How to stop feeling guilty for saying NO

Better_Days

OP, please continue to say 'No'!

I know a single Mum who has a 17 year old son. He works as an apprentice earning about £600 a month. I naively asked her how much he gives her for his keep (she works as a cleaner and struggles to make ends meet). But she gives him £6 a day to buy his lunch (he doesn't want to have a packed lunch as the other lads he works with buy their lunches). She also gives him money on demand for takeaways, clothes etc until she has nothing left.

It has now got to the point where he is rude and aggressive if the 'puppy eyes' don't work and he doesn't get his own way. Basically she has taken the easy route in the past and is reaping the results. She is now on anti depressants, struggling to cope both financially and emotionally, and has to leave her own house until he calms down. He has no respect for his Mum who has worked so hard to bring him up on her own. He even has the cheek to criticise her driving when she is running him around in her car and he is not making any payment for petrol. It's all grinding her down and she can't see any way out of the situation.

I'm not saying your son would behave like this when he gets older. However, as a parent you will do so much more for your son in the long run if bite the bullet now and teach him a vital life skill - that is managing his finances.

Lieja

Wow, I'm astonished teenagers get so much! It hasn't been too long since I was one, and I got nowhere near what your son gets and managed fine. I got about £20 a month allowance at about 14-15, and started working in a supermarket at 16, when my allowance stopped. I had no further allowance for anything else, I bought clothes, haircuts, and lunches out of my wages. My parents bought me clothes for Christmas/birthdays if they were what I'd asked for, and I got a top/pair of trousers for Easter. Bearing in mind that my birthday is at the beginning of January, I went April-December with no new clothes before I earned a wage, and I managed! I also paid for everything myself, rent included, when I went to uni. I feel a bit hard done by now!!

Mojisola

Lieja wrote: »

Wow, I'm astonished teenagers get so much!

Most don't!

Tiptaker

You feel guilty? Will you be my mum please? Are you mad? Do you think you are doing your son any favours pouring money at him? All it is teaching him is that he can spend, spend, spend and that someone else will pick up the bill. Give him a weekly allowance from which he has to pay his transport to school, his lunches, essential clothes and a minimal amount of spending money and tell him to get a paper round which will teach him the value of earned income.

Dukesy

Well done for making a start on this. However, I think you need to go further.

There are posters here saying that if you can afford to give him so much, why not? The thing with this is that if you continue to fund him so heavily, he's going to go out into the world with very unrealistic expectations. In giving him such a huge clothing allowance, phone contract, allowance etc, you are opening up a whole world of problems and in the future, his method of maintaining the level of 'spending money' he has now may well be to resort to credit.

When I was a teenager (and we're not talking about decades ago here - I'm in my mid twenties now), I had a £20 allowance per month. That was it. If I spent it, I didn't get any extra. To supplement this, I had a paper round at about 13/14, and then I got various jobs from 14 onwards in pubs, hotels and with a wedding caterer. I used to earn about £5 an hour, which covered everything I needed (although not everything I wanted).

My mum used to buy me clothes etc, but ONLY when I needed them - additional clothes were paid for by me. She also used to put £5 a month on my phone (I had bought my phone myself, as the one my parents were willing to buy me was the bargain basement job with a huge aerial etc) as we lived miles out of town and occasionally I would miss the bus home from school. Any extra credit was, again, self funded.

The list goes on...

Anyway, the point is that by the time I left home for uni, I was VERY good at budgeting. I even managed to buy myself a £1200 car, and pay for my insurance, tax and maintenance whilst at uni without running out of money or sacrificing anything else, as the whole concept of money management had been so thoroughly hammered into me.

My little brother, on the other hand, is a nightmare. He has always had my mum wrapped around his little finger, and has always been able to get what he wants - his best little scam was to ask my mum to buy him whatever gadget he wanted and then promise to pay her back over time by working for my dad. Of course, this never happened - he would be given the item he'd asked for, and never pay my mum back. As he has never had to fund these things himself, he has no concept of value, and the number of phones, ipods etc he has lost or broken is unbelievable. When he wanted a car, my parents bought one for him and they pay all the costs. This is not helping him.

It's worse now he's at uni - he is forever running out of money and begging some from my parents, which they dole out. He shows no interest in trying to fund himself - during the summer hols, OH gave him a job which he stuck for less than a week, and he didn't bother finding a different one.

I don't know quite why my parents treated us so differently where money is concerned, but now I'm a bit older, I can really actually appreciate that they did me a lot more favours than they're doing my brother right now. I know how much you want to give your son what he wants, but please think carefully about the sums of money involved here - you're not helping him here.

chog24

j.e.j. wrote: »

Wow, you sound like a top mum I don't think even I have £150 every 3 months for clothes :rotfl:

You say you pay for his trips out with friends, would that be why he has to keep coming to you for money, as he doesn't know in advance what they'll be doing or where they'll be going?

Maybe try giving him a certain amount of money to cover everything, and once it's gone it's gone. Much like when he's an adult and getting paid monthly, he'll have to make it last.

