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Is there a tactful way to find out if a son is actually going to his new job?
- Thread starter jimtothehum
- Start date
Man... i'm glad i didn't live in that culture...
i moved out when i was 23 and never had to pay rent... pushing me and asking me for rent since 18 wouldn't have helped me at all that's for sure
i moved out when i was 23 and never had to pay rent... pushing me and asking me for rent since 18 wouldn't have helped me at all that's for sure
To be clear I'm not paying a full rent with my parents. It used to be $450 a month including utilities. Now $250 a month since my brothers are not paying at the moment. It's still the best option for me over moving out since I have no friends to be my roommate and I only work part time at the moment. :(
How does your culture handle a 19 year old with a kid that doesn't work and games until 3am? Not being facetious, genuinely curious about the difference in approach outside of waiting until they're 30 and feel like finally being an adult.
Don't try to set his bed times, that kind of micromanagement isn't helpful at his age.
Make this easy on yourself. Set a rent.
If you don't want the money, then let him know: the rent isn't going to be spent, you are just going to put it into an account and give it to him for his expenses the day he gets his own place. (Moving has a lot of expenses and he will need it).
This way he has to come up with money. But you are still doing him a favor by giving all of it back eventually once he strikes out on his own. But he will have to genuinely work to get that money.
My parents told me around age 15 this is what they were planning on doing for me, but it ended up not being necessary since I went to school and never returned home, lol. But the plan always sounded fair to me.
Make this easy on yourself. Set a rent.
If you don't want the money, then let him know: the rent isn't going to be spent, you are just going to put it into an account and give it to him for his expenses the day he gets his own place. (Moving has a lot of expenses and he will need it).
This way he has to come up with money. But you are still doing him a favor by giving all of it back eventually once he strikes out on his own. But he will have to genuinely work to get that money.
My parents told me around age 15 this is what they were planning on doing for me, but it ended up not being necessary since I went to school and never returned home, lol. But the plan always sounded fair to me.
To all of you "give him time, don't make him pay" folk, how do you think the mother of his child would respond to that approach while she's raising their child alone with zero financial support? Would you tell her that this 19 year old just needs another heart to heart?
Can you pinpoint an instance where someone in the thread suggested to do nothing? I don't think anybody has done that. The worst we got was someone suggesting that he goes to jail.
All people have been doing is suggesting that there could be a variety of different reasons that these circumstances have come about and his father it would to everyone's interest if he was able to work out those reasons and approach them with nuance. What worked for one person does not always work for another and there is no reason to act as if there is some one size fits all option to things like this unless you wanna make a bunch of baseless assumptions about "human nature" to fit someone you know nothing about into a convenient mold.
This one dropped out of high school. College isn't in the cards.
At 18 I wasn't really motivated, all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends and boyfriend. I had no career or job plans. So at 18 my mother required I pay rent, do more work around the house, do all my own cooking and pay for all my expenses. I was no longer a child but an adult living in her home. I got a job and paid her rent. She also required me to look at getting an apartment or place to live and I saw how little money I'd have left after making minimum wage.
It inspired both me and my boyfriend (now husband) to go to college. While I was in college I held a PT job and she did not charge me rent. After getting an AAS degree, we did move out and I decided to continue college, got me BA and Sociology and a MS in Management.
Her charging me rent was great for me, I saw how much life cost and it gave me the motivation to go to college and do better.
My SO and I moved out together for the first time out of our parents house but I 100% expected him to pay bills when we moved out together. Why would he get to live for free while I paid everything or vice versa?
We now put all our money together in one account and everything goes in and out of it. We both work and our earnings are more than our bills.
OP
OP
The tough thing about making this thread, and something I should have realized before making it, is that people would need way more context than I was ready to give. That's my bad, and what I thought was an innocuous question, turned into a big thing. There is a lot more variables that people don't know about and when they don't know, they tend to project and fill in the blanks. I have made a decision, however, I think it best that I leave it at that. I appreciate everyone that weighed in, including the member that DMed me about specific jobs that might work for him. It was extremely thoughtful.
Uh...of course you'd have a SO moving in "pay rent". Unless you're just talking semantics, I feel like it would be very unusual to move a partner into an established home and not expect them to begin contributing money to the living expenses. Whether you call that "paying rent" or "helping out" or anything else doesn't change that of course an adult choosing to share living space should also expect to share expenses. Granted, there's obvious exceptions based on ability and life circumstances and all that. Some people would include "being your children" in those exceptions.
I don't know if it's semantics, I was talking about a fixed monthly amount of money, like people suggested to OP in this case.
