Should I be tougher on my son?

[greatunwashed]

My son is 25 and I have never asked for board or rent from him, he works full time but after getting into a lot of debt whilst at university I always assumed he needed every penny he earnt.

Anyway my husband is saying we should throw him out and force him to live on his own, he takes no responsibilty, he spends all his wages of games and gadgets and seems to have little regard for how much he actually spends. For instance when xbox 360s first came out he bought himself one for around £350, straight after the guarantee ran out it broke and so he went out straight away and bought another one for £250, a few nights later he fixed the first one and rather than being annoyed that he'd spent £250 on a new one for no reason he just shrugged it off as if it was no big deal.

He's in a depressed state right now because his girlfriend has just dumped him, she said he was childish and that she wanted a man and not a boy, she has apparantly started seeing a prison officer. DS thinks she's every name under the sun, hates her, thinks its all so unfair but his dad says he's bringing it all on himself and I'm helping him to do it.

What should I do?

make him pay room and board

Yes, you need to be tougher. Sounds like his girlfriend had a point.

Could you start by charging him rent? That would help to concentrate his mind a little on the important stuff. Enough to make a biggish dent in his income so the next step wouldn't seem such a big one. And also to make the next step more attractive - why pay rent to your parents if you still don't have privacy and independence.

at 18 I left home, studied and stayed in a hostel until I was 21, I then moved into a flat, while starting off my dad paid a percentage of my rent per month until I could do it full time. So i was eased into it and learned to work with money before I was cut loose.

if you want to help him I would suggest start by giving him some responsibility towards your household, ie make him do chores, pay room and for food. Do not wash and iron his clothes unless he pays you to. He can take them to a launderette!

Good luck as I'm sure you will feel that you are abandoning him, but believe me it will teach him life skills he needs.

He sounds spoilt. It's time for him to grow up. Make him pay for his keep. Totally agree with your husband.

My goodness me - he is every woman's NIGHTMARE!!!! And you only have yourself to blame .

My philosophy is that I am bringing up my two sons to be the type of men I would've wanted to marry i.e independent, respectful, hardworking.

Really sorry, but at 25, I do think it's a bit late to start asking yourself the question in the OP - he wouldn't know what'd hit him if you suddenly changed the way you were with him.

He should have enough respect for you and your DH to offer you both some keep.

I paid 'keep' to my mum and dad even when I had a weekend job at 16 - not that they needed to money, but to teach me the value of money and respect as a growing adult living in my parents home. Little did I know that, in fact, they saved half of all the money and quite a few years later - they gave it back to me when I got married!

Never once did I mind giving them money - AND I helped around the house by doing my fair share.

I would give him 3 months notice to leave. Seriously.

Has he paid off all his debts?

If he has, and it's a recent thing, could you broach it as saying

"Now that you have paid your debts off your Dad & I would like you to start paying a contribution towards the housekeeping and bills". Don;t call it rent, because you would probably not be renting your room out to a lodger, but he has to understand about the cost of living.

Work out someting that seems fair based on his wage & your outgoings.

Show him how to work the washing machine & tumble drier, and tell him he will need to knwo when he gets his own place so it's time to start learning. If he doesn;t already, start asking him to mow lawn, empty bins etc.

I agree with OrmIrian, I think he'll start to wonder if life is greener once he sees he doesn;t get the benefits of living on his own, only the penalties, at home.

youpeskykids - what a lovely story! - makes me want to do the same for my DS.

unwashed - yes, you'd be doing your son a favour by getting tough. You can say you thought he needed his money to pay off his debts but you can now see that's not the case since he can afford xboxes. Also you could say you are sorry you have brought him up to be someone his gf found childish and you would like to help him grow up a bit now by learning to take some responsibility. He needs a kick up the arse but you can do it in an open and helpful way.

There is another thread on here at the moment about a 35-y-o man living at home and being a pain in the arse. Do you want to go there? No you don't. And tbh nor does he - you owe it to him to help him move up and on so he can have a meaningful relationship and life of his own.

