My adult daughters still live at home – and yes, we make them pay towards the bills

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-My daughters are saving to move out, but we still expect them to pay their way at home – am I being unfair?-

My husband and I are in a growing number of households here in the UK, living with our adult children. We certainly hadn’t thought when we had our first daughter in 2001, followed by a second a few years later, that their lives would be harder than ours. Weren’t things supposed to get easier for each generation?

It’s not that we hadn’t understood hard times, we both grew up in relatively poor families. Living in a mining town, we also saw the economic difficulties experienced by our community, when in the 1980’s the Thatcher Government, closed all the local mines.

However, in 2001, we had not yet had the 2008 financial crash, and the years of austerity that followed. We both had relatively stable jobs, we had manged to buy our own home and took it for granted our girls would be able to do the same.

We had not envisaged the house prices would shoot up so dramatically, or the cost-of-living crisis would mean, that even for us, we would have to decide whether to ‘eat, or heat’. We certainly hadn’t seen a future where our children would still be living with us well into their twenties.

I bought my first home, with my husband at the grand age of twenty-one. I can remember feeling so ready to ‘fly-the-nest’, make my own decisions, and start to live my own life. I didn’t move far from my childhood home, but it was enough of a separation, to feel very grown up.

My daughters, now much older that I was, are ready for that separation, I can see it in them, it’s only natural after all. They want their own home, their own space, and to live their lives the way they want. However, for now, they can’t move out, one is saving to buy a home, one is building up her own business. Both things would be impossible, if they had rent and bills to pay.

That is not to say they live at home without contributing to the bills, since my daughter’s returned from university, they have been expected to contribute towards the grocery bill, and some utility bills. It does not fully cover the costs, but its good enough for us. This contribution is expected, even when they have had part-time minimum wage jobs, or even when they’ve had no income that week, because they are self-employed. This at times, has been a difficult concept for them (and us). Between them they don’t have a single friend who was expected to contribute to the household bills, and of all my own friends, I’m the only one who expects this.

Does this make us bad parents? If it’s not ‘normal’ amongst your peers, (our peers, as well as theirs) it’s no wonder that there is some resistance to it. As parents, we’ve questioned the fairness of this, are we doing the right thing? However, we don’t think adult children, should live at home for free. We all must pay our way in life, and learning to budget, is a good skill to acquire.

I have to say, I’m very, very proud of both my daughters, and how they have learnt to manage their income and expenditures. They are both saving hard for their futures and learning how to priorities their spending.

My husband and I live well below the median income in the UK, most of our friends, and our daughter’s friends, are on a much higher income bracket. Would we still expect our daughters to contribute even if we were in that same higher income bracket? After giving this much thought, we would have to say yes, and for the reasons mentioned, it teaches good budgeting skills. However, we would perhaps do things a little differently, and instead of using the money towards bills as we do now, put the money into a high interest account, to be returned to them, once they moved out.

I’m very aware, there are many, many families out there who can’t afford to let their children live indefinitely with them, without contributing something towards the household bills. I’m also aware there are some parents out there, who may feel some resentment, having not actually asked for a financial contribution. There will also be some parents who feel guilty, because they have had to ask. Having clear financial boundaries, and expectations, is one way to help deal with these feelings.

So, what do you think, are we mean, scrooge-like parents, ‘demanding’ money from our daughter’s? Or are we sensible, caring parents, enabling them to acquire good life skills? Or did we just not have any other choice? More importantly though, if you are a parent whose adult children still live at home, but you didn’t ask them to contribute to the household budget, do you wish you had?