I’m currently living at home because of a three week break from law school. Nothing has really changed since I lived at home full time except that I’ve grown more independent.
Sometimes my parents will order me to do something and I’ll have to calmly explain to them that I prefer it if they simply ask me to do it. I’ll usually say yes, but it’s a matter of being treating as a grownup.
As for chores, the way I see it is that it is that I should clean up the new mess that I bring with myself moving in. If my parents want extra help then it’s up to them to ask me. If I have to to clean after more than myself then I’ll end up doing more chores than I had to do at school. It’s not something that I’m jumping to do after a really stressing semester of law school. Yet I’d have no problem with it if I were asked to do a reasonable amount of extra work.
In a few years, you’ll have 3 such places, just as you would have a free and fairly responsibility free place with your own parents or in-laws if you lived far away from them.
Kids are just a bit oblivious in college. My mom would always get annoyed at me for not doing this or that around the house, but at that age I honestly didn’t notice dirty dishes in the sink or dust accumulating on the floor. I had to go off and live by myself in a “grown-up” apartment in order to become more savvy about what needs to be done around the house on a regular basis. When I moved back in with my parents for a few months after coming back to Korea, I was much better about being a contributing member of the household.
It’s funny, because now when I go home my mom chases me out of the kitchen most of the time. She lets me set the table but very rarely lets me wash up.
I’d say the OP’s kids should get a few days to unwind and be lazy, but after that they should be expected to act like responsible adult houseguests.
I’ve forgotten how to multiquote, so bear with me…
I’m not really clear on when they get to decompress, with parttime jobs, the inability to have more than 5 friends over (a rather arbitrary number), and with cleaning up “as they go” (something I’ve since come to love, but was never fond of in school). And I certainly don’t they shouldn’t take care of their possessions, which I’m not clear on what you meant.
And It DOES sound insanely petty, about the money issue (I knew it was beneath the surface). If you’re paying the full (or very close to full) cost of their college - which I know you are from previous threads - the cost of food isn’t even a blip on your radar. It’s terribly petty, and I hope you didn’t even vaguely mention that to your kids.
I get the sense that you feel since you put so much money towards them they “owe” you one - like you should be rewarded for raising them and giving them benefits others don’t have. This, from my experience, only breeds resentment. You shouldn’t have to push them towards more reponsibilities - as a result of growing up and “figuring it out” on their own - out from under your watch - they’ll do so. It seems like it’s hovering for you to judge their actions towards housework, like their reaction to it and to curfews is a judge of your own choices you’ve made with them. I hasten to say “they’ll come around” but they will, and I can’t imagine they’re walking away with a good picture of you in mind after your “chats” about clearing the table and such.
I know I’m in the minority, and lots of people disagree with me. But, like I said, in hindsight, they’ll thank you. In any case, it seems like the friction is gone, and it’s just minor points right now, so I don’t doubt they’ll come back for each winter break in full, unlike some friends I’ve seen.
Thanks for your opinions, lindsay. A couple of brief responses.
I earn a very comfortable income, but that doesn’t mean that I can cast a blind eye towards expenditures. We have always made college a priority, saved for it, and do not begrudge contributing as we do. And I know my kids acknowledge and appreciate it. But our circumstances are such that in order to contribute to college as we do and maintain our home as we wish, we have to be extremely tight with out budget in other respects. And I don’t know about you, but in our household budget, the food bill (which also includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc.) is one of the biggest areas in which we can economize. So when we double the weekly food bill - we notice it.
And when I’m cutting checks for $10K or more and seeing my net worth drop every year - as I knew it would - it makes me more aware of expenditures. I know my kids are not positioned to match or replace my financial contributions at the moment, so my expectation is that they contribute in a maner thatthey are able to - by working part-time jobs, by helping out around the house, by being pleasant housemates, and by nt doing things that decrease their fellow family members’ ability to enjoy the house.
In reality I think that I am far less money oriented than just about everyone else I know. It is just that at present, money is tighter than I would like. I know it will change in a few years.
I guess we must differ with respect to our impression on some basic elements of human nature. In my experience as a parent - at least of MY kids - throughout their lives they have needed to be “pushed” to assume more responsiblities. At just about every step along the way - going to middle school, high school, getting jobs, going to college, getting involved in activities - they have shown a tendency to not push themselves to the next level, and not voluntarily take on more responsibilities. Maybe it is my fault for making things too comfortable on them.
But I do not think it is just my kids. My wife and I strongly feel that kids and young adults these days have way too much handed to them, and have too little personal responsibility. I do not want my kids to be 3 more of the MANY young adults I encounter all of the time who have no idea of financial responsibility, no plan for the future, no work habits …
Many folk undoubtedly disagree with me, but I feel that a significant problem with today’s youth results from parents who are not aware enough of what the kids are doing, and who do not sufficiently “push” them to mature and assume responsibility. Far too much parental encouragement comes in the area of sports or other discrete activities, rather than to develop into well-rounded, responsible, independent, and contributing members of society. I strongly disagree with what appears to be the prevalent attitude that kids will come around if simply left to their own devices. Even if most kids might eventually come around, I am not willing to put myself, my family,and others who come into contact with us through the unnecessary hassle of the kids making avoidable mistakes at their own and others’ expense.
However my kids think about me after our “chats”, I think a part of it will be a realization - and I hope appreciation - that their dad was willing to be entirely open and honest in communicating with them, even if it involved saying and hearing things one or the other might have preferred not to have heard or said.
If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you and do you have kids? If so, how many and how old? Thanks.
Fairly recent college graduate and oft-visitor to my mother’s house here.
