Young adult children living at home- any rules?

When our sons were teenagers and started going out with their friends, we would get up in the morning and find a houseful of boys, laying on the settee, in the bedrooms or even on the floor, using the cushions and throws as covers. I always made them a cooked breakfast and because our sons knew their friends were welcome, we never had a minutes problem. I started leaving out duvets and bedding for their friends and now nearly 40 years later, they still pop in to see me when they are working in the area.

We charged our sons board when they started working and put it into a savings account for them (they didn't know about this) then when they were 21, we gave them the money plus extra for their birthday. They didn't want to go to university but get a job straight from school when they were 16 and have now worked to the top of the ladder in their careers. I am so proud of them and I know their late dad would be too.

1) Charge them for their keep, not necessarily what it costs, but enough for them to understand that living costs money.
2) expect them to do their own laundry. If their best outfit hasn't been washed in time for the next party. WEll that is their problem and they will soon learn.
3) expect them to clean their own bedrooms.
4) If they do not want the family meals at the family time, leave them to sort their own meals out

In doing this you are preparing them to be able to look after themselves when they do leave home and they have, perhaps, to live with other people.

It is unkind to loose 25+ children on the outside world with none of the necessary living skills.

Just love them. The days they are with you are surely galloping by and life is so short.
If they have been respectful so far then they will continue to be so.
We’ve had three, they’ve paid the board asked of them left and returned to save for their own deposits for mortgages. Ups and downs but on the whole nothing much really changes overnight.

I agree MOnica.
But what happens if they don’t respect the home and rules, dogsmother? Loving them is not enough.

NB My interest is in my grandchildren and their parents. I have nobody living with me, so am not directly involved.

I found it quite difficult to get the balance tight. Both my children left home to go to University and both came home. My daughter had a good well paid job but my son didn’t. The “rent” they paid was a % of take home pay. But in reality this was a token amount, my daughter was saving every spare penny for a deposit on a house with her boyfriend. My son is hopeless with money and was always broke.
He eventually went to work on the cruise ships and was gone for 3 years. Then after sometime the rent money was given back to them as a contribution to daughters wedding and son towards deposit for a flat.
They were both supposed to contribute to household chores, keep room clean but rarely did, I remember say “you use this house like a hotel” on many occasions.

Well if they’ve been getting along okay so far they should be excited to start earning and expecting to start to contribute.
If they are not pulling their weight perhaps the suggestion that domestic help will be required from outside and this will mean a further contribution to board and lodgings.
Respect is tough as there should really be sufficient in place at this age, boundaries should have been pushed and tested.

Cabbie21

I agree MOnica.
But what happens if they don’t respect the home and rules, dogsmother? Loving them is not enough.

NB My interest is in my grandchildren and their parents. I have nobody living with me, so am not directly involved.

When our son didn't respect house rules, we told him that we were prepared to discuss whether all the rules were reasonable and necessary.

We revised the list and the next time there was a problem, we said that either he stuck to our agreement, or he found somewhere else to live.

We could understand that he could find our attitudes old-fashioned and unreasonable, but we expected him to understand that we could find his lifestyle strange and incompatible with ours at times, and as we lived in a block of flats the neighbours had to be considered too - no loud music etc.

If you cannot work together by discussing things and finding compromises, then you just have to tell your adult children to start looking for somewhere else to live.

We didn't have this situation ourselves because all 4 left home for uni and never came home to live for any length of time. I am rather envious (occasionally) when generations of the same family live near eachother.

I knew mine were capable of looking after themselves and never had a moment's doubt.

Now that their DC are approaching adulthood, I worry a little because their parents have mollycoddled them more than we did. They get ferried everywhere in cars, their clothes are washed, their food cooked.
In DS1 case, I have never seen them offer to wash up.
We were neglectful parents but it worked.

I presently have a cousin staying who's the mother of 18yr old twins who are about to start uni.
She's been telling me about her day.
She works full time, does all the cooking and cleaning, has an elderly husband who is non domestic and no longer drives so she has to ferry the DS everywhere. They never use public transport and phone her several times a day to ask her where to find things or how to do something simple.
She smiles and seems to love that they are so dependent on her.
It makes me want to scream at her that she is not helping them to be independent.
This is true and not a cautionary tale.

BigMamma

When our sons were teenagers and started going out with their friends, we would get up in the morning and find a houseful of boys, laying on the settee, in the bedrooms or even on the floor, using the cushions and throws as covers. I always made them a cooked breakfast and because our sons knew their friends were welcome, we never had a minutes problem. I started leaving out duvets and bedding for their friends and now nearly 40 years later, they still pop in to see me when they are working in the area.

We charged our sons board when they started working and put it into a savings account for them (they didn't know about this) then when they were 21, we gave them the money plus extra for their birthday. They didn't want to go to university but get a job straight from school when they were 16 and have now worked to the top of the ladder in their careers. I am so proud of them and I know their late dad would be too.

