Kids Still Living At Home But Not Helping Financially (Your Advice)
By Jeffrey Strain, May 22nd, 2007 | 53 Comments »
What would you do if you had children still in your home after they had graduated from college, but they weren’t helping out financially in any way? This is a question that one of the readers is facing and wondering what steps she should take to resolve the issue:
I hope that you can give me some advice on a problem that I have with my children. They are both adults with one being 24 and the other being 26 years old. After college, they moved back into our home where they have been ever since. Although I love having them with us and have no problem with them actually living here, I feel that them living with us has been quite detrimental to their financial well-being.
Neither of them has jobs or are they looking for jobs. Since all their basic needs are satisfied living here (they don’t even purchase their own food), they have no real incentive to go out and find a real job.
I want to be a supportive parent, but I also want them to learn that they have to be able to support themselves. I know that I need to sit down and have a talk with them, but I’m not sure how to broach the subject and what type of demands I should make of them. I’m looking for suggestions on how to let them know that it is not okay for them to live here without working and paying their fair share, but also letting them know that I’m more than willing to help them as they seek employment.
I’m also wondering whether I should place deadlines on them finding employment? I think that they should at the very least pay for their own food and help out with utilities and home maintenance costs. Are there other things that I am forgetting that also should be included? Any suggestions that you have would be most appreciated.
If you were in the same position, what are the rules that you would make for your children and what would be your financial expectations of them to remain living in your home?
My daughter will tell any parent…DO NOT ENABLE YOUR KIDS!!! They will resent you for it and take advantage of you! I made my daughter leave the house at 19 due to drugs, laziness, and lack of respect. She moved home 2 1/2 years later to get her life in order and was tired of the life “SHE” had chosen. She got her life together, bought her first home at 24 by herself (we did loan her $8000 which she has paid back with the first time homebuyers tax credit) pays all her bills, rents out her spare room to help with her bills(the rent pays half her payment, she bought within her means and what she could afford, not her dream home) drives a decent vehicle, goes on vacations, and enjoys life and feels a great deal of accomplishment and rightly so. I am very proud of who she has become and she thanks me all the time for not enabling her but loving her and being there for her when she needed me. She makes a very median income and does not extend herself. She manages money better than most people twice her age. She also tells all the parents of her friends to not enable their kids and let them grow up. When you let your kids deal with their own problems they no longer will be a problem to you. The problem is your kids need some problems. If they don’t have a job they should be leaving the house when you do and come home when you do and look for a job as long as you are at work. You’d be amazed at how quickly they will find work, even in this economy. Do your kids a favor and stop doing so much for your kids.
Alden, you show an impressive inability to accept others outside your own lifestyle along with a lack of understanding in the area of percentages for someone who graduated Ivy League. 99% is hardly anything. Out of 1 million individuals using birth control, would you say that the unlucky 10,000 deserve what they received as a result of their actions? Also, the rate for the most effective birth control is 97~99%, not simply 99%. Just a detail you seem to have missed.
It seems as though you take great pride in your having been a “smart kid”, so I hope you don’t find my comments overly offensive. This post is intended to correct your bad advice and address your intellectual narrow-mindedness for the sake of others reading, not to attack your person.