child paying keep/rent

Person_one

whodathunkit wrote: »

Treating someone as an equal doesn't necessarily mean they have an equal say.

University academics (hopefully) treat their students as equals but that doesn't mean their opinions are equally valid. I'm sure you treat your patients as equals but that doesn't mean that they don't have to do what you advise them about their health when under your care.

You're very artfully dodging the issue there!

If you can be equals without having an equal say, why is paying an equal share so crucial? Are all types of equality not equal? :rotfl:

Person_one

onlyroz wrote: »

I wasn't comparing your child to a lodger. Perhaps you should re-read my post.

The suggestion was that because adult children pay rent they should get an equal say in household decisions. I was simply providing a counter argument.

That wasn't the suggestion, there wasn't any suggestion!

My comment was intended to point out that parent/child when the child is still living at home are very rarely truly 'equal'. Its just not the nature of the beast.

Carmina-Piranha_2

jaylee3 wrote: »

I agree. Less than £50 a week for rent, electric, landline phone, sky tv, water rates, council tax, heating, laundry service, tv licence, home contents insurance, occasional lifts, (once a week,) and food (including meals cooked.)

Try getting THAT anywhere else!

My teenagers don't get a laundry service :rotfl:

I iron for them, but they are quite capable of putting their clothes in the machine, then hanging them out to dry.

I provide a laundry service for my 8 year old, but he helps to put his clean clothes away.

I'd imagine that to get a laundry service they'd have a mum who didn't work, or REALLY enjoyed laundry.

Carmina-Piranha_2

schwam66 wrote: »

honestly now would the water and electricity be THAT much different? surely once your child moves out the bills arent all of a sudden going to be cut in half are they? food i can see would come down, but again not that much, how often is an 18 year old working full time eatting at home.....2 maybe 3 days a week? dont know my kids arent anywhere near that age yet but when i was 18 i sorted myself out i never had super waiting for me or anything like that so i cant imagine the food would be that much of an issue......

My teenagers eat at home every night, and take packed lunches. They also make toast after I've gone to bed :eek: They eat more than I do.

They don't, however, increase the cost of the mortgage, TV license, internet bill or anything like that. It's just food, toiletries and electricity. If I were a single parent then maybe the council tax would rise due to losing the single person discount.

They pay their own transport and mobile contracts. I buy basic clothes and shoes. They buy their own t-shirts and branded clothes. Neither of them work full time so perhaps things would be different if they did, but I agree that they don't cost anywhere near as much as some people said they would lose in benefits (and maintenance, presumably, for the figure to be as high as 300?).

If they worked full time I still don't think I'd want more than £50 per week ... wouldn't want to make a profit.

onlyroz

Carmina-Piranha wrote: »

If they worked full time I still don't think I'd want more than £50 per week ... wouldn't want to make a profit.

Would you still want them living with you when they were 40?

maman

balletshoes wrote: »

but thats the thing though - people will do what they think is best for their situation, and some of that decision will be based on their direct experiences.

I think that's the conclusion I've come to.


There are a few horror stories on here obviously based on offspring/friends/family who aren't financially responsible.


I've not been in that position and have posted about ensuring our DDs were financially savvy from a young age.


A couple of things have struck me: I said I was a bit ignorant of benefits. Having only ever received Child Benefit I had no idea that some people could be £150 a week worse off when a child stopped formal education. That's one hell of a subsidy for having children! but it made me perhaps understand a bit why some feel the need to 'charge' their children for continuing to live in the family home. That being said though, except for food and in some cases council tax I can't see how the household bills are that much different from what parents would have to pay if the child left home.


Then there was a comment about the difference between a child of 1 compared with 41 and someone said that at 41 they'd expect the child to be looking after the parent. I have grown up children and I'd never expect them to be looking after me, especially financially. We still 'treat' our grown up children whenever we can just as my parents did for me. I know it's not always the case but generally the older generation have less financial commitments (mortgage, children, progressing in the job market) so I'd want to help out whenever I could.


So pleased that this thread has taken on a bit of balance. I began to wonder if I was the only one who didn't want to take money from their children.

tillyenna

schwam66 wrote: »

honestly now would the water and electricity be THAT much different? surely once your child moves out the bills arent all of a sudden going to be cut in half are they? food i can see would come down, but again not that much, how often is an 18 year old working full time eatting at home.....2 maybe 3 days a week? dont know my kids arent anywhere near that age yet but when i was 18 i sorted myself out i never had super waiting for me or anything like that so i cant imagine the food would be that much of an issue......