Oh you're lucky Big Mama, we were woken up around 2 am on a few occasions to the smell of bacon cooking when one of our boys and mates decided to have a very early breakfast courtesy of us, munchies!, we found out the causes

Later on when we came downstairs, looking in the fruit bowl and found "Mr Red" written on apples in felt tip, "Mr Yellow" on the bananas and "Mr Orange" on the oranges. I wouldn't mind but they were probably around 18 at that time Never mind they did eventually grow out of the puerile stage, we still see a couple of them from time to time, they're responsible adults now, I did ask one of them who has a boy on the cusp of teen years, if he will enjoy being woken up to the smell of bacon being cooked "well no, son is a vegetarian and anyway I wouldn't put up with it" Yeah right wise words, just wait a lot of changes between 11 and 18.

So glad those days are behind me.

I would establish clear boundaries. My adult son returned home two years ago for complex reasons.

His room is his own space, I only go in there occasionally.

Luckily we have two bathrooms, so one is his mostly. I give it a clean now and again but mostly he keeps it reasonably clean.

I don't wash his clothes, although sometimes I do to make up the load. I only do this with clothes he has in his own washbasket.

I do iron his clothes because I'm ironing my own, and don't mind.

He does contribute to the running costs of the house.
He sometimes buys food, cooks and washes up.

We eat together most evening which I think is very important. He sometimes takes food to his room but knows he is responsible for the dirty plates.

He sometimes vacuums and he helps out with other household tasks and does the gardening.

We keep it low key and I don't nag. If he has disrespected my boundaries I will point it out but don't make a big thing of it.

I don't know if this will help but I think if you make too many rules you will get frustrated when they are broken.

I do get annoyed with certain things but have learned to accept no one is perfect and I want to limit the stress in my life!

What about having boy/ girlfriend staying over? Do parents let them sleep together or not?
What about when parents are away? What happens then?
Or adult child stays away overnight without keeping in touch?

( So glad I am not the parent here!)

I have 3 at home atm at that age range. Food costs are astronomical. I allow them to have overnight guests as long as I'm not disturbed
Only one drives but gives lifts to the others if needed
We need a bigger house really. I feel for families where they have a much smaller house which can be quite usual here as the costs are so high

it isn't unusual for multi generational living here and that now includes white British people which i think in previous generations has always been less common

I've never really had a problem with either of my sons not respecting the house rules. I was always upfront, discussed with them what we all thought was reasonable rather than me laying down the law. As for G/F staying over the rule has always been no problem as long as they were together rather than one night stands. Also I never wanted to bump into anyone on the landing unless they were respectably covered up.
I have no problem doing their washing as long as it's sorted but there's no way on earth I'm doing anyone's ironing. Rent gets paid on time no excuses, they wouldn't accept getting their wages late would they? If everything is discussed upfront how can there be misunderstandings.

TerriBull

BigMamma

When our sons were teenagers and started going out with their friends, we would get up in the morning and find a houseful of boys, laying on the settee, in the bedrooms or even on the floor, using the cushions and throws as covers. I always made them a cooked breakfast and because our sons knew their friends were welcome, we never had a minutes problem. I started leaving out duvets and bedding for their friends and now nearly 40 years later, they still pop in to see me when they are working in the area.

We charged our sons board when they started working and put it into a savings account for them (they didn't know about this) then when they were 21, we gave them the money plus extra for their birthday. They didn't want to go to university but get a job straight from school when they were 16 and have now worked to the top of the ladder in their careers. I am so proud of them and I know their late dad would be too.

Oh you're lucky Big Mama, we were woken up around 2 am on a few occasions to the smell of bacon cooking when one of our boys and mates decided to have a very early breakfast courtesy of us, munchies!, we found out the causes

Later on when we came downstairs, looking in the fruit bowl and found "Mr Red" written on apples in felt tip, "Mr Yellow" on the bananas and "Mr Orange" on the oranges. I wouldn't mind but they were probably around 18 at that time Never mind they did eventually grow out of the puerile stage, we still see a couple of them from time to time, they're responsible adults now, I did ask one of them who has a boy on the cusp of teen years, if he will enjoy being woken up to the smell of bacon being cooked "well no, son is a vegetarian and anyway I wouldn't put up with it" Yeah right wise words, just wait a lot of changes between 11 and 18.

So glad those days are behind me.

Our sons and their friends sometimes came home with pizzas and burgers. To be honest, we never minded. We always let them bring friends home as we would rather know where they were and sometimes we would get a call at 11 pm asking if we could pick them all up from town as they had missed the last bus. (We never got taxis in those days, it was the bus or walking.)

Even to this day our sons talk about their dad going out to pick them up in town and say how grateful they were as their friends parents would not let their friends stay over at their own houses. It was always open house at our home and our sons never let us down.

Once they’d graduated and were earning reasonable money, we charged dds roughly half of what they’d have had to pay for a flatshare locally - rent only, no bills. We had no ‘rules’ as such - we just expected considerate behaviour, and it always was.

We didn’t actually save the money for them, but when they eventually wanted to buy their own homes, we did give fairly substantial help.

