Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
How is that fair? It's my house, not his. I'm the one paying the bills. It's my choice as to who gets to live there or not, just like you get to choose who lives or doesn't live in your house. It was nice enough of me to let him stay with me for a few months. He's 23, he should be supporting himself in his own place. How many 23-year-olds live with Mommy? I was stupid for even thinking of letting him live with me.
You were stupid to do this. You're not doing him any favors, in fact you are hurting him by letting him live with you. You are weakening his character, decreasing his competence, and destroying his confidence. Throw him out nicely. You gave him the deadline, which was quite generous. Ignore his rantings, maintain the exit schedule, inform him of what is going to happen and when, then carry through. Finally, if he is not planning to be out of his own accord by the week before the deadline, inform him that his stuff will be placed in storage and the locks will be changed on the deadline date. This is all very simple, if you behave like an adult, and model adult behavior for his education. He will hate you now, and thank you when he is 30. Your job is not to be his friend, but to be a leader and model for him to follow. You are also doing your one-day grandkids a favor by training him how to be a proper parent.
Four months is not a long time after college to find a good job. I would give him 6-12 months so that he can have time to find a job and save. He needs to make enough to support himself. Just because he went to job doesn't mean he can find a good job! Give him some more time. He was probably blindsided because you didn't give him a timeframe and discuss how you felt. Sit down with him and talk this over. That way he knows exactly what to expect and what he needs to do to prepare.
People are bashing the OP because she sounds like a cold, uncaring mother who lacks any compassion for her own son. She told him he could stay "as long as he wants" but then abruptly tells him to get out. Where is the kindness? Where is the natural mother's love that wants to help her son?
And for those of you saying kick him out, you were on your own when you were 18, etc, so much depends on financial factors. Does the son have a lot of student loan debt? Do they live in a HCOL area where rent would pretty much eat up his entire paycheck? Things have changed a LOT in just 10 years with skyrocketing costs of rent, education and healthcare.Of course she legally owes him nothing, but those of us who don't get this mom's mindset have an understanding of general family love and closeness. Yes I want my son to be a man and be independent but as long as he is working and trying I will do whatever I can to help him through financial challenges especially if he just wants to live at home. It has nothing to do with coddling and everything to do with family bond and compassion for my own son.
This is a perfect model of weak parenting. And this is why we have a millennial generation that can't get out of its own way. How could it know with the coddling, the rescuing, the excuse making, and the snowflaking? A 20 year old should be permanently OUT of the home. If necessary, rooming with 6 other people in a one room apartment, but independent and competent. Birds push the chicks out of the nest to enable successful survival, but human parents are insecure and lonely and want their kids to fill the voids in their lives instead of being proper parents and teaching and modeling strength and independence.
I think it's a fair argument that she sais "stay as long as you want" and then changed her mind after 4 moths. But keep in mind this is an apartment, not a 3,000 SF home, he is now 23, and as posted his lack of maturity was apparent in his reaction. Letting this go on longer will in fact be enabling him and will not help him turn into the man he needs to become. It appears as if he is settling into an easy life and not killing himself to move to the next phase of his life.
Last edited by DaveinMtAiry; 02-01-2017 at 09:59 AM..
Four months is not a long time after college to find a good job. I would give him 6-12 months so that he can have time to find a job and save. He needs to make enough to support himself. Just because he went to job doesn't mean he can find a good job! Give him some more time. He was probably blindsided because you didn't give him a timeframe and discuss how you felt. Sit down with him and talk this over. That way he knows exactly what to expect and what he needs to do to prepare.
This is incorrect. He is an adult, and needs to behave and live like an adult. Life isn't easy, and the best way to learn how to navigate it, is to indeed navigate it. Living with mommy and daddy at 23 is NOT NAVIGATING IT, but hiding from it. Any 23 year old in decent physical health can survive on their own, even in New York or San Francisco, much less Peoria, by rooming with other broke 23 year olds and hustling up a living. When I returned home after college, my mom let me stay in the house for a few months, and charged me $400/month, which I paid promptly. This was in 1982 or so, so $400 was a nice chunk of change and probably market rent for a room in a house. After a short time though, she prompted me to look for an apartment, and agreed to buy me some starter furniture. That is what happened, and in a short time, I was alone, lonely even, but independent and amazingly happy to be a functioning independent adult who HAD TO FIGURE IT OUT.
Throw him out, and let him figure it out. If you died, he'd figure it out. Do him the favor of allowing him the privilege and joy of figuring it out.
