Would you charge your kids rent?

[EasterJoy]

Three kids on their upper twenties, none of them allowed to live at home after they got a bachelor’s degree. None of them have any debt besides mortgage on a house, they all have good savings.

Iliving with parents is not an opportunity to save, it turns into an opportunity to let mom do lay laundry, I’ll just work part time for now until I find a job that I want, I’ll look for a full time job tomorrow, what a great video game I bought today with my measly pay check. . That’s the result over 50% of the time.

I have another college graduate in December, not changing a think. He graduates, I cancel his phone.

If my parents had a part-time employee living at home, that person would be spending the other half of their time as a housekeeper and home improvement resource. It is funny, but if you have to paint the house for free if you’re not working 40 hours a week, getting full-time work becomes a higher priority.

 

[ItTakesAllKinds]

My adult daughter lived at home for awhile when she was in College, and then for a bit after she graduated. She is the joy of my life and I loved having here there. However, she was there with a plan, and was bettering her future. I would never charge my grown child rent, but my grown child wouldn’t be living at home unless A) she was working ardently to improve her circumstances and her stay was short-term, or B) she had a catastrophic illness and needed care. She isn’t the type to want to live at home long-term. She is much too independent for that. It doesn’t hurt that she is a lovely person. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t stay at my place under any circumstances. I wouldn’t have the time or patience for that!

 

[tafan]

If my parents had a part-time employee living at home, that person would be spending the other half of their time as a housekeeper and home improvement resource. It is funny, but if you have to paint the house for free if you’re not working 40 hours a week, getting full-time work becomes a higher priority.

That’s what everyone says, I know from friends if mine, siblings of mine, and friends of my kids, it rarely plays out that way. I know kids who never were required to get a summer job during high school or college, who got out of college and moved in with parents and have a part time job at best. . .

I learned a long time ago, you get out if kids what you expect out of them. I expect my kids to get a job and support themselves. Just like my younger kids are expected to make good grades, and my teenagers are expected to work during the summer to save for college.

But I see lots of parents who coddle their kids every step if the way and have very low expectations. . It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck.

 

[Xantippe]

That’s what everyone says, I know from friends if mine, siblings of mine, and friends of my kids, it rarely plays out that way. I know kids who never were required to get a summer job during high school or college, who got out of college and moved in with parents and have a part time job at best. . .

I learned a long time ago, you get out if kids what you expect out of them. I expect my kids to get a job and support themselves. Just like my younger kids are expected to make good grades, and my teenagers are expected to work during the summer to save for college.

But I see lots of parents who coddle their kids every step if the way and have very low expectations. . It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck.

Eh, different families are different.

I’m from a farm/small business family and my dad had ENDLESS projects available for kids to work on, just like Easter Joy described. (Oh, the hours I’ve spent literally putting rocks in a bucket.) I did not hang around home after college, but if I had, it would have been exactly what EJ said.

I suppose if you’re not from that farm/small business background, you’re not familiar with the hundreds of blackberry bushes to cut, rocks to pick, manure to shovel, firewood to stack, etc.

My dad had us helping to round up cows as soon as we could walk across a field and wave a stick.

My kids definitely have a softer upbringing, but my 9th grader has already been saving two years for her senior trip to Europe. I’ve got her saving almost $80 a month EVERY month. At the end of every month, I collect the money from her and bank it. If the kids live at home with us as young adults, I expect to do something very similar with requiring savings (but on a larger scale), ideally starting in college. (Yes, the money is mostly from us, but we get a lot of work out of the kids.) That’s just our household routine.

I’m not going to turn into some sort of marshmallow when the kids are young adults.

 

[UbiCaritas]

That’s what everyone says, I know from friends if mine, siblings of mine, and friends of my kids, it rarely plays out that way. I know kids who never were required to get a summer job during high school or college, who got out of college and moved in with parents and have a part time job at best. . .

I learned a long time ago, you get out if kids what you expect out of them. I expect my kids to get a job and support themselves. Just like my younger kids are expected to make good grades, and my teenagers are expected to work during the summer to save for college.

But I see lots of parents who coddle their kids every step if the way and have very low expectations. . It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck.

Family culture plays a huge role in this too, though.

In DH’s family, many of the adult kids live at home and don’t pay rent. They do, however, work at least full time (and often more), pay for a fair number of groceries, save a LOT of money for a future house downpayment, and contribute to the household according to their skills–one guy is very good at car and household repair, another sibling ensures her parents can get a weekend or two off to themselves each month by watching younger siblings and managing the house for them, another manages the yard work, etc. One is actively discerning a religious vocation, so while she’s not working as such, she does a huge amount of the housework when she’s not off on month-long mission trips. (And before anyone says that “just” housework isn’t work–ever tried staying on top of laundry for a dozen people with just one washing machine?)

Staying at home and not going to school/working full time/some combination of the above is absolutely not an option, barring a serious medical issue. (I’m thinking of the kid who got really, REALLY sick midway through college and had to take a semester off.) Expectations re getting a degree and a sustaining job are clear and enforced, and so far, each kid who’s old enough to have graduated college has done so and has a very good job.

I’m not sure what will happen with us and our kids, but I hope they’ll be close enough to us that the above scenario would work for them as adults, even if they don’t take advantage of it.

 

[Xantippe]

Family culture plays a huge role in this too, though.

