20 year old sharing sublet apartment with stranger?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, we have a 20 year old daughter, Moon Unit, whose behavior to the family is not always as it should be. We took both kids (Dweezil, male, is 23) to a family reunion and then onward to Quebec (Hi, EmilyG!!) late June.

Moon Unit was not the best travelling companion. Nor was Dweezil, though there was really only one day where we were tempted to leave him behind when we got into the car, and we were even on the US side of the border at that point.

So we decided that we were not taking the kids on family trips any more unless it was a truly family event (e.g. a wedding we have to go to next year). No vacations. Nope. No way. By that age, my parents certainly didn’t take us on trips with them!

Then there’s the eclipse trip. A friend had rented a place down in SC and invited us to go. We told Moon Unit she wasn’t welcome and why (there’s some dynamics with her interactions with the friend, as well, and the friend is a bit fed up).

So she’s trying to figure a way to get to the eclipse path on her own. Plan #1 fell through (friend from Boston flying down to DC, the two of them taking a bus, and staying at an Air BnB together). That fell through. Now she’s talking about some apartment in Knoxville where the place is getting rented out for the eclipse, and she’ll be sharing it.

With a guy.

Now, realistically, the guy is unlikely to do her any harm, but you never know.

Am I being completely paranoid??? Should I let her go??? Should we back down on our own edict and say “if you can get to SC on your own, you can stay 2 nights”?

Any Dopers in TN have a spare room? (she may be tough to live with, for family but she’s delightful to other people).

2

Not a parent but I was once a 20 year old girl and also I am a family member…

If she’s old enough that you’re all “screw her, no more family trips, she’s not a kid she’s just an asshole adult” then she’s old enough to make this possible mistake.

Advise her up and down and up again on how to stay safe, and let her know she can always come to you if she is in trouble and you will help the best you can.

But “let her go”? Ship has sailed :frowning:

3

If your daughter is Moon Unit Zappa, isn’t she about 50 rather than 20?

4

Sounds like she’s found effective leverage to squeeze you with.

That sort of low probability danger is part of her no longer being your lil’ girl.

5

Reading the thread title, I assumed this was for a year or at least a semester, not for a weekend.

Reading the thread itself, I think I’m on Team Let Her Go. Sure, you’ll worry, which is appropriate because you are Mama. But if you change your mind and let her stay with you, this may not be the last time you have this issue. And she probably will behave badly with you around, because it sounds like that’s the dynamic you have at the moment-- and frankly, that doesn’t strike me as unusual with a 20 year old. Old enough to think she knows what she wants and should get her own way, not old enough to have enough real life experience to balance her out completely. But she’s over 18, and despite your best wishes to protect her, your time to make these kinds of decisions for her is running out.

6

An aside: Where do 20-somethings get off being sullen and unpleasant traveling companions? Isn’t that pre-teen behavior?

7

It’s preschool behavior, to my mind! A couple of the incidents were when it was late, she was tired, and she needed food - but she’s old enough that she could have recognized that and done something about it (and in all cases, we had munchies handy that she could have eaten). Her older brother got similarly sullen, though just the once…

She was pretty upset when we told her she wasn’t coming with us, but I think this whole thing is natural consequences and I think she recognizes that. I think she’s getting kind of into the whole trip planning thing.

I’m down a bit from my panic. A bit. Her current plans are:

  1. Catch a bus from here (DC) to Knoxville Sunday
  2. Catch a Lyft or something down to the small town in TN
  3. Share a house, or something, with a bunch of people (she has to bring an air mattress!). I assume she found this via AirBnB or something.
  4. Catch a ride back up to Knoxville that night, where she’s got an AirBnB accommodation reserved
  5. Catch a bus back to DC on Tuesday.

Weirdly, I feel better about her potentially being in a house full of people (as suggested by the air mattress need), though I will be counselling her to keep her purse on her at all times.

She’s rather blithe about the ride from Knoxville. 45-50 miles (I think) would cost a fortune even with Lyft, though she thinks she can get some kind of shared ride. I suggested she contact the people renting her floor space and ask if they can put her in touch with other visitors who might also be coming from Knoxville.

So of course we’re nervous. Compared with when Dweezil went to Europe, solo, last year, there are a lot of pluses: she’s not autistic, she speaks the language, and we’re a day drive away if something happens. On the other hand she’s a girl and you read news stories… we’ve already reminded her to not take a drink from anyone, for example.

8

No, you’re being normal overly-cautious Mom. Take a few deep breaths and realize that it’ll be ok.

She’s 20. Do you still have the ability to stop her? If so, you probably won’t for much longer. Better to ease into that than have a confrontation.

Probably not? Unless you want her to learn the lesson that she can call your bluff by just planning to do something you consider dangerous.

You know a bunch of us are men, right? :smiley:

9

The world is safer than it has ever been. She’s going to have to be able to navigate the world and its dangers on her own sooner or later. I have a sense you are well aware of this but your lizard brain is putting up heavy resistance.

Give her as much information and advice as she’ll take, but it sounds to me like this is an ideal “shove-her-out-of-the-nest-and-see-if-she’ll-fly” moment that can probably teach both of you something about yourselves and each other.

10

Young travelers nowadays have no qualms about mixed accommodations. Hostels have dorm rooms for anyone, but usually a small separate one for women who prefer women-only sleeping quarters.

I was on a 3-day ferry crossing last year on a Ukrainian ship, and in tht four cabin bunks were assigned to a 20-ish girl, and three men ranging from 30 to 75. Nobody paid any attention to genders, the girl seemed perfectly comfortable with the arrangements.

11

Update: she survived, unscathed.

She got herself to the bus (Union Station, DC) on time. She got a Lyft or something down to the small town where she’d reserved accommodations. The place she rented was an exhorbitant price - but it turned out she’d booked the whole house - hence the price. No furnishings, mind you… she had to lug an air mattress on the bus.

She walked 3ish miles to catch a shuttle to somewhere where a bunch of people were watching. Wound up chatting with an elderly couple who kindly offered her a ride back to the house to get her things… then wound up driving her to Knoxville… tremendously kind of them, especially as they were from Chattanooga. People can be wonderful sometimes.

So she got to the bus station the next morning. The highlight of that trip was that the bus was only a half hour or so late getting in to pick them up. It went downhill from there.

You see, there are limits on how many hours a driver may drive in a day - for good reasons. However, you’d expect the management to know this and schedule accordingly.

They did not.

They lost something like 4 hours, somewhere along I-81, just waiting for a replacement bus driver to come (he wound up being ferried by taxi from 90 miles away).

Then they got stuck in this mess.

They finally got to DC some time after 4 AM - so their 8 hour trip took 17 hours.

Now, Megabus couldn’t help the traffic mess - but they were nowhere NEAR that when the driver messup became an issue.

You know it’s bad when the replacement driver is encouraging the passengers to complain!!