And to clarify, when I told him he could stay with me as long as he wanted, I didn't think he would want to stay with me very long. I thought he would be able to figure out himself that he needed to support himself. I mean, even a 7-year-old should realize that their parents will get old and die before them. There needs to be a good chunk of time between me supporting him, and him supporting me when I need it.
So. Your aggregation of posts is confusing as heck. You told him something specific thinking he would read your mind about what you expect of him?
Step back. Freak out less. Decide what is best for you, best for him. Determine effective limits and a peaceful and calm plan for achieving it. Then do that.
Four months is not a long time after college to find a good job. I would give him 6-12 months so that he can have time to find a job and save. He needs to make enough to support himself. Just because he went to job doesn't mean he can find a good job! Give him some more time. He was probably blindsided because you didn't give him a timeframe and discuss how you felt. Sit down with him and talk this over. That way he knows exactly what to expect and what he needs to do to prepare.
He's been there eight months, not four, plus the two she gave him to find his own place puts him at 10 months total. Or are you saying that she should give him an additional 6-12 months from now, so a total of 14-20 months from when he graduated from college and moved back in? Personally, although I don't have a problem with the OP giving him 2 months, I would probably give a little longer, like 2-4 months from now. Or more likely just leave it at the two months already stated, but if in 4-6 weeks it doesn't look like he is going to be ready BUT he is making an effort to make it happen and just needs a little more time, then let him have it. She has no obligation, moral or otherwise, to allow her healthy college graduate son to live her beyond the ten months she is already allowing. It makes no difference that she said he could stay as long as he wanted, it wasn't a contract signed in blood and she probably had no idea that he would feel comfortable continuing to stay with her for the next eight months indefinitely. She is perfectly within her rights, morally and otherwise, to say that she's had enough and it is time for him to move on and be a grown up, giving him a deadline to do so.
This is a perfect model of weak parenting. And this is why we have a millennial generation that can't get out of its own way. How could it know with the coddling, the rescuing, the excuse making, and the snowflaking? A 20 year old should be permanently OUT of the home. If necessary, rooming with 6 other people in a one room apartment, but independent and competent. Birds push the chicks out of the nest to enable successful survival, but human parents are insecure and lonely and want their kids to fill the voids in their lives instead of being proper parents and teaching and modeling strength and independence.
Here here! My Dad kicked me out when I was 20. I quit college and moved back home. After 3 months he told me I need to leave. I landed two waitressing jobs and found a roommate. I survived and am stronger for it.
So my son, who just turned 23, graduated from college a few months ago. I told him he was welcome to stay with me as long as he wanted. Big mistake.
My husband and I divorced many many years ago, and I raised my son in an apartment. I still live in this apartment, and while I missed my son when he was away at college, I loved having my own space. Things are now back to the way they way were before they went to college, except that he's a 23-year-old man instead of a teenage boy.
He's managed to get some very low-paying jobs with his degree, but doesn't earn enough to contribute a lot. He's an adult now and I have no obligation to let him live with me. So the other day, I told him that he had 2 months to find another place. And he hit the ceiling.
He told me I was selfish and didn't love him, and also called me a traitor and other horrific things. He said all this instead of thanking me for letting him stay under my roof for 8 months. How does he not understand me wanting my own space after 23 years? I took having my own space for granted when he was at college, which is why I said he could return for as long as he wanted, but now I realize what a luxury I had and that I really want it back.
Surely he must understand my need for peace and independence.
It sounds to me like his "hitting the roof" was just an attempt to play on your emotions and manipulate you.
Many of these pajama boy snowflakes think their parents owe them, instead of the other way around.
Letting him come back home for X amount of months while trying to get established was ok provided you do not turn it into dependency. Thus 8 months was far too long, and he needs to make his own way. Many of us started out by renting rooms with others to afford rent. It makes you realize what the real world is like when the bills need to be paid every month.
Just as a baby eagle will grow, branch while testing it's wings, then leave, only to return to the nest for a few free meals, it will leave for good to make a life for itself. Your son needs to make it in the world on his own, now expect mommy to provide for him. That is the only way he will become a man, instead of remaining a boy.
How could the son know much about being an adult with a mother that hasn't really grown up? She is 53 and still rents? Raised a child in an apartment? Those certainly don't show the son what hard work can bring you.
When I was the sons age girls stayed home until marriage and boys until they could buy a house. All different cultures. Only the lower class would get an apartment.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
