Parents kicking their kids out at 18?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Shit… my parents did the exact opposite. They told me basically that after high school, if I didn’t get a scholarship to a college somewhere else, join the military, or move out on my own somehow, that I’d have to live with them and my little brother and go to community college/University of Houston.

I think threatening to eject me from the home couldn’t have made me more determined to get something squared away than the horrid thought of being out of high school and having to live with my parents. No girls at home, no booze, and basically no fun.

In reality, the only actual expectation was that I’d get out of their hair and go off to college somewhere else and have my fun… joining the military wasn’t really a preferred option, unless it involved getting a college degree and getting commissioned as an officer.

42

Excellent Parenting by my parents for all 7 of us. Modified for gender & age and time in history.

They never had to tell us anything 3 times. we knew better.
We never asked anything 3 times in the same week, we knew better.

We get arrested, no help from them. We knew right from wrong.

18, college, work or military.

Stay at home, pay rent if not in school. ( still had to work part time )

Their house, their rules, no matter how old we were, how old the grand kids were or how cute.

All rules were bent to some degree due to time frame and society type changes.

At all points in our life we had been allowed to do more, see more, accept more responsibility than any of our contemporaries and this was the norm, until we were 21 or so, with their help.

We went on to do many things, live many places and teach our kids the same.

Not all has gone just as planned, but no live at homes, no prison, just doing fine.

I now have grand kids who still are under some of the same rules as I grew up under.

Right, wrong, responsibility, consequences, all are being learned early.

I have now lived long enough to see how good I had it, to see the important stuff moving down the family tree & understand that so many others don’t ever get there.

Family
Education ( all kinds, not just formal )
A belief system
Willingness to make the tough decisions for yourself & family
Hold true to what should not be changed as far as the above goes

I can not imagine my life being truly any better for me at the time I needed it.

43

My parents never threatened to throw me out, but I did work part-time through college, and I did pay some form of rent, as well as my car expenses and insurance. Just after I moved out, I went back to get something or other, and my dad gave me all the rent money I had paid over those few years. “Here, we’re giving it back to you, we never really needed it for anything.”

44

Most of the people I knew moved out gradually between 18 and 21, leaving for school, getting a full time job, occasionally moving back - losing roommates was a common reason for that; later it was to save enough for a down payment.

None were expected to leave at 18 on the dot, and all were out - pretty much - by 21.

I don’t think anyone got any spending money from their parents after 16 or so, although they might get help with rent if they were still in school.

The standard way to get the kids to move out was to enforce the same rules as during high school - no sex or alcohol, in by midnight, do your chores - something embarrassing about being assigned “chores” after high school, really.

45

One of my daughter’s classmates was pretty much ignored by her parents from at least the 5th grade (when I first met her) and then tossed out of the house entirely when she turned 18. She spent her senior year in high school couch surfing with assorted friends.

I don’t know what happened to her, other than she was arrested a month into her freshman year in college.

46

I hope the parents who throw their kids out without any warning don’t expect any help if they outlive their money or get dementia. Or to see their grandchildren.

Beside coming home for the summer in college when I worked I was out of the house before 18, but I don’t consider that getting kicked out, I consider it moving on. I think going to college away from home builds independence, even if it is more expensive.

The kids I mentioned were kicked out at 18 while still in high school. That really sucks. I did not get the impression that they were troublemakers either.

47

My maternal grandfather, in 1918, left the family farm shortly after his birthday. He wanted to go as he didn’t want to be a farmer. His parents had made him quit school after the eighth grade, saying he didn’t need any more education. Grandpa went to Kansas City and enrolled in an auto mechanics school.

In spite of his lack of a higher formal education he made a good life. I often wonder, if he’d been able to go to high school even, how things might have been different for him. He loved to read all kinds of literature, and was very fond of the poems of Longfellow, especially Evangeline. He could recite big chunks of it by heart.

48

OMG, I’ll never know for certain what my mom thought. I lived at home for a year after graduating high school. My folks were pretty lenient and I was a good kid in general.

But a few times I’d have female company and the girl would have a few drinks. My mom would discuss drinking under the influence and suggest she stay the night; giving me linens to sleep on my bedroom floor so my guest could have the bed. Seriously?

49

We were told from a young age that moving out was part and parcel of growing up. After HS it would be time to attend college or get a job. Moving out was assumed at that point.

Two of us attended college out of town but returned for part of the summers. One of us attended college locally and lived at home for the full 4 years. But after that, out he went under his own power.

Agree with all the rest who say that parents who treat their offspring like little children until they’re 18, then dump them cold as a surprise are a special kind of abusive jerk.

As a friend of mine often says: “You’re not raising children. You’re raising adults, and every day your job is to make them a little more adult than they were yesterday. It takes all 18 years, but it’s worth it.”

50

I was told well ahead of time that I always had a bed in their home, as long as I was studying (university/college), but that after I’d finished high school I’d be paying rent. I turned 18 two months before finishing high school, but did not have to pay rent until a month after all the high school stuff was done. I left within that month.

