Young adult children living at home- any rules?

Oh, in terms of what I've been through with him, it's nothing I would care to share here!

Happy to pm though.

Mine weren't at home for long after they finished college/university but they did all pay keep.

I did make rules but generally I think they thought rules were made to be broken.

Some are now getting their comeuppance with their own teenage children although I think they are stricter than I was.

Cabbie21 The thread has tangented off a little but lots of things are the same as when your own children were younger.

I notice you say this doesn't affect you personally so what is it that is really worrying you?

My instinct is to say support your own child/children in playing host to their older children and not the grandchildren.

I get a sense something concerns you about this.

If you want direct experience then try mumsnet?

My experience isn't recent Cabbie but thanks for the thread. Looking back through rose coloured specs is delightful.
Flexiblefriend seems to be pretty organised.
We were never thus.
If the girlfriends were in their rooms for too long I would shout their names (DS not girlfriends) until they appeared. Later on with steady girlfriends I would leave them alone.

One of our DS and DDiL are currently building an annex in their garden for extra housing. I thought it was to be a home office but they hope it will double up as a teenage/ young adult sleep out.

As for charging rent: We never did but it probably makes sense to help them budget.

I still have an account notebook from when I first left home. It has a neat list of what my grant money was spent on.

We have (the joy) of three of our own and our older daughters fiancée (female) living here. She’s a chef so she cooks for us all at least twice a week, as her shifts allow. Age ranges 22-27.

Our “rules” are to let us know if they are not coming home all night, to keep ALL their stuff in their own bedrooms, to do their own laundry, clear up the kitchen after they’ve used it and to keep their music etc to an acceptable level.

They all pay a “contribution” to household expenses (between £200-£300 per month) which I do use, not save for them, as four extra adults does add somewhat to bills. We pay for all foodstuff and basic bathroom things, anything “extra” or “luxury” they find themselves.

Looking forward to when they’ve saved enough for their home deposits (daughters wish to buy, son to rent)

It’s lovely having them here in some respects, but bloody awful in others 😂😂😂

The only problem I had with dd1 at home after she graduated, was that she habitually forgot to take a house key, so we’d so often get a late call asking us to leave a key under the mat (she was out a lot.) Which we never liked to do because of the burglary risk - not exactly low around here.

She eventually had to learn the hard way. Came home once unexpectedly mid afternoon, expecting me to be in, since I was WFH - only I wasn’t! And she was desperate for the loo! 😱

Cabbie21

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?

You’d get a lot more up-to-date experiences if you asked on Mumsnet’s Parents of Adult Children’s board
www.mumsnet.com/talk/parents_of_adult_children

Sounds like a lot of 'young people' taking advantage; no wonder so many are immature and demand so much help.

We have our grand daughter and her partner living with us - and I love it. They've found work, buy their own food and do their own thing though we meet up together when the days aren't so busy. We're lucky to have a good size house so they have their own bedroom and bathroom - though they need reminding to keep it clean from time to time! The funny thing is both their parents live in walking distance and also pop round so they keep in touch with them too. It's doing me the world of good I have to say - and DH too.

I agree eazybee. We always had boundaries- based on common courtesy.
These weren't a written on a tablet of stone and I can remember at least one occasion getting cross with worry when one of them failed to appear at night.
They argued that they were now grownups and didn't have to tell us their movements until I pointed out we would expect that anyone sharing should let their host know when to expect them home.

Mine were 'yo-yos'. One at University well away from home and the other working seasons abroad. I did a good deal of 'taxi 'work between home and airports or stations. I never considered charging them for the short periods when they were at home, was just very glad that they still knew it as home. However, now that they are middle-aged, responsible home-owners with partners and their own 'young adult' children, they can't do enough for me. DS1, who lives close to my retirement complex, drops in most days and DS2 who lives an hour away, is liable to pop up unexpectedly on my doorstep often with small gifts!

I'm guessing you and your hubbie have had a chat about it , I think it should be , what you feel comfortable with as parents. It's your home , after all. My girls are 30 now, they could have friends in our back room . Whilst we were in the living room, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable, with them taking guys upstairs.

something people haven't mentioned is the renewed worry. When they live away I don't really worry. I'll send them a text here and there but I trust them to keep themselves safe. When they are home though I worry if they haven't come back. For instance a road was closed here last week after an awful accident and I texted one of mine to see if they were ok I wouldn't even think about it if they were not sharing a roof

Other annoying things, them ordering deliveries or internet shopping/clothes and having them delivered first thing on a Saturday morning and not getting out of bed themselves to get them

I brought up two boys who stayed with me well into their late 20's....at one point I thought they'd never go!

