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Parents of adult children

Wondering how to stop worrying about your grown child? Speak to others in our Parents of Adult Children forum.

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Original poster

AIBU to be annoyed that they have such a great life

93 replies

HFJ · 12/09/2023 14:59

Young adults - they earn decent wages, continue to live in your home/‘hotel’, seem to only work part time (because ‘work life balance’), go on lots of holidays, go out for meals, buy nice clothes, zoom about in their brand new cars, eat all the food including the posh sausages, and believe in the loo roll fairy.

The irony is that this is what I hoped to provide, given the miserable start to adult life that I experienced. Work ethic, frugality and hope for a better future saved me.

But wow, thanks to working hard, I get to work harder: no downsizing, weird awkwardness as multiple adults want to use the kitchen, sky high energy bills and always changing empty loo rolls (among other fun housework items). When you broach the topic of, you know, actually taking proper steps to adulthood, it’s ‘I just want to live my best life’

Well I just want to live my ‘best life’ too and that might include walking round the house naked, if I so choose. Except I can’t because the hallway’s busier than Clapham junction.

Sidenote: why does it seem to be the norm for their girlfriends to practically live with us parents of adult males? I already have enough mouths to feed. Also I had a different cultural upbringing: living together was a nice thing and you couldn’t have adult nice things without also having responsibilities such as worrying about the state of the boiler, or paying council tax. Aren’t there any parents of daughters out there wondering where their daughters have disappeared to? 😜

What could I hope for if this is, technically, what I wanted to provide? I guess I was expecting their gratitude, an appreciation that this easy life was not provided by the government, for example. I was expecting a rallying of the nature, ‘gonna save 100k and buy my first flat by the time I’m 21’

Tbf they do their own washing and tidying up. I know other parents have it worse. I also know that house prices are a major barrier to proper adult aspirations.

Is it also social media? Trying to emulate the cushy lifestyle of celebz?

Other mums seems to revel in having adult children, their girlfriends and someimes grandchildren living with them? Seems to be a kind of one-upmanship ‘Oh wait till they’re 28 and the darlings need to come back to live with you after completing a PhD’. Yes, that’s what I always dreamed of, clearly.

Would be keen to hear from parents who feel the same way?

OP posts:

LessonsInPhysics · 13/09/2023 11:55

Do the naked thing. See if you can get some older wrinkly family members to join in and make it a weekly event. Different night every week to keep it fresh and surprising for all those best-life youngsters.

fruitbrewhaha · 13/09/2023 12:35

Charge rent, spilt bills equally between you, split shopping cost too and have rules about any guests staying over.

or they can move out.

If you want to downsize make a plan for the future to do it. They will have to find their own way.

GatherlyGal · 13/09/2023 12:41

I think they have it too easy. You need a proper houseshare set up. As @fruitbrewhaha says split bills and shopping.

Also a nice chores rota so they all share cooking / cleaning etc. That might make them think about moving.

ZEWatson · 13/09/2023 12:46

If they are over 18 tell them to get a job or go to uni and move out? I moved out to uni at 18, went back to parents a few times a year during UNI, got a full time job at 21, rented for a few years and bought a house with partner at 25. I'm now 26. You can't put all 'young adults' in the same bracket. Some are just more driven and some have more pushy/ encouraging parents. If I'd been lazing around and treating my mother's house as if it were my own she'd have put me in my place!
Just tell them how you feel and tell them your expectations!

HamBone · 13/09/2023 12:54

Even if your OH had a similar easy-going start to adult life, you’ve mentioned a couple of tribes that you’ve paid for and take care of the house- so I’m assuming that it’s either jointly owned or belongs to you outright?

You definitely do have a say in your own property, OP.

HamBone · 13/09/2023 12:54

*times

TheLostNights · 13/09/2023 12:55

I don't think it's fair to say that you just need more drive to get your own place to be honest.
One of the hardest working people I know is still at home and the laziest is mooching off her partners high wage and they live in a house she would never in a million years be able to afford alone. I know who I respect more.

lavender2023 · 13/09/2023 13:19

TheLostNights · 13/09/2023 12:55

Yes this.

There is another mumsnet thread floating around about someone's SIL who doesn't work (and has never worked a day in her life), husband is on £300k and she is still crying poverty and asking for money and help from her retired parents. She lives apart from her parents of course.

OP's kids sound a lot more independent than this woman! In fact no one i know who lives at home or has lived at home is like this. Its the person, not the living situation. Richer people can often mask their own dependencies and laziness

LifeExperience · 13/09/2023 13:32

They're adults. Tell them to support themselves and find their own housing. You're in a situation of your own making, so unmake it.