It doesn’t sound like they’re being dicks, just that they’re unsure about expectations. They’re your children. They’re living with you - individual lease apartments and frat houses are not permanent residences, and even the eldest is “moving in with her boyfriend”, not “getting married next week”.
Did you make them do the dishes when they were in high school? No reason they shouldn’t be doing them now. Did you/your wife do their laundry in high school? By now they should have learned.
As far as cleaning up after dinner goes, it shouldn’t be too difficult. I presume you and your wife generally clean up together after dinner when your kids aren’t home, and when you’re finished, you go off and do whatever it is you do. Just tell the kids that everyone has to help clean up after a meal, and once all the cleaning and tidying is done they can all go off and do whatever it is they do. They won’t mind; it’s not like a year of living in a frat house makes you allergic to dishwashing (though the sight of a sink that doesn’t look like a haven for cholera might be a bit unfamiliar).
Congratulations, your kids are normal. All kids are like that and there’s nothing wrong with it because they do grow up as they become adults. All of your kids are in the majority now, but they’re still not full-fledged adults because they go to college on your dime and live in dorms or apartments that are likely pretty shitty.
Once they’ve actually gone out into the real world, they’ll realize they did to be adults without your pushing, but as it is, I agree with lindsaybluth, you sound awful petty.
Sure I did, you sound just like how my mom was when I graduated. But because mama didn’t raise no fool, I turned out alright and have become a pretty decent adult if I do say so myself.
Your kids will turn out the same, just quite nagging them.
Sorry, I thought you knew from earlier that I’d just graduated. I’m speaking from a position of seeing well-off parents (as in, parents who paid for college almost entirely) ruin their relationships with their kids by “pushing” them - as you described - and I wanted to provide my perspective. Because they provide their kids financial support, they expect that the kids meet their own expectations, rather than figure out how to become adults on their own. My friends have responded by cutting short their visits home, preferring to spend time in their dumpy apartments rather than deal with the helicopter parenting. I don’t want you to grow apart from them like this.
I entirely agree with you that some kids have to be pushed - my brother who just started college and I are WORLDS apart, and he has to have his hand held the whole way (did you register for classes? change your contacts?). But in able-bodied kids, who are just trying to make it work (which sounds like your kids, to me, with the good grades and extracurriculars, parttime jobs etc), parents lecturing them -which masquerades as “discussions” where the parent says “you’re doing it wrong, you must change” - only breeds resentment.
In regards to the groceries, I thought you strictly meant food. If you’re picking up the tab for their contact solution, shampoo, and car maintenance, that can quickly add up.
As far as being a spoiled generation, I agree. I don’t understand people of my own age; my SO is always told he was “born 40”, and a portion of my good friends are in their 30’s. But I do NOT think your kids fall into this category, and you worrying they might may factor into how you treat them (from my perspective, unfairly).
On a tangent, the only friends my age (graduated from 06-09) who have “real jobs” - with benefits and a solid health plan - are the engineers and the nurses. We’re talking a range of fields, from the liberal arts like sociology and psychology, to teachers and the soft sciences, like political science, up to the hard science majors (biology, chem, etc). Everyone but the engineers/nurses are either a) in limbo, working on cruise ships, waiting tables, TFA b) in grad school or c) working temp jobs at real companies that aren’t even entry level. These people graduated at or near the top of their major’s classes from a top 50 school, so I honestly have no idea what the future of the economy looks like if smart and diligent people can’t find those 9-5 jobs with benefits of yore.
I hear you - I really can’t imagine how tough it would be to be graduating right now, and I don’t see any reason to believe things are going to drastically change for the better in the near future.
And if things are tough for you and your college-grad friends, think about how it must be for kids who didn’t go to college, or who got a 2-year associate’s from a community college.
Yet one more of the long list of things that were VASTLY better for my generation for my kids…
Maybe a good part of the reason I am so tough on my kids. I fear it may not be enough for them to just graduate from decent schools, but also to get good grades, honors, obtain internships, cultivate recommendations, participate in extracurriculars …
GOD KNOWS I don’t want them to graduate only to show up on my doorstep!
I will say that one thing I agree with is how some posters have noted that what you are ultimately getting out of treating your kids somewhat generously (unless they are userish jerks) is a free place to crash long-term. Provided your kids move somewhere away from you that is actually fairly nice to visit-that’s not such a bad gig. My sister and I would never think of making my parents stay in a hotel-over the past several years my mom and dad have taken extended vacations in Montreal, Chicago, DC, Los Angeles and London at very little cost because they crashed with me or my sibling.
In addition to balancing giving them slack while maintaining your needs as a parent, it may actually be worth it trying to convince them to move away somewhere you want to go on vacation. Don’t you enjoy the Pacific Northwest? Now is the time to start prosletyzing. Heh.
Just wanted to give an update. Things have been great since we had our family talk a week or so ago. Pretty much every meal the kids have provided some assistance in the meal prep/cleaning without being asked. Really is surprising how much of a change my wife and I feel it. And it is fun to overhear the kids talking and joking as they do dishes together or whatever. I’m almost thinking I’m going to miss when my little slavies go back to school … (NOT!)
I told them the other day how much I appreciated it, and my youngest said that it really involved very little effort and that she was happy to do it, but that she basically had not even noticed it as something that needed to be done before. (Hint to any of you younger folk out there - try to notice some little things you can do. It is likely that your folks’ appreciatioon will far outweigh the effort required.
Sometimes I think our family tends to talk too much over minutiae, but more often than not our open discussions seem to bear fruit.
Also on the homefront, over the weekend I hit upon a surefire way to get ready agreement from your kids to do all manner of household chores - ask the kids to do them while you are on your hands and knees scrubbing out toilets!
