# Coworker asks if her teenaged son can live with you. What do you tell her? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 19, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424 "2016-11-19T15:10:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/41 "2016-11-19T18:48:46Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > … just keep repeating “It’s just not possible.” I think I read that in a Miss Manners column years ago … Miss Manners was on target here (as she often is). Don’t offer explanations or specific reasons - just keep repeating a flat denial: “No way.” “I simply couldn’t do it.” “Not possible.” “No chance this would work.” I don’t guess there’s any effective way for the OP to make the point, but the obvious advice to the mother would be “Hand the problem to your son: He’s the one who got himself evicted. Over the course of human history multiple billions of 19-year-olds have been able to find themselves lodging - there’s a high chance he can too.” ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/42 "2016-11-19T18:56:23Z")
No, just no. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/43 "2016-11-19T18:57:30Z")
> [@astro](#): > > The desperate mother is doing exactly what I would expect a lower middle class desperate mother who has few other options to do, especially if she’s trying to find a place for her kid to sleep for few days on a few hours notice and does not have the resources for an apartment or hotel. You can always say “no” and that’s what the OP quite properly and politely did, but acting as if this is akin to an incontinent T-Rex barging into the room in terms of being an unusual or ridiculously demanding social faux pas is absurd. > > It’s obvious a lot of dopers do not have any real connection or understanding of what it’s like to truly live at the margins. I disagree. This is not a poverty issue. If a co-worker said _“My apartment burned down last night and I can’t afford a hotel room. Can I stay at your place for a few days until I get my next paycheck?”_ I would consider it. But _“My son is a problem and his father and I can’t handle it. Can I turn him over to you?”_ is a completely different situation. This isn’t something that just happened yesterday. This is an ongoing lack of responsibility by both parents. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/44 "2016-11-19T18:57:56Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Your measured response to her was fine but recognize that older kids needing a couch for few days on an emergency basis is not at all that unusual in the general run of things and parents (especially moms) with no other resources will reach out those they trust. It’s an emergency, their kid is homeless, they are desperate. It’s easy to judge them until you are in a situation where you have to rely on the kindness of strangers. It is unusual for a mother who makes as much money as this one does. She’s currently living with her ex-sister-in-law and her family–which is probably why there isn’t a couch available at her home. She lives with these people not because she can’t afford rent for place (she makes over $60K), but because she doesn’t want to live alone. She’s convinced that she can’t hack living by herself. Before this place, she lived with the elderly secretary who used to work in our office. Then she died. She could have continued living in that apartment. But no. She had to find people willing to take her in. So off the bat, the two of us have a major divide between us. She’s a needy person. I’m the opposite of that. > [@](#): > > Objectively would it have been a good decision for a privacy loving, single woman to have a 18 year old male she does not know crashing on her couch? Probably not. But don’t be so judgey about the request itself until you are a helpless and desperate situation yourself. I will never be in this type of situation, thank goodness. But this person has other options other than relying on a coworker’s pity. Like the youth hostel just right around the corner from our office. Or the dozens of extended stay hotels in the city. I can understand being desparate enough to beg from coworkers when if you’re broke and about to fall off the edge. But it’s my understanding that she’s very far from broke. And if she _is_ broke, then something is very very wrong with her, and I don’t want to get mixed up in that kind of drama. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/45 "2016-11-19T19:05:22Z")
> [@astro](#): > > The desperate mother is doing exactly what I would expect a lower middle class desperate mother who has few other options to do, especially if she’s trying to find a place for her kid to sleep for few days on a few hours notice and does not have the resources for an apartment or hotel. You can always say “no” and that’s what the OP quite properly and politely did, but acting as if this is akin to an incontinent T-Rex barging into the room in terms of being an unusual or ridiculously demanding social faux pas is absurd. > > It’s obvious a lot of dopers do not have any real connection or understanding of what it’s like to truly live at the margins. I could agree if you weren’t working overtime to bend things backwards here, and ignoring the central unanswered question: what’s wrong with mom’s couch? He’s 19 and his father is throwing him out for “some poor choices he’s made.” Mom’s asking to rent a spare bedroom, which implies some duration of at least a month is going to be needed. Both Mom and Dad have domiciles; this is not the sort of favor one asks outside of family and very close friends other than for a night or two on a couch while things settle down. This has little or nothing to do with socioeconomic class. It’s asking a huge and fairly unreasonable favor of someone based on a collateral relationship, and putting the OP in an uncomfortable position to boot. So yeah, I think there’s a little T-Rex DNA in there. