When to charge board for room

Mojisola

Alikay wrote: »

I tolerated the severe restrictions on privacy and freedom when living with my parents for the benefit of family support and affection plus cheap board and lodgings.

Your parents also had their privacy and freedom restricted by your presence - how did you compensate them for that loss?

Alikay

Mojisola wrote: »

Your parents also had their privacy and freedom restricted by your presence - how did you compensate them for that loss?

By paying a third of my take-home pay from the week I left school age 16 until leaving home at 20.

silvercar

Having said that, in the situation you describe (which would've been the same for me if living with parents) I can see it might be less appropriate. However, IME, most parents of adult children living at home don't put the restictions on them that you and I might've had to live with, the relationship is much more like housesharers with BF/GF stopping over, friends coming round, returning home (or not) left completely up to the child - because they're an adult.

There will be restrictions, whether imposed or self imposed.

Living independently allows you to relax your standards at will. Get home late and you can leave the dishes in the sink til morning. Living with your parents means that either you tidy up after yourself or a parent will do it or a parent will moan at you. It means letting folk know if you change plans and won't be home for dinner, preferably before dinner time. As for BF/GFs staying over, us parents may well be more relaxed, but I doubt they want to come home to find their offspring making out on the sofa.

Tabbytabitha

silvercar wrote: »

There will be restrictions, whether imposed or self imposed.

Living independently allows you to relax your standards at will. Get home late and you can leave the dishes in the sink til morning. Living with your parents means that either you tidy up after yourself or a parent will do it or a parent will moan at you. It means letting folk know if you change plans and won't be home for dinner, preferably before dinner time. As for BF/GFs staying over, us parents may well be more relaxed, but I doubt they want to come home to find their offspring making out on the sofa.

Doesn't that rather imply that all parents are tidy?

Mojisola

Alikay wrote: »

I tolerated the severe restrictions on privacy and freedom when living with my parents for the benefit of family support and affection plus cheap board and lodgings.

Alikay wrote: »

By paying a third of my take-home pay from the week I left school age 16 until leaving home at 20.

So the amount that was cheap enough for you to put up with severe restrictions on your life was supposed to be high enough to compensate your parents for the severe restrictions on their lives?

Mojisola

silvercar wrote: »

There will be restrictions, whether imposed or self imposed.

Living independently allows you to relax your standards at will. Get home late and you can leave the dishes in the sink til morning.

It means letting folk know if you change plans and won't be home for dinner, preferably before dinner time.

As for BF/GFs staying over, us parents may well be more relaxed, but I doubt they want to come home to find their offspring making out on the sofa.

Perhaps some parents feel obliged to be tidier because they've got another adult in the house?

And parents won't have the flexibility they could have if an adult child is expecting dinner to be cooked for them.

It's not much fun not being able to make out on your own sofa because your adult child might arrive home any minute!

silvercar

Tabbytabitha wrote: »

Doesn't that rather imply that all parents are tidy?

That may be a reflection on me being tidier than both my boys were when they came to live at home after university. They have both improved since.

It is a generalisation that students are less tidy than older folk.

Alikay

Mojisola wrote: »

So the amount that was cheap enough for you to put up with severe restrictions on your life was supposed to be high enough to compensate your parents for the severe restrictions on their lives?

Well, actually when I started work in 1977 I earned £17 gross, and brought home around £14.50. Bus fares to and from work were £3, so there was no way I could've afforded to move out. Therefore I was happy to pay over a fiver for my keep; a third of the bills, not so much. My parents were part of a very restrictive religion (mum still is) so there was not a lot of freedom in our house, though I won't elaborate as it would seem abusive today and they were decent people.

And yes, I expect my dad would've liked some compo given that he took me on as someone else's child that came as a package when he met and married my unmarried mother mum, but he was gracious enough not to ask for it.

goodwithsaving

Mojisola wrote: »

Perhaps some parents feel obliged to be tidier because they've got another adult in the house?

And parents won't have the flexibility they could have if an adult child is expecting dinner to be cooked for them.

It's not much fun not being able to make out on your own sofa because your adult child might arrive home any minute!

You make it sound like such an inconvenience having children. (Regardless of their age, they are always your child).

Mojisola

goodwithsaving wrote: »

You make it sound like such an inconvenience having children. (Regardless of their age, they are always your child).

But I expect them to act like adults when they become adults!