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Adult child moved back home

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Farmer Jon:
I got a call from my mother the other day. She said I think your kid is bored. I said I suppose so. Hes lived in your basement with no job no money and no car for over a year. She asked if we needed help on the farm. I said yea we do. She said well come get him and put him to work.

Ive asked the kid to work twice before its always no in don't need the money. Or im busy I have plans. This time he said yea. I almost pooped myself when he said that.  Hes 19 been mooching off grandma for so long I couldn't believe it. Turns out most of the people he runs with are in jail. He just got lucky he didn't get caught. Dealing drugs. Pot mostly from what I gather.

First day was yesterday. Everything went well. He even got up on time. I hope he keeps it up. Hes already looking at cheap cars to buy and has a good attitude.

I am making him pitch in for groceries. 75 a week. Then I thought that was too much we talked about it and he offered 45. Mom  is all bent out of shape about it. My brothers said they would charge him. I see it this way. He is an adult. He can help out. I got my nuts cut because I cant afford another kid. Much less another kid that eats as much as I do.

Am I wrong about that?

Atkinsmatt:
I don't think so.  I charged my son, from the time he graduated HS to the time he moved out recently, almost 3 years, 5 bucks a week for rent and groceries.  He has to learn responsibility somewhere.  You can't live anywhere for free.  Everyone is supposed to be a contributing member of society.  The Lord said if you don't work you don't eat.

EL TATE:
Mom's upset about the discounted rate or that you're charging him at all? I would say you're on the right track and so is he, it would seem. No free rides, he's no longer a child/dependent, so he needs to contribute IMO. My middle sister just got busted drinking at work, lost the job my Dad got for her at the school dist. and is moving back in with him. She's got her issues, but has been coddled her whole life and at 34 still hasn't gotten her S. together. I say keep up with the approach you have got going there, and good luck to you sir.

stlaser:
$45 a week is cheap, I was paying $50 a week in 1996 to my grand parents in an old unheated unairconditioned upstairs of a farmhouse in NE IN. Those were cold winters & hot humid summers but I survived. My grandma did do my clothes washing & when I was there (seldom) the food was top notch. Like others said he's gotta start somewhere & nowhere is free.

fenriswolf039:
Good on you for taking him in, and more so for making him cough up some money to help out.

Here's what I'm up to:

My 19 year old daughter and I had a deal.  The deal goes like this:  You take the trash out each and every day before I get home and clear off the kitchen counter so I'm not having to sort through dishes and whatnot before I cook dinner.  Mind you, this deal does not include WASHING the actual dishes, just clear them into the sink or preferably the dish washing machine.  My end of this deal consists of making sure her car is in good mechanical order.

Well, she has never, not once EVER, held up her end of the deal.  So therefore she owed me $2000 for various car repairs.  She's been paying it off, little by little, and has it down to $1100.

Well, this last Saturday, totaled the car.  Following too close, going way too fast.  GPS tracking shows she never hit the brakes at all.  Both airbags deployed, front end packed in really hard, 100% at-fault.

She's been acting all indignant because I told her when the insurance check comes for the car, the repair money comes straight out of that, to be paid in full.  "It's not fair", she says. 

So I says to her, I says... "Tell that to American Express".  And I continually remind her, that she had the sweetest deal on earth, just take the trash out and clean up the dishes that she herself left all over the place, and all these car repairs would have been on the house!  Kids don't know how good they have it.

We all aspire to give our children better lives than what we had, but in the process we spoil the heck out of them... but the alternative is, what... they hate us until the become adult enough to appreciate how hard we made it on them?

It's a fine line.

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