They both paid rent/keep and had done since starting work and again from 12/13 had the responsibility of keeping their own rooms clean and tidy (or as much as possible for teenage boys), they also helped with general chores around the house so if I cooked,they would clean etc.
As they developed into young adults, not much changed really...i always asked them to let me know if they were coming home late, friends were allowed... they'd go off to rooms and if one or two stayed over I'd be asked if that was ok.
For me it's having and maintaining a good relationship consistently and having respect for each other.

My children always knew their friends were welcome to stay over. Like another poster some still pop in for some home baking and a blather. When they started work we took a token amount towards the bills, but always gave it back to them at birthdays and Christmas. My eldest DS has just bought a flat near us and he’s the last to leave so we’re helping with the cost to furnish his new home. We did the same when the others left home. We used to joke with my DD that her keep money was on an elastic because come the last week of the month she’d ask for a loan of her keep. I’ve told them all no matter what the future brings there will always be room in this inn for them.

My DD lived independently for over 10 years after university but in 2022 got a new job in London and I suggested she moved home and commuted so she could save to buy her own place. I didn't charge rent but we split the bills equally and settled up monthly. She lived with me for 19 months during which time she broke her ankle and I had to become her carer for a few months and her chauffeur taking her to work when she couldn't work from home. She was just on the point of looking for a home to buy when the cost of living crisis hit so she thought she should save a little more. Then she was made redundant!
Finally she was headhunted for a job in Dubai. She is working there currently having left most of her belongings filling my garage and spare rooms. I want to downsize but am finding it difficult knowing what to do with all her stuff!
While she was with me we got on pretty well considering all the upheaval and trauma of the broken ankle but I'm struggling how to deal with all her belongings. She's planning a visit soon so I may have to lay down some new ground rules and maybe get her to get rid of some of the stuff she'll probably never want to take with her when she eventually returns to the UK and gets her own place. At least I know she was grateful since after the broken ankle incident she wrote an amazing tribute to me on facebook!

Cateq I agree and once DD and family almost came to live here but in the end they didn't need the safety net.

for me, reading these messages I think the parents are doing much more than I would be prepared to do. There is a difference between when they first go to work or to university and to them wanting to come back after they have had their own places and been responsible for their ways of living and cost. When my son did have a time after living in his own place that he wanted to come back to live with us for good reasons I wont go into , I thought about it for a while and then we had a proper meeting all together to discuss how and if it would work this time compared to the past when he was a grown up child but had not lived away from us. So naturally we all adapt to our needs but once he had left home completely, of course we made our own different plans and we all were fine. So it had to be very different from this and it was agreed that he could come back but would be responsible for all his own things as he had been in his previous flat. So ihe paid a fair contribution to utilities - we could show what we spent before he was there and what difference there was in the bills when he was back with us. He was responsible for whatever he did, food, washing , and it was no longer my role to remind him to wash things he might need in the next couple of days etc. We are very anti smoking so , it was no smoking for him and his friends either in the house or in our garden. If he forgot to buy a particular food and I had some available I was happy to let him have it but expected him to pay for it. By keeping to this rather strictly for the first month, (and it was quite hard to stop myself from offering to make the food, or do things for him etc) we very much stuck to the plans we had made. At times he could come in looking very tired and I might say I am putting the kettle on , do you want a drink, but that was all . The other thing was that he came in quietly if it was after 11pm etc. Making these rules meant that we all got on fine, and I also had to make sure that I did not start asking where and what he was doing etc so there is a 2 way response. But , by having these things worked out and set out at the beginning we got on well, and could have carried on doing this for some time. If you go back to treating them in a child like way, then they will behave in a child like way in return and lose their adult sense of worth. When he left to go to his own place, we had had no upsets or rows and it was clearly understood by us all that if it was necessary we could repeat this experiment. I would hate to have a very loose arrangement and then get annoyed or upset about the way it had gone. Being strict at the beginnning allows you to ease off if you want but it wont work the other way round.We should be proud that our children have made their own way in the world and to return to looking after them like a child is doing them no good at all -and definitely will not be pleasing to any new partners etc!

jocork,
if your DD is working in Dubai then presumably she is earning a good salary.
if i were you i'd ask her what arrangements she will be making for storage of her property, as it will need to be sorted, paid for, and transported during one of her visits.
there are many storage companies.
it's not really your issue, it's her responsibility to deal with.