My mam says her food bill trebles when my brother is in the house (he lives there part time). She's a single woman, on a diet most of the time, eats very healthily, and small portions, doesn't eat a lot of meat and cooks very wisely. My brother's a paramedic and a special in the police, both very active jobs, he's a 26 year old bloke, and he could eat a horse every day... I'm not joking. He's skinny as a rake and usually has 4 meals a day.


Also, my mam is on a water meter... so the cost of water goes up a LOT when he's home. And as she points out, the electric bill goes up too; if she's on her own at home, she's usually just in one room of the house, and only has her reading lamp on - and uses the fire so she doesn't need to pay to heat the whole house, my brother on the other hand works odd shifts, so is often awake during the night, watching TV, playing on his playstation - and his room doesn't have a fire in it, so in winter she needs to put the heating on. (my room doesn't even have a radiator *sob sob* but it's in the attic, so it's still the coolest room in the house!)


So yes - dependant on your situation, the bills can go up a LOT. For example, if the OP is a single woman with an 18 year old son - he is going to be consuming a LOT more food than she is...


(for the record, I totally love my brother, I think he does two very worthy jobs, and does NOT take my mum for a ride, but this is just to prove that her bills MASSIVLY go up when he's home)

Carmina-Piranha_2

onlyroz wrote: »

Would you still want them living with you when they were 40?

I doubt they would want to! If something happened like a break-up and they needed a short term place to stay then of course I'd want them, but in the end I would hope they were independent and would want to live with people their own age.

If they were older adults and were earning a proper salary then maybe I'd ask them for more, I don't know. But the minimum wage for under 21's is pitiful.

I was out supporting myself before 21, but I always knew that I could return home if I felt the need, and that's what I want my children to feel too.

Home with parents isn't a lifestyle that I wanted when I was 21+ though, I wanted to come and go as I pleased, play music when I pleased, have noisy sex, bring friends back from the pub, etc.

My 17 year old has a few friends who smoke, and he wants to eventually have his own place where he can allow smoking indoors.

onlyroz

Carmina-Piranha wrote: »

Home with parents isn't a lifestyle that I wanted when I was 21+ though, I wanted to come and go as I pleased, play music when I pleased, have noisy sex, bring friends back from the pub, etc.

What you want and what you can actually do are often two different things. Here it says that 26% of 20-34 year olds still live with their parents:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/family-demography/young-adults-living-with-parents/2013/sty-young-adults.html

With increasing house prices and rents this figure is only going to rise. And if it becomes the "norm" to have your adult children living at home then I think it should also become the "norm" for them to pay an adult share towards the household running costs. As I said above, not necessarily the full market rate but genuine and worthwhile contribution, while they save up enough to find a place of their own.

It's not just about how much gas/electricity/water they use. By staying with mummy and daddy they might be preventing them from downsizing to a cheaper property, which would have a knock-on impact on their retirement age and pension income. It would be utterly selfish of a full-time working adult to expect their parents to continue to give them an unlimited free ride.

schwam66

maman wrote: »

I think that's the conclusion I've come to.


There are a few horror stories on here obviously based on offspring/friends/family who aren't financially responsible.


I've not been in that position and have posted about ensuring our DDs were financially savvy from a young age.


A couple of things have struck me: I said I was a bit ignorant of benefits. Having only ever received Child Benefit I had no idea that some people could be £150 a week worse off when a child stopped formal education. That's one hell of a subsidy for having children! but it made me perhaps understand a bit why some feel the need to 'charge' their children for continuing to live in the family home. That being said though, except for food and in some cases council tax I can't see how the household bills are that much different from what parents would have to pay if the child left home.


Then there was a comment about the difference between a child of 1 compared with 41 and someone said that at 41 they'd expect the child to be looking after the parent. I have grown up children and I'd never expect them to be looking after me, especially financially. We still 'treat' our grown up children whenever we can just as my parents did for me. I know it's not always the case but generally the older generation have less financial commitments (mortgage, children, progressing in the job market) so I'd want to help out whenever I could.


So pleased that this thread has taken on a bit of balance. I began to wonder if I was the only one who didn't want to take money from their children.

couldnt thank you enough for this post, its no wonder this country is the way it is...how can kids save for a house or a wedding or higher education if the parents are looking to hussle them as soon as they get a job!?! people cant seriously think they are 'helping' their children by taking a 1/3 of their wage when they are 18 if you seriously wanted to help you would make them save it......

thanks again! all the best to you and your family