I can't really offer too much advice re: parenting, but my dh and i got married when we were both out of university and only 23 (only 8 years ago). By 25 we both had jobs and were paying rent, council tax, utilities everything and pride prevented us from asking for help from our parents even when we were REALLY strapped. So, no xbox or gadgets for us. My dh was 2 years younger than your son and was on a very low salary, as was I, and we were paying London rents. We were not mature beyond our years (we did sometimes spend money that we didn't have at the pub with friends etc) but we are now in our early thirties with a son and almost all of our debts (except some of my student loan) are paid off and we have quite an acute sense of the value of money and our hard earned income. We have had help from our families, but we have never asked for it, it has always been offered and there have been times that we have (gratefully) declined it. It is always going to be hard to be young and self sufficient, but learning to finance your own life is a very vital part of life. Your 25 year old son may have student debts but that means it is even more important that he learns how to manage money so that he can pay them off (and a persons 20s are over in the blink of an eye and then youth is no longer an excuse for mismanagement of funds ) From the sounds of it, you already know the answer to your own post, of course your maternal instinct is to protect your ds, but the question is are you doing more long term damage than good if he has no experience of standing on his own two feet?

You should charge him rent for his room, and draw up a "tenancy agreement" with him.

Or help him find a flatshare so that he can move out and learn to fend for himself before he gets much older!

i obviously have no experience from a parenting point of view, (my kids being 10 and 3 ) but you are not helping him by spoiling him like this, he will have absolutely no idea of what the big wide world is like (and at 25, he should have some idea). there is a member of my family the same age and she has been so pampered it is unbelievable. she's never learnt to look after herself, dumped her kid on her grandmother, taken thousands off her grandparents and never been grateful for any of it. she expects it! she treats her grandmother like crap (i know, she's my aunt, i have to listen to her constantly crying on the phone).

not saying this is your son, but you aren't doing him any favours. its ok to help your kids with money now and then, my mum has helped me out with money when ive been severely in the s**t....but its not been handed on a plate, and did not fund the purchase of xboxes!

right look at my story then you will see how spoilt your son is at the moment .When i was 23 i got pregnant ,i moved back in with my parents , i paid them rent £25 a week ,even when i was on income support . Aswell as paying rent because i was working part time ,i cleaned the house ,did the laundry and ironing ,made evening meals . Your son is taking the p**s ,but it isnt entirely his fault. YOU need to take control of this situation and turn it around. Did i mention i also paid off £1500 of debt while on income support /family credit in a year .Your son isnt stupid ,he will carry on in this manner as long as you allow him to ..... tough love is the only way ,if he is to find a women willing to ,take him on!

I agree a contribution towards food & bills and there must be jobs round the house you need doing too, nice weather for painting/mowing the lawns etc. make the most of this extra pair of hands while you can, no doubt he'll leave the nest at some stage then you'll just have your dh to do the jobs list

greatunwashed,

Nip this in the bud now otherwise you will still finding this kidult/manchild living at home when he's 30 (or in my BIL's case 44 and I write the honest truth here when I tell you that).

My BIL pays nothing towards his upkeep, has no girlfriend, is in debt up to his eyes and acts like a human sponge/parasite - notice anything familiar here?. And I tell you something else - his Mother enables him and treats him like a child (infantalises him) as you are doing. Please look at your own self and change your own behaviours - stop enabling him and make him take responsibility for his own actions. Your husband is right but as in a lot of cases like this their opinion is ignored (as is the case with my FIL).

I tell you this because in my IL's case it is far, far too late (and MIL in particular has been far too soft, emotionally dependent on BIL and enabling) but you do not want to live like this because it ultimately does you and your family no favours.

Tend to agree with all the others - i moved out of home as soon as i could (partly because i didnt want to 'pay' my parents to live with them and their rules. But it did work - there werent student loans then but i still left college with a huge overdraft! I have spent money i didnt have in the past but in the end i worked to get out of trouble - did evening and weekend jobs rather than be broke.

A friend of mine did stay with her parents and did pay rent to them which was a fair amount and helped her learn the value of money when she finally got a flat of her own and was even more skint her parents offered to pay for some lovely new carpets and furniture as they had not used the rent money but had 'saved' it for her. I thought this was fantastic and i hope that if i cant get my brood to fly the nest i will do the same for them (but not tell them i am doing it of course).

You will not be mean by making him pay and in fact i think you will be helping in the long run.

I might add that my older brother came home after uni - had no job, no girlfriend. He ended up really depressed - it was a shock to be back home after uni. He really struggled to get out and move on in the end and he was a total pig to my mum in the end...as if it was all her fault! It's realy only now - 20 yrs later married and with 2 kids and a fantastic job that he and my mum have more or less repaired their relationship. So I really really would light a firework under his arse for his benefit as well as your own.

yes, please don't create another manchild, he will never have a meaningful relationship whilst he is being mollycoddled by you and tbh if any woman did give him a chance he would more than likely make her life a misery.