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/46 "2016-11-19T19:14:19Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I feel like this is actually a fairly uncommon request. At least how the OP portrayed it. > > “Do you know anyone looking to rent out a spare room?” is a reasonable ask. > > “Do YOU want to rent out a spare room…” is not unless you have already established that you are running a B&B. Exactly. If she had framed her inquiry in the first way, I’d have suggested Craigslist or the youth hostel or extended stay hotels. If she can’t afford any of those options (which would be crazy given her salary), then that means she can’t afford what I’d charge in rent. So from where I sit, there’s only two options: she’s either asking for pity (since that’s all it would be, seeing as how we’re not friends) or she doesn’t know how to adult. Both of these things make me feel weird about her. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/47 "2016-11-19T19:22:29Z")
You might also want to get a lock on your office door. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/48 "2016-11-19T19:28:23Z")
I’d say I’d have to discuss it with my husband, but given his health issues it wouldn’t be a good idea. Poor Mom. Sounds like she’s trying to help her son, at least, and she’s desperate. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/49 "2016-11-19T20:07:12Z")
I hear it’s fun to stay at the YMCA. ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/50 "2016-11-19T20:15:31Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/51 "2016-11-19T20:22:40Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Dafuq! First off, I don’t know her son. I saw him once nine years ago, when he was a cute little kid, when she brought him to work. Why the fuck would I let a strange 19-year-old live with me indefinitely? Second off, why would I want to live with a person who makes “poor choices”? And third off, she knows that I’m an intensely private and quiet person. I’d be an awful landloard. And fourthly, why would she risk our solid work relationship by entangling me into some family mess? And fifthly, “poor choices” might involve drugs or criminal activity or violence (either engaging in, or hanging around with people who engage in), and taking someone like that into your home could put you in legal or physical danger. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/52 "2016-11-19T20:25:57Z")
i think this is a very bizarre request and I think you handled it well. In my mind it would be strange even if you and your coworker had a closer relationship. It does make me slightly sad though, is there no one she’s closer with that she could ask such a favor? I also agree with some other posters, I just don’t like sharing space whether it’s mine or someone else’s. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/53 "2016-11-19T20:35:56Z")
It’s a totally inappropriate thing to ask, but I’d give a pass as it seems like she is panicking and people do wacky stuff when they are panicked. I’d just say “I’m sorry you are dealing with this-- that wouldn’t work for me. But I’ll let you know if I hear of anyone trying to rent a room.” ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/54 "2016-11-19T20:38:34Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I could agree if you weren’t working overtime to bend things backwards here, and ignoring the central unanswered question: what’s wrong with mom’s couch? > > He’s 19 and his father is throwing him out for “some poor choices he’s made.” Mom’s asking to rent a spare bedroom, which implies some duration of at least a month is going to be needed. Both Mom and Dad have domiciles; this is not the sort of favor one asks outside of family and very close friends other than for a night or two on a couch while things settle down. > > This has little or nothing to do with socioeconomic class. It’s asking a huge and fairly unreasonable favor of someone based on a collateral relationship, and putting the OP in an uncomfortable position to boot. So yeah, I think there’s a little T-Rex DNA in there. The benefit of the doubt working assumption was that she would not be hitting up co-workers for a place for the kid to stay if she had a place for him to stay. If, with the new info not offered in the original OP, that this woman is in an awkward living scenario, _but makes $ 60,000 a year she could_ (presumably) easily be getting him a motel room for a few nights on her credit card. That her go to for her 19 year old son if she has these resources at her disposal, is the couch of single, female co-worker means she’s nuts or a world class sponge. The act of asking a co-worker (by an actual resourceless and desperate mother) to out up a kid for few nights is still not something I see as being on the borderline of outrageous behavior. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/55 "2016-11-19T20:50:17Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Your measured response to her was fine but recognize that older kids needing a couch for few days on an emergency basis is not at all that unusual in the general run of things and parents (especially moms) with no other resources will reach out those they trust. It’s an emergency, their kid is homeless, they are desperate. It’s easy to judge them until you are in a situation where you have to rely on the kindness of strangers. > > Objectively would it have been a good decision for a privacy loving, single woman to have a 18 year old male she does not know crashing on her couch? Probably not. But don’t be so judgey about the request itself until you are a helpless and desperate situation yourself. She didn’t ask if the kid could crash on the couch for a few days. She asked **monstro** if she had a spare room she could rent to him as a tenant. This would involve a great deal more inconvenience than having him crash on the couch. **monstro** , I would have replied much the same as you did. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/56 "2016-11-19T21:04:59Z")