In DH’s family, many of the adult kids live at home and don’t pay rent. They do, however, work at least full time (and often more), pay for a fair number of groceries, save a LOT of money for a future house downpayment, and contribute to the household according to their skills–one guy is very good at car and household repair, another sibling ensures her parents can get a weekend or two off to themselves each month by watching younger siblings and managing the house for them, another manages the yard work, etc. One is actively discerning a religious vocation, so while she’s not working as such, she does a huge amount of the housework when she’s not off on month-long mission trips. (And before anyone says that “just” housework isn’t work–ever tried staying on top of laundry for a dozen people with just one washing machine?)

Staying at home and not going to school/working full time/some combination of the above is absolutely not an option, barring a serious medical issue. (I’m thinking of the kid who got really, REALLY sick midway through college and had to take a semester off.) Expectations re getting a degree and a sustaining job are clear and enforced, and so far, each kid who’s old enough to have graduated college has done so and has a very good job.

I’m not sure what will happen with us and our kids, but I hope they’ll be close enough to us that the above scenario would work for them as adults, even if they don’t take advantage of it.

What an inspiring example!

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

No.
It’s a cultural thing for us.
Hispanics don’t believe in having their daughters away.
My daughters have plenty of privacy, come and go without a lot of grilling on our part, and also chip in for bills when I ask, and do housework, their own laundry etc.
It works for us.

My Girlfriend and her family are from Mexico and she is 26 and still lives with her parents because she says that she will only move away when she gets married. I understand that is cultural but she pays utility bills and chips in for the rent I do not think not paying rent is universally cultural in all Hispanic cultures. Not even in just Mexican culture. I kind of have noticed a “We raised you, you owe us something” attitude among a lot of Hispanic parents toward their kids. That is not universal either though.

Also, I am Mexican American (5th generation American BTW) and I also paid rent when I still lived with my Grandparents (Basically, my parents).

 

[signit]

Three kids on their upper twenties, none of them allowed to live at home after they got a bachelor’s degree. None of them have any debt besides mortgage on a house, they all have good savings.

Iliving with parents is not an opportunity to save, it turns into an opportunity to let mom do lay laundry, I’ll just work part time for now until I find a job that I want, I’ll look for a full time job tomorrow, what a great video game I bought today with my measly pay check. . That’s the result over 50% of the time.

I have another college graduate in December, not changing a think. He graduates, I cancel his phone.

Fine, but there was a time that if my mother had not allowed me to live at home for free I would have been living in a cardboard box. It wasn’t so easy for me to “find a job that I want,” and it’s not that I wasn’t looking.

 

[Joe_5859]

I agree that it depends on a lot of factors. I could only see myself charging rent in extraordinary circumstances. It wouldn’t be my first choice.

 

[Joe_5859]

Paying bills doesn’t necessarily equate to adulthood.
Or personhood.
I prefer my kids not even attempt to get into debt until they are REALLY mature.
Only one daughter has a credit card, and she pays it off at each statement. She waiting and saw her friends drowning n debt by their senior year in college. She said NO WAY.
She didn’t get one until it was apparent she needed one for certain things. But she still pays it off immediately.

My parents forced me to get a credit card as soon as I turned 18. I had an aunt that had never bothered getting one and therefore built up no credit history and had a very difficult time later on down the road. They didn’t want that to happen to me. But, of course, I was never the type to spend money I did not have. I used it very infrequently in college and whenever I did, I paid it off right away. Now, I use it a lot just because I don’t like to carry cash. But I still pay it off every month. So I guess I have my parents to thank for instilling that in me. The thought of not paying off the whole balance each month and thereby accruing interest makes me feel anxious inside.

 

[SusanneT]

An amount for ‘board and lodging’ food bills etc and something for rent, put aside for them as a deposit to rent or buy a place of their own.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

An amount for ‘board and lodging’ food bills etc and something for rent, put aside for them as a deposit to rent or buy a place of their own.

 

[EasterJoy]

That’s what everyone says, I know from friends if mine, siblings of mine, and friends of my kids, it rarely plays out that way. I know kids who never were required to get a summer job during high school or college, who got out of college and moved in with parents and have a part time job at best. . .

I learned a long time ago, you get out if kids what you expect out of them. I expect my kids to get a job and support themselves. Just like my younger kids are expected to make good grades, and my teenagers are expected to work during the summer to save for college.

But I see lots of parents who coddle their kids every step if the way and have very low expectations. . It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck.

No, actually, one of the relatives had a son in the house who had to get his own place. He comes home and is fine at holidays, but it played out as, “In our family, when you want to be an adult and make your own decisions about what you’re going to do, you get your own house and you pay for it. If our house rules are good with you, by all means, stick around, but if you want the freedom to do what you want to do, find a roommate.” His parents do think that paying your own rent entitles you to making your own decisions without unsolicited advice. If they don’t like the way he’s running his life now, they bite their tongues.

It is pretty much the answer to, “I don’t like your rules and I don’t want to do things the way you think I should do things.” That day comes, eventually, but later for some than for others. The ones who stuck around until later in life are doing fine financially.

I do think it is harder to find a wife if you haven’t gotten your own place yet. Many women hesitate to get serious with someone who still lives with his mom.

 

[Yeoman]

We never did. My daughter lived with us, off and on, until her marriage at age 33 and we never charged her a penny. It was important to us that she knew she could come home any time, regardless of circumstances.

My parents didn’t when I came home from university and moved home, and was working.

But then my father became ill, and then died, and I just took over the bills for the household while I still lived there.