"Ask Amy": What do you owe to parents while you're in school?

 Your opinions?
Lenona.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/columnists/advice/chi-1010askamyoct10,0,295793.column

Dear Amy: I am a 21-year-old man who has spent large portions of the
last few years out of school and working part time because of an
arrangement I've had with my parents to help them by baby-sitting my
two siblings, who are 10 and 4.

Recently I was offered a full-time position at a local company, and I
intend to take it. Now my mother has decided to demand money from me
when I start this job. I've never asked her for a dime for baby-
sitting! But now that I have a full-time job, she is insisting on my
"chipping in around the house."

My mother does not help me pay for school, car or any other bills. I
believe it is completely unfair for her to ask for money after years
of offering me no economic assistance whatsoever and knowing full well
that I have to pay for school on my own. I've been as selfless as
possible when she's needed me, but I have to take a stand for my own
needs. What should I do?



-- Disheartened

Dear Disheartened: Viewed from another perspective, your mother might
feel that providing child care for siblings is an unpaid family duty
(like other family obligations) that comes along with being a member
of a family that happens to have young children. I agree that if your
folks deliberately stifled your progress to get you to be a live-in
manny, it was unfair of them and generous of you.

Now that you are 21 and taking such commendable steps with your life,
use your new maturity to negotiate with your mother. What exactly does
"chipping in around the house" entail? Does it mean contributing
toward the cost of groceries and utilities, or does it mean paying for
baby-sitting services out of your pocket now that you aren't around to
provide these services for free?

You need to work out exactly what will be expected of you. Your mother
wasn't businesslike with you in the past; you need to be businesslike
now.

  lenona321@yahoo.com wrote:

... snip ask amy...
Summary... A 21 year old boy has spent his entire life living at
home and has, for the past few years, worked out a barter arrangement
with is parents for room and board. He wants to break this agreement,
work full time and not pay them dime one for room and board. He feels
this is fair because they owe him free room and board no matter how
old he gets.

My opinion? At 21 he should grow up, move out, pay his own bills
and stop being a burden on his parents.

Anthony

 

Anthony Matonak wrote:

Yep.  He paid for his room and board by babysitting his siblings.  If
he's no longer going to do that, he needs to pay for it some other way -
or move out, and pay all his own bills.   A few months of paying rent
might enlighten him about that "no economic assistance whatsoever" he
got while living at home.

Clisby

 On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:39:01 -0700, Anthony Matonak


And maybe that was what his mom was hinting at by now charging him
rent.
Dawn, whose oldest kids moved out before the "rent days".

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/columnists/advice/chi-1010askamyoct10,0,295793.column

If you're really 21, you're an adult.  Start paying your own way.  Your
mother probably considers that she has been offering you considerable
economic assistance by providing you with a place to sleep, meals, and I'll
bet sevices like cooking and laundry.  If you don't want to pay your mother,
get your own place, pay someone else, and start doing for yourself.