How much do you contribute to SC when they’re over 18?

[Galinda1]

DH has a daughter who is 16 and in year 12. She mostly lives with her mum, seeing us about once a month and joins us on holidays three times a year. We’d love to see her more, and used to, but we understand her social life near her mum’s is more exciting!

She’s bright but has never been particularly studious and although she’s scraped into sixth form, isn’t enjoying her A-Levels and is increasingly talking of dropping out. She’s had a few shifts waitressing at the local pub and some babysitting and seems content to do more of that. Obviously DH and I want her to focus on her studies, and have been trying to make her think long-term, but this has been an ongoing battle for about a decade and frankly, it doesn’t feel like one we’re going to win. Her mum also does part-time shift work and has younger children.

DH and I are aware we need to continue sending maintenance money (it’s £550 and we also buy her a lot of clothes and pay her phone bill and travel, probably £8-900 total) until the summer after she’s 18 (or 21 if she’s in education but that’s highly unlikely). But after that?

DH and I both moved out for uni and have been self-sufficient since then but I’m aware more and more people are staying at home and it’s no longer the norm to be self-sufficient.

Would you continue paying to SD or her mum post-18 in these circumstances?

Full disclosure- I don’t have step children but a family member of mine has so this is where the advise of coming from. What would you do if this was your own child? I wouldn’t continue to pay the mom but would help put directly. If she has no interest in doing uni could you encourage her to train in something so she has the ability to strand on her own two feet? Just something that pays more that nannying and waitressing as traditionally there is not a lot of stability coming from those jobs?

If she's left education then no. She should be working full time and if she's not and her mum isn't encouraging her to work then that's her problem. Continuing maintenance money isn't going to give her the incentive to encourage her DD to get a job.

My SS moved in with us full time when he left school at 16. Not working wasn't an option. He got a job 2 months after moving in and has worked full-time since. He's now 18.

My other SS is 17 and lives mostly with his mum. Again, he got a full time job as soon as he left school and maintenance payments stopped.

Just because they're still living at home doesn't mean they can't be self sufficient. They should be working, paying their way and contributing to the household.

If she was my child I’d have instilled a work ethic in her and she wouldn’t be in this position, to be honest. And she wouldn’t be dropping out of A-Levels, and if she did she’d be on some kind of technical training. But rant over.

I’d be happy to support her by having her move in here (she has a room) but only if she’s studying or working full-time, so she won’t want to. I suspect us stopping maintenance would be considered a direct attack on her mum.

@Thatsenoughadulting thanks for your post, I didn’t realise maintenance could stop as young as 16 if they drop out, and I don’t think DH or SD realise that either.

@Galinda1 - I don’t know if you have children of your own so forgive me if you do - but the way you say if she was your child she wouldn’t be in this position makes me think not. Of course you can try and instil in them qualities that you value but once your kids get to a certain age there is not much we can do as parents. They have to be open to our opinions and ideas. I couldn’t be more different that my mum for example - something she tells me all the time. She tried very hard to make me see and do things her way and it didn’t work for me.

I am also of the thought process that our responsibility to our kids does not end when they are 18. So yes of course they have to work and or study but I wouldn’t cut them off completely. That’s what I would do. You have to do what you think is best.

I would offer to her that if she wants to continue education or training post 18 I would support it - so offer contributions to uni and or apprenticeship or BTEC.

I would also offer to pay rent deposit on first rental.

It's quite common for people to work a bit and then decide to go to uni.

I am fully supporting mine through Uni so I would expect my DH to support his DC in your situation

If you would have raised her so much better, why hasn't your husband?

I agree by the way that children should be raised with a work ethic - does your husband not agree?

I do but they’re younger.

We would never see SD homeless or destitute but we’d strongly prefer she doesn’t drop out to do 16hrs a week waitressing and be her mum’s free babysitter, and if withdrawing financial support helped prevent that… She’s always welcome to move in here but we’d like her to work towards either further studies or being financially self-sufficient. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I’d have been laughed out of the house if I expected my parents to work full-time whilst I sat around watching TV.