TheLostNights · 13/09/2023 13:35

@Lavender14 . I see it all the time. Single, hard working women who live at home being judged and pitied and those who live off their husbands being celebrated as though they have achieved something amazing. It's pretty depressing really.

bombastix · 13/09/2023 14:09

You've made a mug and a martyr of yourself. Get them to move out if this really bothers you. I think you have arranged and tolerated it because you know once they are settled then sons with partners don't return. So on some level, you want this.

HelloGoodbye92 · 13/09/2023 14:27

There absolutely should be. Instead they have a very very nice lifestyle and no savings to show for it.

WinterDeWinter · 13/09/2023 14:50

I think you have an OH problem OP. It's both your homes, but while you have compromised, he hasn't. His children are being supported at your cost (financial and emotional). You need to agree a pathway out of this or your life will dribble away.

ssd · 13/09/2023 15:53

VesperLynne · 13/09/2023 10:58

Then you get the other extreme. My sister's son packed his bags and left for university at 18 and apart from that first Christmas, she hasn't seen him since. He calls occasionally, usually on the ear for money, and then disappears into the ether for a year or more.

We had coffee the other day where she confessed her disappointment, and admitted that if she had her time again she wouldn't have bothered with him.

She has a totally different relationship with her daughters; with photos of them all over her lovely house but not one of her son. She took them all down and put them in the loft.

It would be interesting to hear his side of all this.

Dollyparton3 · 13/09/2023 16:10

HFJ · 13/09/2023 09:12

Hi all and thank you for the replies. This is a problem without a solution. I am sharing for the mutual support.

A little context - the main issues are around step-children, not my own, plus I think a kind of infiltration of other cultures via girlfriends. My OH also experienced a similar, easy going start to adult life. No collective history of redundancy or bankruptcy due to recessions. It is difficult to get him to understand how uncomfortable I am about this invasion of territory, this place I have so carefully worked for and cared for.

However, the condition for all is that they are either studying full time (in which case, fully supported) or working full time AND saving. It was me that forced that, but it is not my place to say ‘Actually if you want to have this high life, rent your own flat with your girlfriend because she is here ALL the time and I cannot relax’.

How long will it go on for though? That’s the anxiety promoting thing. It is possible to save and still live the high life so why would they give that up. To them, they have a societal permission to take their time to ‘find themselves’.

The girlfriend’s parents don’t appear expect her to save. There seems to be no ‘careers discussions’. They probably congratulate themselves that she’s all grown up and gone to live with and look after a hairy-arsed bloke. She now tidies up and often cooks for him - how lovely for him. In my house, young men are expected to do their own washing and ironing because, as I’ve told them, they need to realise that women work full time and aren’t their skivvies. I’m in the kitchen stifling a look of incredulity as she merrily organises a dinner that undermines my messages about pulling one’s finger out.

To those who think I am a pushover: I was, at one point, making family dinners for everyone after I had done some long hours at work. I stopped that. I had a word with myself seeing them emerge from their world of instagram and plomp themselves down to a meal I’ve cooked. I did also audibly signal disapproval when a girlfriend came over wearing just crocs, knickers, bra and a dressing gown. What parents encourage that?

Oh another sidenote, what is this business with girls being the ones to own and drive cars and then be ferrying their boyfriends around everywhere, with said boyfriends not being arsed to get a driving licence? It’s probably confirmation bias, but because it happens here, I now twig how common it is in the local town. It’s like a fashion thing. The young couples are clones. A bijou girly car pulls up and out pops a blond haired, crop-topped girl and then a hulking hairy bloke with a footballer’s haircut extracts himself and just flumps along beside her.

I am turning into my mother and I love it!

OP I have a younger relative (female) who not only owns and finances the car (he didn't learn to drive) but she also completed university, got a job and supports his part time lifestyle because he has mental health problems.

She gets up for work every day, funds everything that they do including doing all the driving and talks about how "they're" saving for their first place. I struggle to be in the same room as him to be honest.

And yes, he's a grubby fat, scruff ball who doesn't have a single discerning attribute.

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 13/09/2023 16:57

They will take the responsibility that they're given.

Blackandwhitemakesgrey · 22/09/2023 20:03

You write very well OP.

Maybe if you saunter around your house in knickers, bra and crocs (dressing gown optional), they will skedaddle!

Lovemusic82 · 22/09/2023 20:12

Can I move in? 😁

Seriously you need to start charging them rent to cover food and electricity that they are using. Why would they work full time when they don’t have much outgoings? They are living a great life sponging of their parents.

My dd is at uni but seems to think everything will just fall into her lap when she finishes, she’s going to have a flat in the city and live a great life, she’s never worked (has some disabilities and finding work is hard), she will not be able to afford to live in a flat in the middle of a city without working full time in a well paid job. If she comes home she will have to pay rent because I can’t afford to keep her and because that’s life (nothing is free).

I lived at home with my parents for a couple years after leaving college, my dad charged me £50 a week rent (in the early 2000’s), I was working full time, I moved out when I was 19.

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