If there are three adults in the house who work full time, then I would split the household chores three ways.

And the council tax.
And the power bills.
And charge DS some rent too.

He's a grown up.
He needs to act like one.

Do you cook for him, and do all his washing and ironing too? I have a 28 year old cousin who lives at home and is treated like a prince by my aunty. Sadly he is seen as a bit of a freeloading sad act by, well, pretty much everyone except his mother.

Instead of allowing him to be dependant, and absolving him of any responsibility, my aunt should be enabling him to be independent, and encouraging him to make choices and fulfil his potential in life.

I do everything around the house because neither DH or DS lift a finger so I can't see how my husband can moan about son when he's only copying off him.

I do the cooking, all the housework and I work full time, DS's ex couldn't believe how ds didn't help do anything and often commented with things like "don't think you'd be sitting around watching me run around after you if we ever moved in together" etc. He wanted to move in with her, she left home at 16 so has been independant for a good few years but she wouldn't have him until he'd spent some time living on his own. Thing is house and rent prices around here are far too expensive for him and if he did move out he'd have no money left to do anything so how would he meet anyone then?

At the moment the topic of conversation is christmas, last year DS wanted a PSP which we bought him but this year he's asking for a HD tv, it's about £700 and he said he will pay half if we pay the other half, DH is going mad saying we shouldnt be buying him big presents anymore.

For his birthday he asked for guitar hero 2 for the xbox 360 which we bought him and his then girlfriend just shook her head when he told her.

If you keep making excuses for him then he's never going to have to do anything for himself.

Which is fine, if everyone is happy with that arrangement.

Are you?

greatunwashed, I think you're having a conversation with yourself.

I think you know that this current arrangement is ridiculous. Can you, your husband and your son sit down together and try to get some kind of agreement on how much your son is going to pay you for housekeeping. You obviously resent the fact you do everything around the house, and yes, your husband may have a cheek moaning about your son not lifting a finger etc when he doesn't either, but there's an argument that your dh may be a lost cause but your son is not - the main point of being a parent is to help your children to become independent. You can't say that your son is only 'copying' your husband, because you are also allowing this behaviour - you and your dh have to take joint responsibility. It's maybe not too late with your son, please do something now.

When I lived with my Dad for a year after finishing university we sat down and worked out what it would cost him to have me live there and then I paid him that amount plus a little bit extra (£35 I think) each month. This was £320 at the time (4 years ago), although I would imagine your son would probably cost more in food than me.

I think it's great that your son is working full time, but it sounds like he doesn't have a good idea of the value of money and it would probably help him if you were a bit tougher. I would at the very least start charging him what he is costing you, and get him to set up a standing order so you don't have to pester him for it every month. I think it would also be good if you and your husband agreed a strategy together so you could back each other up and talk to him about it together.

Also - I hope this isn't the case, but it is possible that he may not have as much disposable money as he seems to, and he may just be getting further and further into debt. It might be worth asking him directly if he still has any debt.

Hope this helps.

I dont want to sound critical of you, because its clear you love your DS and only want the best for him....but, for crying out loud hes 25 but being kept like a little emperor.

Its not doing him any favours in the long term, because its not teaching him life skills. I am the exhausted W of a man like your son.

My soon 2b EX H was pampered in this sort of way by his family, and its turned him into a monster who is self centred and spends money in the way you describe on useless rubbish such as computers/new cars.... when my DCs go without food. My H shrugs it off and he sort of skims over the surface of life without really caring. I blame his mother/ and grandmother for his upbringing. my DCs hate their father because they know he spends their food money on himself.

If my H grandmother were alive today i would tell her what she did, I would shout!. my H mother did finally give up on pampering him and she is now so disgusted with his behaviour she refuses to talk to him. His childish behaviour has caused a real rift between him and his mother(and ofc between me and him and between him and his DCs).

Nothing good will come of pampering your DS in this way.

i can't believe that your son has the balls to NOT give rent to you!

and he still expects expensive christmas presents? WTF!

seriously, you need to push him out (not being able to afford renting in your area is no excuse - he'll just have to go and share a house/accomodation in a scruffy area then won't he?)

start by asking for council tax for the year, water, leccy etc.
rent money can then be kept by you to help with a depoisit later on (if you want or even help make yourselves moragae free).