I really feel for you, OP. You and your dh have a shared work ethic: study hard, work hard, be self sufficient that DSD does not. She will have what she fights for, or what she settles for. Sit her down and be honest with her. She will soon no longer be a child. Help her by being curious about her goals and how she will achieve them.

You might, if you are inclined, decide to privately set aside the support money and use it later to match her contributions when/if she decides to train for something or buy a property.

Blimey £550 pcm. All I got was £100 pcm when ds was younger!

We had 50/50 when she was younger and she did very well in her SATs. Her secondary school is slightly closer to her mum’s and her friends and boyfriends have always tended to live on that side of town too so we’ve seen her less and less through secondary. She’s gone from the top sets in year 9 to barely getting into sixth form. We’ve tried tutoring (wouldn’t turn up), bribery (doesn’t care) and we couldn’t ground her for not doing coursework because she’d just go to her mum’s. It’s exasperating.

I would stop the summer that she finishes education. Having financial support from her DF is really not going to help instil a good work ethic.

My DS has plans for university this year but if he doesn't get in my purse is closed. He'll have a roof over his head and food in the fridge but I will not be subsidising his lifestyle in the slightest.

I must add that if my exDH would be heavily subsidising him, although this would never happen, I wouldn't be happy either.

Supporting you child through uni and support them when they're refusing to get a full time job or be in full time education is completely different. I would say the latter is more enabling than supporting.

Both my SSs work full time and we have helped them pay for driving lessons and get their cars. Had they not been working we wouldn't have done that because we weren't going to teach them that it's ok to be lazy because mum and dad will just pay for everything. We'll also help them when they move out with deposits or stuff for their home etc. but they have to be paying the majority themselves.

@Galinda1 i don’t think it’s unreasonable to want those things for her I think that your methods incur the risk of not achieving what you want and pushing her away from her dad. You said it would be seen as an attack to her mum. Having said that if she drops out of school I would not continue to pay her mum and would help out directly in what why is up to her dad. What does your husband think? What’s the approach he thinks is best? It’s a balance difficult to achieve. And just because your parents did a certain thing doesn’t mean we should do the same to our kids. Kids respond differently to different approaches and only you two know what’s best.

Yours are at uni. OPs SD is considering quitting A levels. Not the same comparison at all.

@Galinda1 Once a child leaves school they should be expected to work and support themselves. Our 19 yo is at college, and works. He pays for most of his own things, travel, car etc. His phone is on family contract, he's not charged rent and gets fed. His gf and most of his friends are the same. This is normal.

Yes it will be seen as an attack on her mum, and I know the argument will be “mum’s paying for all of my housing and food costs which isn’t fair.”

My worry is that she’s going to enjoy herself doing a few shifts and being subsidised by her mum, but eventually when her mum’s kids all age out of getting benefit support, what happens then?

Who cares what the mum will do when her benefits end. That's her problem to deal with.

Sure, but SD is our problem, we love her and it’s heartbreaking to see her throwing away her potential like this.

The amount that anyone else contributes to a post 18 child isn't really relevant to your situation. You have to deal with the child that's in front of you in the best way that you can.

If she is in a difficult situation, which you do allude to - implying that her mum is a bad role model/lets her do whatever she wants, then your input will need to be a lot more than financial. It will need to be practical. If she drops out, she will need your help with getting a job or enrolling on something educational/training. Otherwise she will fall into a continuation of her waitressing job, with little prospect of anything better paying.

If you want to know how much I've shelled out for my 18yo this academic year, it's in the region of £20k. He's a first year at uni and that includes over 9k fees, 8k in accommodation and all sorts of other stuff needed. His degree is full on and the job that he currently does alongside his degree is a small number of hours and doesn't therefore bring in loads of money. But as I say, that is completely irrelevant. I'm just telling you as you asked.

Parenting, stress and financial help doesn't end at 18. My mum is late 70s and recently helped my 45yo sibling out of a messy situation - costing her thousands. She's not rich btw, she just spent the money to help her child, reasoning that it was necessary for her child not to fall into deep shit.