I was definitely heading to uni either way, but given the choice of paying rent to my parents, living under their roof by their rules in an inconvenient location, or paying rent to a landlord in my chosen location and living by my own rules, well, there was really no contest there. Especially because I didn’t much like their rules. Yes, I could’ve studied more and saved more money by staying home (they were charging me very low rent), but the cheapest way to pay is with money! I gained valuable experiences, my independence, etc that were worth much much more than the rent dollars I may have saved. I did struggle a bit, but there’s also pride in working enough to house, feed and clothe yourself while also carrying a full-time uni load

I do agree with them, in that once you’ve finished high school and are a legal adult, you’d better be paying your own way, or at least contributing as much as you can. They were suprised that I chose to pay more rent to a landlord though, I think they expected me to take the easier option and stay. I don’t know why - they raised and prepared me to be a functional and independent adult.

51

Three of my four left at age 18 of their own volition. Two went off to college and one went out on her own. Two of them have returned to live in their mother’s basement from time to time.

52

I moved out when I was 18 to get away from my asshole father.

53

My parents never stated any expectations in this regard. Rather, I was simply expected, from the time I was 13 or 14, to work. The expectation at school was A’s, and the expectation when I was not in school was I’d have some kind of part time job. I was allowed to stay at home (actually, not so much allowed; they preferred having me there) as long as I wanted, and then I just left. But there was a gradual process of going from mooching kid to self-sufficiency that started way before I was 18. By 18 I had to be a productive adult, full time, be it studying, working or both.

NOT working was unthinkable, and I don’t mean “unthinkable” as in they told me they’d kick my ass if I didn’t work. It was unthinkable in the sense that I was raised in an environment where the idea of not working was literally impossible for me to comprehend. Of course I had a part time job at all times, sometimes two. Of course I studied. That was what my parents did; they worked (and since my Dad went back to school in his 30s, I saw him study.) It’s just what adults did, so I did it. I found people who did NOT do such things quite mystifying.

I don’t think they consciously planned it that way, but they did a good job.

54

And the baby?

55

The issue my wife and I have is our son with a mental disability who will always need care and will never be independent. We want to set him up in a group home so he can have some sense of independent living.

56

Yes. The four of them are currently living together. My son and his girlfriend are going to part-time school so they can get their high-school diplomas, and my son works for a lawn-care service. The girlfriend’s mama watches the baby for them a lot.

My son has also come into some money (Social Security, from his dad dying a few years ago), and they are looking for a cheap apartment. It could work out. fingers crossed

57

I turned 18 only a few months into my senior year of high school.

My parents made it clear to me starting around age 15 or 16 that they would help support me after high school graduation as long as I was in college, doing well, progressing toward a degree. If not, I could sign a lease and start paying rent. I plan to make the same offer/threat to my kids someday.

No idea if they’d have actually followed through on it. I had every intention of going to college and getting the hell out of dodge. I did live at home for summers for a few years, and worked full time (or as near as I could get) to help pay for college. My parents also contributed significantly to my tuition/room/board.

58

I’ve only known one person who was kicked out of the home as a teen and her parents were heavily involved in drugs. They were high most of the time, then abandoned her when she got pregnant at 16. I think she is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met - she was a single teenaged mom, managed to finish high school anyway, put herself through college and her masters and is now an executive at a very large company and a writer. Her son is also a wonderful man.

As a parent, I can’t imagine kicking my kids out at that age unless they did something horrendously shitty. My mind might change, but I’ve lived apart from my family since I was in college and I want my kids to have the benefit of family if not in the home, at least very close by.

59

One of my high school classmates was abandoned by his custodial parent when he was 17, actually.

It was an odd deal really, his father (his mother was a resident of a mental health facility at that point and had been for years) married a girl who was about four years older than my buddy (20 - 21 to our 17), when she was six months’ pregnant with his kid. About two months after the baby was born, they packed up and moved one night when my friend was on a school trip. He actually just came home and they were gone. Left him a note wishing him the best of luck and about half the next month’s rent. He was just starting his senior year of high school. Moved out of the state, didn’t leave a forwarding address, nothing.

Fortunately, it was a small town - the ladies of the town were horrified at his predicament, so they organized matters. You have never seen such a community uprising of collective “Well, what the fuck, man”. I will say it was less pearl-clutching and more practical assistance, at least. He already had a part-time job, which let him stay in their seasonal-worker housing (which was otherwise unoccupied). Someone gave him a loaner beater car to get him around until he graduated. He had a rotation of people responsible for feeding him for the rest of the year until he graduated (my mom was signed up for Saturday dinners). The scholarship committee that year leaned over backwards to make sure he got as much scholarship money as possible (he was a legitimately good student, but damn near all the need-based scholarships went his way that year). We had a school assembly every spring where the scholarship recipients were formally announced to the school, and just about every other name winning a scholarship was his.

It worked out for him, but I don’t know that he’s spoken to his dad since the day he left on the school trip. I know that his dad wasn’t invited to his wedding (my brother was one of the groomsmen), and I know that when the first grandchild came along my buddy was doing a considerable amount of seriously considering failing to mention the birth to his dad. I also know that to this day, half a dozen ladies in town get Mother’s Day cards from him, including my own mom.

60

My dad kicked me out at 18. Well to be fair, he said I could stay if I paid rent.