They tie up my entire day’s worth of time everyday. Each day, I’m constantly doing chores, running tasks, and errands and countless small favors here and there.
I’m not to leave the house without stating exactly where I’m going. Many of the household responsibilities including the preparation of dinner are placed on me.
When I was working, I only had time to work, eat sleep and do even more chores on the weekend. I’m currently in college but living with my parents instead of a dorm due to financial reasons. I do not have time or the energy to do much of the things that I would rather do. I am also expected to travel with them everywhere they want.
Also, I’m not supposed to back-talk, say no, or express any negative emotions around them. This is how it’s always been as I grew up though.
Now, I am an adult and they are providing me with the necessities I need to live. Without them, I wouldn’t have a place to stay.
Would standing up to them be a good or a bad idea?
sorry for not having a poll, I don’t know how to make a poll here.
Well, you’re financially dependent on them. If you and they have a massive falling-out, that’s a bigger problem for you than for them. So you need to be careful about embarking on any course which could lead to a massive falling-out.
You talk about “standing up” to your parents, which suggests you see addressing this issue with them as necessarily confrontational and oppositional.
You know your parents better than I do, obviously, but does it have to be confrontational? Could you negotiate with your parents along the lines of “I’d really like to be able to to X and Y; can we talk about if that could be made possible?”
If you don’t see any mileage in a more co-operative and less confrontational approach, then I strongly suggest you make yourself less dependent on your parents before going down the confrontational route. For instance, could you switch to studying part-time, and take up a part time job that would give you enough money to move out and room with a friend, or something? Then, if your approach to your parents goes badly you have a Plan B to fall back on.
The only other option is simply to suck it up. It may be worth if, if they are subsidising your college education. You won’t be in college for ever, and the sooner you complete your degree the sooner you can move out and establish an independent life. And if you can get to that point without a massive falling-out with your parents, that’s probably a good thing.
If the way you are being treated (short of abuse, of course) aligns with what you imagined would be the case, when you moved in with them, then I don’t think you have much cause to complain, to be honest.
While perhaps annoying, nothing you mentioned rises to the level of needing a confrontation. If you don’t like it, make other living arrangements. If you choose not to, it seems to me you need to suck it up.
You’re not a tree, if you don’t like where you are move. Too hard? Stay where you are and play by their rules. Theses seem like the only two reasonable choices to me.
You are an adult. If you live in their house you have to pay the rent, and that may mean chores you have to do, and follow some house rules. You don’t have to go where they go, perform tasks not agreed to in advance, tell them what you are doing elsewhere, or say only the things they want you to say. If they don’t like it they can ask you to leave.
I can’t tell you the best approach, but consider what will happen if you stay or leave. If you stay you may end up resenting them for the rest of your life, but at this point that might happen anyway. If you leave you might not be able to finish school right away, but you’ll be able to hold your head up and say you are dependent on someone else to live.
Personally, I’d tell them off and leave, but I’m not you and you’re not me.
ETA: In most parts of the US they can’t simply throw you out, you live there, and they’d have to move to have you evicted.
(Before this heads off to IMHO) We’re only getting one side of the story here. What you call countless chores, tasks, and small favors, your parents (and possibly some of us) might consider contributing to the household. They expect you to travel around with them everywhere they want? Are they infirm? Or do they see this as a way of spending time with you?
Of course, your parents might be exploiting you as cheap labor, but we’d need more info. What do you pay in rent? Do you buy your own food? In what ways do you think you ought to contribute to the household? What are the things that you would rather do?
As an adult, you should be able to reasonably discuss your living relationship with them. But as the homeowners - and the ones footing the bill - they get considerable say over many things. You should reasonably raise your concerns. But if you do not agree with the outcome, you should move out and set your own rules.
Reported for a forum change.
But to join in. Looks like the op is in a situation many of us have experienced. He has to weigh the costs and benefits of parental control.
Some parents don’t know how to stop (or ease up) parenting.
On the flip side, some young adults overstate their situation because they lack maturity.
I agree with Dinsdale - follow their rules, discuss your concerns in a mature matter. If you can’t take it, move out.
Unless he’s making it all up there’s nothing to overstate about an adult having to tell his parents/landlords where he goes when he’s not there. Some old adults are assholes.
I don’t understand the OP. If you spend all your time with your parents, when do you go to college? If you are out for the summer, why not get a job?
Doing chores and cooking sound reasonable in return for rent (and groceries.) But if they want you to go everywhere with them, don’t you have the excuse of problem sets to do and papers to write and books to read?
However if you are overloaded with work and this is going to impact your school work or health, I would try to have a “be reasonable” talk with them. Negotiate with them and see if you can work out something more reasonable.
If they are not being reasonable, then you may want to see a school mental health counselor - get advice from that person as to how you should proceed from there.
Start doing chores in a shitty way to save energy. Instead of washing all the dishes spotlessly, rinse them with water and put them back. If they send you to do errands, forget some things on the list or claim you can’t find the location/item. Messing up dinner is easy, figure out what they don’t like and put a lot of it into the dish, or don’t cook the chicken through all the way.
