It's all downhill from here!

[tripletwo]

That's ds's view of life.

We have given him a lovely life - too lovely, he's never had to worry for a second about how he could afford anything - financial worries have passed him by. I thought he had to budget whilst being a student but he said he felt very comfortable. He feels he can never attain the lifestyle he was brought up with and thinks life ahead for him will be awful, he dwells on this and he can't talk to anyone about it because he recognises that no one will have any sympathy for him. He doesn't want to spend any money - he just wants to save for the life that won't bring him any joy because he can't live in an area as nice as we live in now.

He doesn't handle it very well when we withdraw financial support on each element of his life now he's earning - to give an example - dental checkups and mobile phone bills. I don't remember finding it this hard to stop relying on my parents. His aim is to save at least £6k this year, which is great but not when he's expecting us to pay for all his bills, everything has to be negotiated with him - every chore and every bill.

They leave for 3 years and life at home is blissful and without drama and then they come back and it feels like we lunge from one crisis to another. One minute they act like they are helpless 10 year olds and the next they are independent stay out of my life!

Venting really as this is us just adjusting to a different set of rules but dh and I just want to go back to a quiet life. Is anyone else struggling with having their kids back?

Is he earning a decent salary? Is he paying you any rent?

I gave my DS a year to get sorted when he came home from uni. He then took over his phone and started paying token rent - he is living at home and has a full-time job. He seems content to save towards a home and I am trying to support that by not charging too much - basically he pays for his food. None of us know how our careers will go when we start out. He might surprise himself but negative thinking won’t help.

I mean for his generation he's probably right.

Nonetheless you presumably want your house back and want him to fly the nest so time to start making plans with him.

I did better than my parents.

My parents did better than their parents.

The current generation are likely to struggle.

This has recently struck our DC. They would need huge salaries to live our lifestyle. I feel very sad for them.

I don't know what your life was like when you were his age, but I had no money. Lived in shared houses with damp and massive gaps under doors where I couldn't afford to turn the heating on. Bought my clothes and shoes from charity shops. Couldn't afford to go out. Had a lot of 'dinner parties' with boxed wine and home-brewed beer. Lived from one pay day to the next and most certainly did NOT ask my parents for any financial support at all.

Now i live in a 4-bed house in London. Have at least two holidays a year. Money isn't really an issue. But that's because I'm older and now I earn more. I certainly couldn't have had anywhere near this kind of life in my 20s or my 30s.

I think a lot of young adults have unreasonable expectations. They need to accept that they'll have years when they don't have much. But that can be fun too. Some of my best friends are people I met through shared flats. Much better than the alternative of living with mum and dad.

Yes, a lot of them do expect to live at the same standard as mum and dad straight away. That’s unrealistic. I had to rent places and had hand-me-down furniture when I was finally able to buy a place five years after uni. I admit it was easier but not easy.

For me, expecting to have the same lifestyle as my parents after University would have meant missing out on the best years of my life! I lived in grotty town centre flats in cities that had brilliant nightlife. I went travelling, I had no responsibilities! I was always skint, but so was everyone else! We didn't have cars or mortgages but we had great times. I didn't really think about wanting to have a certain 'lifestyle', some of the flats I lived in were pretty basic, but living with friends meant we had fun.

Does he have a girl/boyfriend? Life is vastly vastly easier if there’s two of you earning and contributing.

He sounds very dramatic.

My parents charged me the equivalent of a studio flat rent and bills when I started working and lived at home. No token rent. I hated it at the time but it was the best thing they could have done for me. When I moved out, I didn't struggle to budget as I already knew the lifestyle I could afford and had made my budgeting cock ups whilst still at home and had the security net of food and heating when there was no money left at the end of the month. My friends struggled when they moved out because they felt so much poorer as they were used to having more money. The other bonus was that my parents saved my digs money, although they didn't tell me, and paid the majority of my wedding with it so no need to start married life in debt. Your son can't expect to live like his parents straight away, he has to work up to it.

everything has to be negotiated with him - every chore and every bill.

Negotiations are usually won by whoever holds the power in the relationship. What power does he hold ... other than guilting you into feeling sorry for him.

It might not be what you want to hear but there are ways out of this available to you, so long as you are prepared to accept the consequences. I hope you are.

I don't understand this. It never occurred to me that I could live in a house like my parents house when I was starting out on my own. In fact, I wouldn’t have wanted to. Maybe I’m weird but buying a doer-upper flat that had wallpaper hanging off the walls when I bought it was fun. 30 years later and I still don’t live in a house as lovely as my parent's house. Maybe someday but it doesn’t matter, we have a roof over our heads!

Sometimes I wonder if buying a doer-upper flat is not as trendy as it was 30 years ago. But that’s if one can even get a mortgage, it was far more achievable to buy alone back then.

Buy him some counselling for Xmas (professional will happily listen to him moan and he might take suggestions from them).

My 26 year old has been in shared houses/flats since the week before his 18th- only once did he come home for 5 weeks when between jobs at one point and we get on fab so it's not that . He's been in London now for 6 years- nice flat with just him and girlfriend and 1 other - 2 bed, 2 bath flat in very nice area - I do have to bail him out the odd few hundred occasionally to get by as he's on average income and paying rent and bills but he has at least kept in professional work, worked hard and made the effort. I don't get why these working 20 somethings are still at home- they say it's to save for a deposit - I know so few who actually have- the ones I know just spend it on travelling and a social life- and I don't think some parents are doing them many favours.