My rules on overnights were the same for friends or lovers: only people I’d met before. I had no desire to encounter strangers on a nighttime loo dash, or at breakfast!

Mine had chores and responsibilities from when they were young, and once they were adults and working, I considered they should be, in practical terms, doing as much as me, since I also worked full-time.

They contributed towards the household costs (proportionately less than me, they had no equity in my house), were expected to share routine housework, cooking, and gardening (until one of them dug up all my precious white violets), They weren’t permitted to smoke or do drugs in the house, and they were expected to be polite to me no matter how fed up they were with me.

I did not, obviously, have curfews or restrictions on how they spent time away from the house, how they dressed, had their hair cut, or spent their money (I tried to encourage some saving, semi-successfully) because they were adults, and anyway young people should do somewhat daft or outrageous things now and then. .

My AC have both returned home after uni , for a while until they could earn enough to rent . And in the past 10 years they’ve both returned at some point . Normally when they’re between rentals . We had boundaries from the start . The communal areas had to be kept clean and tidy . Especially the kitchen and bathrooms. I didn’t go into their bedrooms but they had to bring used plates and mugs downstairs and not leave food in their rooms .
They paid some rent and did their own washing . Both are good cooks and if we were all home they’d cook for us .
Another rule was to be quiet if they came home late and we were in bed .

I don't think I would be happy about my son bringing someone home to share his room, unless he bought me very good noise cancelling earplugs!

BigMamma

When our sons were teenagers and started going out with their friends, we would get up in the morning and find a houseful of boys, laying on the settee, in the bedrooms or even on the floor, using the cushions and throws as covers. I always made them a cooked breakfast and because our sons knew their friends were welcome, we never had a minutes problem. I started leaving out duvets and bedding for their friends and now nearly 40 years later, they still pop in to see me when they are working in the area.

We charged our sons board when they started working and put it into a savings account for them (they didn't know about this) then when they were 21, we gave them the money plus extra for their birthday. They didn't want to go to university but get a job straight from school when they were 16 and have now worked to the top of the ladder in their careers. I am so proud of them and I know their late dad would be too.

I could have written this!

We always knew who their friends were, and their whereabouts.

It was worth all the bacon ,bread, paracetamol, petrol and counselling.

Our daughters moved home after graduation, before marriage. Only short times, whilst wedding planning or purchasing their homes.

We'd no particular rules, they kept up their room and laundry. Helped keep things tidy, cooked a bit - it was lovely spending time with them as young adults not busy with school.

Sago

BigMamma

When our sons were teenagers and started going out with their friends, we would get up in the morning and find a houseful of boys, laying on the settee, in the bedrooms or even on the floor, using the cushions and throws as covers. I always made them a cooked breakfast and because our sons knew their friends were welcome, we never had a minutes problem. I started leaving out duvets and bedding for their friends and now nearly 40 years later, they still pop in to see me when they are working in the area.

We charged our sons board when they started working and put it into a savings account for them (they didn't know about this) then when they were 21, we gave them the money plus extra for their birthday. They didn't want to go to university but get a job straight from school when they were 16 and have now worked to the top of the ladder in their careers. I am so proud of them and I know their late dad would be too.

I could have written this!

We always knew who their friends were, and their whereabouts.

It was worth all the bacon ,bread, paracetamol, petrol and counselling.

Because we had an open house for their friends they sometimes would not go out but all stay in and watch films, eating us out of house and home.

We knew who their friends were and where they were and when they went out and missed the last bus they knew they could call us and their dad would drive out and pick them all up and bring them all back to our house. I often felt as if I had 6 sons instead of two.

Luckily we had a large house and we had what we called a best room that we never used so the boys always had a room to themselves to watch TV (this was before technology) but we did have a Sinclair spectrum computer which they played games on. We were in the back lounge come dining room.

Even to this day, our sons are still in touch with the same friends now they are in their early 50's and on more than one occasion our eldest son who lives quite a long way away from me comes to where I live and meets up with them all and a couple of them stay over with our son so I have three of them to make breakfast for in the morning.

All of them are over 6 ft tall and one is a body builder and built like a brick sh## house. It is so funny, they set foot over my doorstep and they are teenagers again, they are so funny.

I loved those open house days, we never knew who we would have for meals. We never had any trouble at all, they were respectful and lovely youths. Now our children are all parents themselves and 2 of them are actually grandparents. We are blessed and I appreciate every living moment though now they have their own lives so we don’t see nearly enough of some of them .

Thanks for all the replies.
Does anyone have any more recent experience that their grownup children are going through with their older teenagers or young adults?

I have an almost 17 year old.
My rules are - no slamming of doors.
Girlfriend may stay round in his bed, with him on the sofa only.
He keeps his room clean and tidy, and changes bedding.
I don't cook after about 8pm.
He will go to the shop for me, and make drinks, toast, etc.
He irons, but I usually end up doing it properly afterwards.

He doesn't pay any keep yet, because he'll be starting college, and he does a few days of work but its very patchy.