Your DSD is going to need significant help by the sounds of things. Rather than comparing her to some perfect idealised young person who does a fantastic degree or A levels or whatever whilst working a 20 hour week in a job and needs no help, you really need to assess your DSD's situation. The fact that you and your DH "moved out for uni and were self sufficient" is completely irrelevant to the current problems you face with DSD. Rather than patting yourselves on the back for your own experiences when you were younger, you need to apply some serious thought to the situation with DSD, rather than treating the situation as a financial transaction - your thread title confirms that your thought process is transactional.

It's so frustrating. We had a similar problem with my oldest SS. He's a very smart boy but he failed all his pre-lims mostly due to poor attendance. We had 50:50 at the time and DH requested his attendance records because he had only been off school on one occasion due to genuine sickness on our weeks. The report showed almost 100% attendance on our weeks and 70% on his mum's weeks. He did end up passing his exams because DH was on his case constantly.

It was difficult sometimes because anytime he didn't like what DH was asking him he'd just go to his mum's who tried to be more of a friend than a parent. It can be difficult when the other house isn't on the same page. SSs mum doesn't work so it's hard to convince a lazy teen of the importance of having a good work ethic when they see their parent getting money for doing nothing.

The following year he was always complaining about hating school and how it was boring. DH told him that if he wanted to leave at after his exams them he could but he was to get an apprenticeship or a full time job. SS said he'd prefer to work and wasn't interested in staying on for his final year. His mum wasn't happy about this and told him to stay at school (she'd lose child benefit if he left), which was stupid considering she didn't do a great job of making sure he actually went. He ended up leaving school and moving in with us full time. My DH told him he would get him a job with him once he'd proven to him that he had good work ethic. It wasn't exactly plain sailing but SS just turned 18 and has held down the same job for about 18 months. He gets himself up at 6am, doesn't sleep in anymore like he did at first. He's also completely changed his attitude outside of work. He's more considerate of others, he helps out with housework, does his own washing etc. Now that he's 18 and has proven himself my DH is now going to get him a job with him which will see him earn considerably more money. He'll hopefully be passing his driving test soon as well. It's been a bit of an uphill battle at times but we're both really proud of the young man he's turning into.

If she says that then agree with her. Yes, it's not fair. You're an adult, you should be paying for your own food so why aren't you? Why are you expecting your mum to pay for it all?

Thank you, this is really encouraging as is @Thatsenoughadulting’s SS’s
story. I think tough love and hoping she’ll move in here is the way to go.

@qqnqn with respect I don’t think you have any experience of stepparenting or how frustrating it can be. SD often treats our relationship as transactional - she will always say yes to holidays and expensive days out or shopping but no to family events or being at home. That’s teenagers, to an extent. But there comes a point when we don’t want to enable her to make bad decisions or subsidise her mum to enable her to.

Two separate things here - can your DH have a chat with his DD about choices and how they play out? Ie if you drop out of school and take on low paid roles you will need manage a budget and pay (your mum) some rent. Just so she understands the implications of the route she is heading down.

Separately, your DH is entitled to stop maintenance if she leaves school/college. Once he knows for sure what his DD is doing he can flag it with her mum and confirm the date of the last payment, so she has some notice. Presumably DSD will be spending time at yours still and could even live there if she wanted?

Entirely up to you guys if you then give DSD cash directly or fund her in other ways (phone, travel etc). It sounds like you spend a lot on her already - £400 per month.

I can share more on what we did with SCs if that would be helpful but appreciate every set-up is different.

My child, not step-child, gets my financial support as long as she is working towards her university degree in good faith. If that stops without a very good reason, so does my financial support. At that point I expect her to get a full time job, pay rent (which I will save for her if she lives at home), and cover all her other expenses herself.

It’s my job to help her get an education, if she wants to enter the workforce without qualifications, then she needs to feel the consequences of that choice immediately. Buffering her from it too much means she won’t really understand the choice she is making until picking another path becomes more difficult.