In the immediate aftermath, things might be worse. They might send you out again to finish the errands, or make you buy food. But enough consistent mistakes should make them rethink using you as free labor. However, if that doesn’t happen, be prepared to escalate things. Buy a durian and open it pretending you don’t know what it smells like, bonus points if their friends are over and you all have to vacate the house. Set the stove on fire by leaving an unattended pot over the flames, or microwave some silverware, or use the same cutting board for raw fish and chicken as you do vegetables. Lie to them about where you’re going but have a small gift for them when they catch you, claim you wanted to surprise them. Put bedbugs in their mattress and burn their clothes when ironing them. Lose all of their socks in the laundry. Download viruses into their computers. Whatever it takes
Are they asking you to do these chores or are you simply doing them because you think it is expected?
My parents were the same way when I was in college and living at home. What they didn’t get was that I was a young adult and I had my own life, full of responsibilities and things I wanted to do. What I didn’t get was that they waned the common courtesy to know where I was because they wanted to plan parts of their day around me (ie. dinner). We eventually worked it out. They realized I needed to live my own life and I gave the the courtesy of letting them know when (approximately) and where I would be so they could plan on my presence in the house.
This seems unreasonable if you are being asked to prepare dinner for everyone all the time, but perhaps this is the expectation you feel because you have assumed that duty in the household. Which is it?
I agree with others that a talk with your parents is probably due. Without knowing more about your parents, it seems to me that if you approach them with the attitude of, “Hey, Mom and Dad, you need to know about what’s happening in my life”, you can explain that between school and work, it is hard to all that AND be expected to keep up with all the chores you are expecting of you. Again, I don’t know your parents, but they might just surprise you.
I can empathize with this. For the longest time, I felt the same way about my parents… even after I got married and had children. Part of it was their fault because they didn’t know they were still treating me like a child, and part of it was mine because I am not the kind of person who likes confrontation, so I took it for much longer than I should have. It ended up blowing up on me and feelings got hurt for awhile, but we worked it out. I should have addressed it when I was still living with them, and I think you should too.
Yes, you need to talk to them. Be assertive, but don’t be a jerk. If they are reasonable, they will be willing to talk to you about what the expectations are for you in their house.
One other thing to add from personal experience, being the parent of an adult child is quite different from what most parents have done the preceding 18 years. It is very common when kids start college, for them to view themselves as “guests” in the home, rather than contributing household members responsible for a fair share of chores and common courtesy re: noise at various times of the day, use of common areas, etc. I’m not saying you are doing this, but you wouldn’t be the first college student ever to treat their parents as glorified cooks, maids, laundresses, etc. Just think about what you are bringing to the dynamic.
I only had to address this when my kids came home for the summer. For many parents this comes up when the kid comes home for Thanksgiving break freshman year. I can only imagine what it would be like having a child live at home while attending college.
Even when college is over and the kids leave home, the parenting dynamic is something many parents (myself included) might have some difficulty getting used to.
If things are unbearable, leave home, get a job (or 2), and save money until you are able to afford going to school nights. Once my kids were out of the house an don their own, it was much easier to view them as adults who weren’t necessarily interested in hearing my opinions, and who wanted to conduct their lives however they wished.
The quick responses with “their house, their rules” and “You’re not an adult” are expected, I guess, but not terribly helpful.
While I’ll grant is IS their house and their rules and I don’t pretend to know the full situation, there are right and wrong ways to deal with an adult child living at home and “you are my servant” is not one of them. In a house with adults, all the adults should be pitching in, but they have to have their own lives, too.
Contemplation’s parents sounds - granting, again, that it is a rather brief description - like they are struggling to make the transition from having a minor child to an adult child. If I were to say that I treated by 11-year-old the way I treated her when she was 2 years old, everyone on the SDMB would think I was insane. If I treated a 5-year-old the way one would normally treat a 16-year old I’d be arrested. (“Sure, you can borrow the car, just leave gas in it.”) It is equally absurd and useless to pretend an adult child is the same as a young child and “isn’t an adult” and should be treated like they were still in Grade Three. That said, difficult in making this transition is a fairly common thing, and it’s an adjustment for everyone. My wife’s mother had a lot of problems with this, including being angry when my wife left home for school because she wouldn’t be around to do all the chores.
In my opinion, “standing up” to Contemplation’s parents might or might not be a good idea; it depends what that means and what they’re like.
I think the required notice of your whereabouts is over the top unless it’s necessary coordinate some regular task you have agreed to. In the end you’re getting room and board and that’s worth (lets say) around $ 1000 a month in most areas. Value could be much higher in higher cost of living urban areas. So. what’s that worth to you?
I don’t think you need to “stand up to them” I think you need to have a conversation about reasonable notice about your comings and goings but the rest doesn’t sound too oppressive for around $1000+ in savings per month.
You are an adult but you are a dependent adult. An adult does not expect to get something for free only a child does.