Our dd left for university when she was home she worked two jobs. We didn’t take money off her she was saving for a car she contributed towards our shopping and meals out etc.

Our son stayed at home and studied here he was working full time. We didn’t take money off him as he always contributed towards shopping bills and my petrol expenses he was saving for his first house.

Both of them started courting and after saving up with their partners bought houses and married. Neither of them gave us issues about staying out all night drinking or clubbing . They both don’t drink so that lifestyle wasn’t their scene or their partners.

Thank you BigMamma for your comments at the beginning of this post. It really gave me happy memories.
Like some of the others, I could almost have written this post, We had the sleeping bag, sofa and air bed sleepers regularly at the weekends, , it was a real pleasure.
I used to come down stairs in the morning and count the number of shoes lined up by the door to see how many there would be for breakfast. It was always boys and they had taken a taxi from town to our house as it was the nearest and they mostly lived further into the countryside.
They were well mannered, polite and considerate and never any trouble.
I missed them all terribly when they went off to Uni, but still see them out and about when they are home.

There is a very similar thread on MN just now. Whilst I fully understand that many of us post on both, when it’s an OP posting on both at the same time with the same issue I do wonder if we are somehow being tested against those who are assumed to be younger and supposedly more ‘in touch’, but never mind.

I have never charged my children a penny in rent. I’m lucky enough to have been able to afford to cover their expenses in with ours, so that’s not a criticism of anyone who has, for what that’s worth, and maybe if I had it would have been easier to lay down rules.

I have made it clear that this will always be their home if and when they want it, and it always will be. Both of them have had short spells as ‘lodgers’ after leaving at 18 for university, and yes, of course that has been tricky at times. Young adults have different needs from teenagers - we are no longer bringing them up and to a certain extent they are cuckoos in our nest.

What I found annoying was that they had got used to coming and going without saying so, so I didn’t know who was in and who wasn’t. In the unlikely event that I opened my doors to young adults again this would be a dealbreaker, even if it came down to an expectation that they would ‘text when they knew what was happening’.

Another would be a hardline ‘don’t eat leftovers’ rule, as would ‘ask before using items that your mother may have bought as ingredients for one of her complicated dishes, whether that makes sense to you or not’.

I’d talk about washing machine and dishwasher regulations, as they have changed since this was a family house, but the main thing would be that I’d hope we could all bring things up for discussion before they became ‘issues’.

As we are all human, I don’t know if any of the above would be achievable though 😂

My children left fir uni and came back for shirt periods terms of letting their boyfriends and girlfriends sleep over once they were over 18, I think you have to be realistic as to whether they are already in a sexual relationship. I allowed their proper girlfriend and boyfriend to stay ( whom they eventually set up home with) but made it clear that strangers were not allowed to stay overnight in my house.

No smoking was allowed in the house, and frowned upon in the garden.

I did not charge rent or board as they were saving for their own place and regarded this as my contribution to that goal, but made it clear what rent I had in mind if their needed to stay beyond 6 months. the kitchen was shared and they usually cooked their own meals during the week which they bought . They were asked to wash up and leave the kitchen as they found it, and put stuff back in cupboards and fridge after use. They had use of another bathroom as we had two separate bathrooms, which they were asked to clean occasionally. Their shower did get a bit more grubby then I'd like but I gave it a good clean when they left.

The OP doesn't seem to have come back so perhaps they have the answer now.

Our adult sons didn’t go to University and lived at home till their mid to late 20s.
We did ask them to contribute money to the household bills as soon as they started work at 16/18 - we had an open door to them bringing back friends and girlfriends to the house and this never caused any problems..
My younger son did take to making his own meals but apart from keeping their rooms clean and tidy and cleaning up after themselves they didn’t do other housework unless we were away ourselves. We often picked them up when they went for nights out.
I can reassure those of you who are concerned that neither of my sons had any difficulties in adjusting to the responsibilities of running their own homes and bringing up children once they left home.