggles finding employment and I know the value of money. People don't need struggle. The DD wants to go and be more independent and pay board to live with her GF, how does that make her spoilt and unaware of the value of money? And why do you think 27k is a big salary, it's really not.

At this rate she won't have the job for long and will not be able to pay the rent pretty quickly...

Maybe if your mum/dad had "baby'd" you a bit more....and by that I mean treat you more kindly you wouldn't have felt the need to run away from home?

She would have to pay her bus pass, mobile contract, clothes, etc regardless of where she lives. She would surely also be buying some of her own food and toiletries. Reading your latest update about how she slept in for work and does zero around the house, im surprised you aren't jumping at this opportunity to show her what adulthood actually is like!

I'm guessing the mother has said this because she thinks otherwise your daughter might end up there 24/7 anyway, while she is away, and that would lead to higher utilities bills for her. If it were the other way around, would you expect her girlfriend to contribute to your household if she was always there?

However, as she'd be staying in girlfriend's room, it does seem quite a lot just for a share of utilities, no food.

Why not say she and girlfriend can spend a few nights a week with you and a few nights a week there, to save money?

It’s £65 a week. I think she would be lucky to find anywhere else where bills are included for that price.