The answer is still yes. You generally have a fixed minimum amount of monthly expenses.
Soon-to-be-thread
"I think my parents know I don't actually have a job, what do I do ERA?"
Something kinda similar just happened to me...
I own and run a Martial Arts gym. A fifteen year old and his dad come in. Dad says he is looking for something to keep his kid off the streets and out of trouble as he works night shift and his mother is not around to watch him. First class is free so kid jumps into a Muay Thai class. Went well and kid seemed excited to come back.
Kid never comes to a single class after that. About once a week he would stroll in and ask for the class schedules or tell me that he hurt his shoulder or tell me how he might want to do BJJ instead, etc,etc.
After like 6 months his Dad calls on the phone asking if he is there. "Nope haven't seen him". Next day, same call and same answer. Dad asks when was the last class he took. I told him it was only the one class 6 months ago. Dad is pissed as he thought his kid was at the gym everyday.
Dad calls back like 15 minutes later asking if he could get refunded some of the money as his kid never showed up. I told him I never got a single dime of any money from him. The Dad was giving the kid monthly payments for classes to give to me and kid never showed up keeping the money.
I own and run a Martial Arts gym. A fifteen year old and his dad come in. Dad says he is looking for something to keep his kid off the streets and out of trouble as he works night shift and his mother is not around to watch him. First class is free so kid jumps into a Muay Thai class. Went well and kid seemed excited to come back.
Kid never comes to a single class after that. About once a week he would stroll in and ask for the class schedules or tell me that he hurt his shoulder or tell me how he might want to do BJJ instead, etc,etc.
After like 6 months his Dad calls on the phone asking if he is there. "Nope haven't seen him". Next day, same call and same answer. Dad asks when was the last class he took. I told him it was only the one class 6 months ago. Dad is pissed as he thought his kid was at the gym everyday.
Dad calls back like 15 minutes later asking if he could get refunded some of the money as his kid never showed up. I told him I never got a single dime of any money from him. The Dad was giving the kid monthly payments for classes to give to me and kid never showed up keeping the money.
How is it mind blowing for both to contribute to the household expenses? I honestly don't understand.
A fixed amount helps make sure there's no resentment or miscommunication about contributions. You look at your expenses and figure out how best to split them that both people can agree on, and then figure out the practicalities of it (like whether one person pays some bills and one others, or contribute to a mutual account or any number of other options).
When my girlfriend (now wife) moved in with me to an apartment I owned, we shared the cost of buying groceries, cleaning supplies, stuff like that - and I mean she paid once, I paid next; there were no calculations to get even. She bought her clothes and books and gas for the car and I bought mine. But it never ocurred to me to ask for half the electricity/internet/monthly apartment cost (don't know the English word for it).
I believe this sounds crazy to you, as the other way sounds crazy to me. In my "defense", it's not my particular thing, I know noone who would do it differently.
Again, this is because I had my own, non-rented place already.
Good luck, man! I've read the whole thread and really appreciated all your follow-up posts. Tough spot, hope the next steps work out or that there is some improvement at least.
Interesting. When I moved into my wife's place, we just started splitting rent immediately. The easiest way was one of us paid in full one month then the other the next. I'm surprised you didn't have her contribute to the rent or mortgage or whatever the case may be. She was fortunate.. or at least according to you, most people in your culture who move in with someone are.
My wife and I have been living together for over 14 years and still do this to this day actually. The other stuff (car payment, insurance, groceries, internet/cable, etc.) is far more nebulous and probably will never be equal but rent and utilities have been done this way from day 1.
I'm not American but European, but in this case I'd also ask my girlfriend/wife to split the costs. I don't really see it as a balanced relationship if one half of the couple is living for free, even though they have access to all the same amenities. Not only that, but you're paying double. Your electricity, gas and water bills are all higher now that you're with two, but the cost is all on one person.
I would never ask rent of my children nor did my parents ever expect me to pay rent (and I lived with them for a while when I was 23 years old), but that's a different situation where I was in need of their help and them being my parents, well, they took care of me. Two fully independent adults trying to build a life together is a different thing to me where you combine your resources.
Sorry for the bump, but this little story is great! Did you ever hear from either of them again? It's funny that the dad was giving the kid money and thinking he was going to kickboxing, and in reality he was giving the kid money to go out and piss around every day!
Actually I did get a call from a school liaison officer. I just kind of told him the exact same story here. The liaison officer told me that he might personally bring the kid to the classes but have not seen or heard anything from them.
Also found out from the liaison officer that this kid is only 12 and an insanely good liar. He told me on several occasions that he was 15. I looked on the waiver his dad filled out and yep, only 12.