I have to say, it sounds as though your 14 year old son has a whole load more disposable income than I do! I understand how hard it must be to say 'No' but I think you perhaps need to do some work on yourself to understand why you're saying 'Yes' so much. Tough love is about allowing the other person to learn for themselves. Perhaps it's time to have the "Now that you're moving into adulthood, it's time to start learning how to manage your life and money as an adult" and work into that lessons about feeding oneself adequately as well as managing money (Dirty Chicken, when all's said and done, isn't the healthiest way for your son to choose to fuel his body)

Grumpyloo

You're really not doing him any favours here. You give him enough money, a lot more than most teenagers get, and he can't manage it - he has to learn before it's too late!

We all have to make choices about what we can afford, and go without what we can't. Imagine the headache if he goes to university with his current money mismanagement! :shocked:

Be cruel to be kind - he'll thank you for it later. It is difficult to get a job when still statutory school age as a lot of employers won't want to deal with work permits and restricted hours, but as soon as he can he should get one, and then think about how long he has to work to get the money to do the things he wants. He may find he is not as keen on those things as he thought!

So, make him responsible to budgeting his fixed income. A few weeks with no money is a small price for him to pay for the budgeting skills he will learn!

AliBaliBee_2

Get professional help from acouncillor. Your own happiness shouldn’t depend on your son being happy with material goods, that’s not a good lesson and doesn’t bode well for the future, for him or for his future long suffering partner or you! If you have professional help with this then you can get to the root of your issues from the past which have made you feel guilty about saying no, and you have to report back to the councillor and tell her how you got on, so you will have to do what you agreed to and cant bale out, so that will help you crack on with your new plan to help him learn about responsibility and provide you with a deadline for the ‘saying no’ goals which you set yourself with help, so you know they are fair!

My friend has the same problem and her kid is now 20 and even more demanding. The sooner you canget the strength to do what you want to do and learn to say no without guilt the better, or your son will end up a 20 year old mummy’s boy that no girl/boyfriendwill ever satisfy as he will always want more than he/she can give,emotionally, financially etc. He may kick up a tantrum with your new rules but he wont love you any less. What a great mum you are to care so much that you want to say no, good for you! Now go make yourself an appointment – you have plenty money so theres nothing to lose by trying! (ps I work full time all month and, after the household running costs, I have less money than your son so don’t worry you are being stingy if you make him live within his means, you aren’t, you are being a good, kind, responsible parent and he will grow up to be the same with the new lessons you will teach him, with help).Good luck!

paddy's_mum

What follows is (believe me, please) a true story.

Years ago, I had a relative who had a new Labrador puppy. The first time my relative put a collar on the pup and tried to attach a lead, the pup went loopy with the restriction, yapping, struggling, panting, flopping down with dismay...

My relative took pity on the pup and for many months allowed it to run about his smallholding, completely free of restraint, saying that he couldn't inflict any further distress upon the poor little mite.

I, on the other hand, taught all my mutts how to be collared, led, disciplined and, most importantly, kept safe from traffic by being restrained when it was in their best interests to be so.

Only a few months later, my relative's young dog was hit by a lorry and most dreadfully, horribly injured. It had to be put down. It cost his owner a great deal of money in vet's fees ...notwithstanding the pain and suffering of the dog.

The moral of this story is that we owe it to our young stock to teach them to live in the world as it is, not just as we would like it to be.

Unless you deal effectively with this, one day a future daughter in law is going to hate you.

Your problem is not your son's expectations - it's your unrecognised motivations and until you see and address that, you are simply storing up great unhappiness and lifelong misery for your (clearly) much loved boy.

Martin Lewis (he of much MSE saintlihood!) sold up and made millions. However, I would bet my summer holiday that he still watches all the major bills, takes care over his bank statements, switches providers etc.

It's not about how much money you have available - it's about applying commonsense and learning financial lessons that will last a lifetime.

Good luck.

crogers

quidsy wrote: »

Stop the monthly allowance, give him weekly pocket money based on a completed list of household or garden chores & if he spends his pocket money in the first couple of days then he can't go anywhere till the next lot comes through.

Send him with a packed lunch, you will halve the cost.

Find a barber who does 10 quid haircuts, every 6-8 weeks is enough.

Make him pay for his trips & cinema with his mates from his earned pocket money. Once it's gone, it's gone. It will teach him the power of budgeting.

150 every 3 months on clothes? really, have you not heard of primark or the sales? Cut it in half.

Phone contract, well presumably you are ties in to a contract but when it is finished, find a better deal.

The tutors are a good idea as long as he is learnign somethign & presumably your choice for him to have them so he shouldn't be expected to take financial responsibilty for them.

Time to crack down & make him earn his keep imo.

I have a 6 year old who has to do the same so I'm pretty sure a 14 year old can manage it.

My children had to do chores and all had a paper round to earn the extra cash they wanted, they had to tidy their rooms too from the age of 6. Just how do you justify spoiling your son like this? It is not a kindness, because one day he will have to wake up to the fact that wages have to be earned.
I agree with all the cost saving advice you have been given so far, but if you want your son to respect you then you have to be the piper who calls the tune not him. Oh and by the way £40 far too much pocket money for a 14 year old. Do you know what he spends it on?