Obviously the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I think your response was perfect. It was “HELL NO” but delivered in a polite way, which is what she needed to hear. But if she just doesn’t want to live alone, she could get an apartment with her son, and they can be wonderfully co-dependent for decades to come. I kind of see where\*\* astro \*\*is coming from, and my Dad and his wife have taken in plenty of hard-luck relatives and friends of friends over the years. When you’re struggling to stay working class, any hardship and you’re out on the streets. And the intuition that the reason the Mom is asking is because she’s a mess who doesn’t have a couch for the kid to sleep on is exactly correct, even though the reason is “goofy in the head” rather than strictly financial. Anyway, don’t feel too bad. I’m sure she picked you because you’re a calm and no-drama person. And she’s working her way through each and every person she knows, you were just at the front of the list. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/57 "2016-11-19T21:45:52Z")
I’ve gotta admit, the coworker should get extra points for unmitigated chutzpah. But the answer should still be “Hell, NO!” ---
**Author:** ![FloatyGimpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/floatygimpy/32/7750_2.png) [@FloatyGimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FloatyGimpy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/58 "2016-11-19T22:31:37Z")
It’s threads like this that make me wonder about this place sometimes. It’s like some people who come to SDMB live in an alternate dimension or something. If a colleague came up to me and asked if their troubled teenage son could move in with me I would be so stunned I’d probably stare at them for a bit, blink and then say “sorry, I may have misheard you there…” **Monstro** had this happen to her, she politely declined the request and came to post her mild surprise at the situation. For that she gets called a judgey drama queen. Even if you work somewhere (homeless shelter, youth home…) where this sort of thing is maybe not that strange, it’s still completely inappropriate to suggest that **Monstro** has some sort of personal flaw for being mildly surprised by a colleague suggesting that she take in their troubled child. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/59 "2016-11-19T22:41:38Z")
> [@FloatyGimpy](#): > > It’s threads like this that make me wonder about this place sometimes. It’s like some people who come to SDMB live in an alternate dimension or something. > > If a colleague came up to me and asked if their troubled teenage son could move in with me I would be so stunned I’d probably stare at them for a bit, blink and then say “sorry, I may have misheard you there…” > > **Monstro** had this happen to her, she politely declined the request and came to post her mild surprise at the situation. For that she gets called a judgey drama queen. Even if you work somewhere (homeless shelter, youth home…) where this sort of thing is maybe not that strange, it’s still completely inappropriate to suggest that **Monstro** has some sort of personal flaw for being mildly surprised by a colleague suggesting that she take in their troubled child. > > 😕 > [@](#): > > It’s like some people who come to SDMB live in an alternate dimension or something. I think the same thing when people act like this is the absolute craziest thing they have ever heard of. I have to think what kind of hot house flower, hermetically sealed lifestyle is it where you are clutching your pearls in horror that someone would even dare ask this. Complicated family crap happens all the time and sometimes people are so desperate they don’t pay normal attention to boundaries. The OP politely and rightly declined but considering the act of asking (if the asker were truly in need) as some huge social transgression is absurd. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424/60 "2016-11-19T22:46:21Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I think the same thing when people act like this is the absolute craziest thing they have ever heard of. I have to think what kind of hot house flower, hermetically sealed lifestyle is it where you are clutching your pearls in horror that someone would even dare ask this. Complicated family crap happens all the time and sometimes people are so desperate they don’t pay normal attention to boundaries. The OP politely and rightly declined but considering the act of asking (if the asker were truly in need) as some huge social transgression is absurd. I agree. Your reply is from an alternate dimension. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coworker-asks-if-her-teenaged-son-can-live-with-you-what-do-you-tell-her/772424.md?page=4)