I don’t think he expects to have the same lifestyle as us and I think the realisation is what is hitting him. He’s worried about how he’s going to make it all work. I have no doubt he will save but being an adult and learning to manage your money is about spending as well as saving. He sees our insistence that he becomes financially independent as a parenting philosophy rather than a need - as we can afford to support him and in many ways this makes every insistence that he pays his own way even harder. I do feel guilty but I’ll just have to get over that. He needs to learn to make adult decisions

Maybe you could afford to support him but there’s a big difference between could and should! He needs to see that he isn’t entitled to support. Your money is yours and you can spend it as you wish.

Unfortunately these days kids seem to think parental support goes on indefinitely. But really it can’t. For a start, you need to start saving for your retirement and enjoy yourselves as well. Beyond uni years the support for kids has to end. Anything you choose to do is an act of generosity. Will it be appreciated?

Time to explain a bit of financial reality.

This. I worry for all my young adult kids. My ds 3 struggled to even find a part time job at Uni I think the will just isn't there and he doesn't really need to as he can live off his loan and what we give him but I really worry for his future.
I really worry for them as I do think life is harder for young people today, more competitive etc and a lot seem to be trying to cope with MH / anxiety issues.
My eldest ds works an extortionate amount of hours each week but even heading to late 20's and with a partner and them both earning ok amounts, they can't afford to buy a house without help. They all end up with huge amounts of student debt. I think they say this will be the first generation to be worse off in regards to standard of living than their parents.

I'm not normally a proponent of tough love but in this scenario I think you are protecting your son too much, to his detriment. He's building up the reality of financial independence more and more in his mind as something scarier that it is.

I was "poor" throughout my 20s - lived in crappy house shares, doing everything on the cheap - but unlike people who are truly poor, I had the safety net of my parents (who I knew wouldn't see me hungry or homeless). Your son will also have this, that's the privilege of having comfortable parents, it's not that they support you forever. That's normal life for a 20-something.

You're doing too much to support him. Saving 6k a year just isn't realistic. Just tell him he has 6 months (or 12 if you want to be really generous) and let him work it out for himself.

Exactly (well, apart from the fact that I grew up dirt poor, so the grotty houseshares were fully as good as the house I grew up in) this is the time in your life not to be thinking about savings and mortgages, but for unfettered fun. I couldn't have contemplated living at home and saving, even had there been room (which there wasn't overcrowded household, so when I went to university, any stuff I didn't take with me was boxed in the attic, and I slept on the sofa if I can home on a visit. I had absolutely left home.)

In the nicest possible way, tell your DS to grow up, OP. He sounds like a middle-aged depressive, and he must be about 22 at the oldest. Suggest he finds a houseshare with friends and enjoys himself for a bit.

I have told him he has 12 months and then we start charging rent - he asked if paying “rent” meant I took the money and saved it for his deposit like all the other parents do! 😂 they are wise to these things! I think he can save £6k by sticking to a budget he has worked out but that does not mean expecting us to pay for everything that I won’t do.

He has become a little fixated, he’s ND and I’m sure this is part of the reason why this change is so hard on him and therefore me. He has grown up quite a bit in the last 3 months but I didn’t expect this to continue quite as long.

He needs to be told to grow up. If he's that worried I'd tell him to knuckle down at work and get a plan in place for obtaining a higher paid job. He's been mollycoddled for so long and if you don't give him a good dose of reality he will be in your home forever

I fear that this is going to be the case with our DC too. Replicating the standard of living they've grown up with is going to be very hard - particularly at first. Although, when I look back, I lived in some real shit holes to start with! Certainly not as comfortable and nice as my parents' home.

Sorry for the unintentional strikeout! Would it be possible to show him that what he clearly sees as some kind of depressing march into paying his dentist bills and eventual house ownership in a 'less nice' area is not in fact compulsory? That if it's making him unhappy, he doesn't need to do it? He can save some money and go travelling, or live with friends, or move to another part of the country and have a good time? I mean, I didn't buy anywhere (and then it was a tiny flat) until I was 35, and spent my entire 20s as a postgraduate student living on scholarships and fresh air -- and I wouldn't change a thing.

He’s just been living away at uni - working over the summers at home. Now back at home working full time and applying for grad jobs - I don’t see that as mollycuddling - it’s pretty normal among people we know.

Sorry rereading my post and its probably came across harsher than meant. Tbh the mollycoddled comment is probably more on self reflection, and around when they are young and have a different life from how we grew up. I definitely think I'm setting my kids up the same where they don't know what it's like to struggle, but thrive and think the life they have grew up in wasn't hard fought. If he's not long home (I had assumed he was a bit older) he needs to give himself a break from worrying about money and intensely saving, this is the time to find himself and try different jobs etc. Once he gets a job and gets established it will all come with time. Have a chat about the hard work that got you where you are and if he wants that life as an adult it's something to work towards, but not expected to just happen or for you to fund it but I'd take a positive that he's got aspirations. Ill probably do the same if I can afford it, saving rent for deposit as it'll be a hard slog for them to get on the property ladder