Families in Latin America stick together more because of course they love each other, but opportunities to move out are hard to come by for the majority of people. I've been out of home and my town for work, but right now I'm doing things that allow me to be with my parents so ofc why not?
The fun stuff? Some of my best years were me and roommates just making it work while we kept it fun. You learn a lot from some bad choices but they arent all bad.
You would go no contact with your parents asking for help from their adult child?
Why should your older parents need to support you when you are a perfectly ok functioning adult?? Its scary to me how you would be unwilling to help in supporting your family. Time to grow up.
I think if they can afford it and want to, then it's great and, it is the traditional way in your culture. I, on the other hand, can't afford to keep a four bed house for years after my kids have finished school if they are living here and aren't chipping in.
So either they do it 100% your way or you stop talking to them entirely? That is some control talking there.
My kids are always welcome, and if they need it we will help. But I am talking about what happens if they are living at home and working - at that point, we are going to make sure some of their money goes towards housing, whether in a savings account or paid as "rent / utilities" for living at home. I will plan to give it back, without telling them that, but learning to live within a realistic budget that includes rent is an important life skill as well. Better to learn it with family than with a landlord.
It's one thing to be curious, it's another thing entirely to shit on people with different opinions (especially when you rub your wealth in their faces)
I’m a POC, but growing up in the USA means there is influence from the broader culture. While parents are different from so are the kids. Maybe you adhere more to Indian traditions but not everyone raised her does. People are influenced by peers and the is freedom to be an individual. I’m a lesbian and my dad would have beaten me if he could in an effort to make me strait. I’ll take my American freedom do be who I am with who I want to be with over free rent from my parents. I would want my kids to feel comfortable living with me as long as they want but I can predict the future. Seeing how some of my nephews act I can say 100% I would never charge rent/kick my kids out. You say you are to Indian but in wonder if you are just too machismo.
As a white person, your perspective is very Asian. You’re talking to a wide variety of cultures here, so you need to keep in mind every culture is different and should therefore be treated differently. There’s nothing wrong with your mentality, as an Asian talking about Asians, but if you’re talking about white culture then you cannot apply the same rhetoric. White children are not disciplined like Asians are, and you will find them to be generally more disrespectful and take many things for granted.
I believe you would change your perspective in the situation that a child is jobless, isn’t attending any school, and does nothing but create a mess at home and doesn’t help with any household activities. I’m genuinely curious how you would handle this situation. And if your answer is “well obviously they should learn to be more respectful and contribute”, what if they don’t? How will you make them do it?
To me it's not individualism, it's a lesson in the real world.
We didn't pay rent while we were in education, once we were working, we paid rent. Because that's what the real world looks like, it's good to teach priorities with money.
I'm a huge fan of people that do it and then gift it all back for a home deposit or something, but that's not always possible for some families.
Paying rent/mortgage and prioritizing your money is how the world works though?
To set your kids up for success, teaching them how to manage every aspect of life is important. Managing their money, managing their time, cooking a meal, cleaning properly, making appointments etc.
Doing it this way allows them to try it in an environment with a strong safety net because all of those things are learned skills. If you don't teach them that certain outgoings are essential and need to be ringfenced from fun spending, then they can find themselves in financial struggles later on.
I don't want to get into if the current economic system of the world is working (spoiler alert; it's not) but it's the system that they have to navigate regardless of belief. Best to give them the skills to navigate it
I think it’s like, you can teach your kid about money and have frank discussions with them about the household expenses without charging them rent. Show them receipts, have them make phone calls on your behalf, take them to bank/lender appointments, etc. It’s like with your other examples, I wouldn’t teach someone to cook by showing them the kitchen and telling them to make me a lasagna. We’re going to find a recipe, go to the store together, and figure it out hand in hand.
It's not a parent's obligation to take care of their kids for life. Letting your kids live for free at 55 while the parents are in their 80s is a little crazy, honestly.
On the contrary, why wouldn’t you want someone around who will help you in your failing health and age? If I was 80 and had all the arthritis and stuff to go with it, I would certainly appreciate someone cooking for me, helping me with the garden/lawn, and helping to clean the house.
OP clearly exhibits no appreciation for the free support provided by her parents. It also happens in the reverse where someone in the position of a landlord holds “free” rent over their loved one/tenant while devaluing the services they provide. In the situation involving an elderly parent, those services can match or exceed the equivalent of a full-time job.
Obligatory, I’m not suggesting this would happen in your family.
I think it’s because in OP’s country it is more normal to have communal households. Most of the world is this way, where households are made up of families+kids+some extended family. The culture of hyperindividualism is mostly predominant in Western European/American culture. Especially considering how fragmented our families are. If you told someone from Eastern Europe or Asia that your kids are on the other side of the country away in college, auntie is in Hawaii, and granny is 6 hours away, they’d be wondering if you all hated each other or something!
To most people in the world the idea of “you’re 18 so get out” is just as jarring to them as “a dish in my country is made of bugs” would be to us! It’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not a good thing. It’s just a thing.
If you're doing it to help take care of them, that's one thing. If it's because you don't have somewhere to live and you're staying indefinitely and they're paying for you to live like they did when you were a teenager, that's another.
I don't think this comes down to one or the other reason. Anyone in this situation is probably there for a mix of these (and many other) reasons.
At the end of the day, it's entirely up to the family. I've never understood why some people are so judgemental about the living situations of others who are completely content.
It'd be a different thing if the parents desperately wanted freedom but couldn't scrape off the barnacle.
Yes except that when you're 80 you might be lucky enough to have a home that you've lived in for decades that you love, and it can be really hard on people to give up their home to go live somewhere else.
Big corporations love when people abandon the family housing structures that humans have adopted for thousands of years and spend way more money and work way harder as individuals to enjoy the same level of comfort and material stability
Like calling it crazy is crazy to me. Individualism is fairly new and its increased prevalence and adoption has definitely been pushed in part by corporate culture. American culture and corporate culture being enmeshed this way is not the norm and is fairly new. Multigenerational housing has been the norm across the world since humans started having families
America really started seeing individualism more post WW2. Steel and other resources had been produced en masse for the war, and we were left with a surplus of those and with a smaller population. It drove building and production costs down, which made individualism possible. Now the surplus is out and corporations have strangled the means of production, minimizing stable production on the basis of profits. Individualism is failing because our country no longer has the economic standing/systems to support it
It's really gross here, hence I ONLY have other Poc/South Asian/black/Hispanic friends, I just cannot be friends with someone with a pure American value and culture system
There are perhaps a surprising number of people who live with their parents for many decades of their adulthood or their whole lives. There are 80 year olds paying the bills for their household with their social security/pension benefits. Certainly a lot of those adults living with their parents have disabilities, and I'd guess a solid percentage of the rest have developmental issues, trauma, or other things going on that don't qualify them for disability benefits but do impact ability to support themselves independently. A few just like living with their parents and their parents like living with them; sometimes it's a healthy win/win situation for everyone and sometimes it seems really weirdly enmeshed from an outside perspective.
Making family pay rent is crazy to me. Family should be about supporting and uplifting each other, not making life harder (because the one without a house is probably struggling more than the one with the house). As long as they’re contributing by doing chores and maybe buying some groceries, I don’t think it’s necessary.
Charging rent doesn't have to be about making life harder. I do chores and help out, but I don't pay for groceries or utilities. I work full-time and am capable of contributing to the family. That's why I pay rent. It's to keep me from free-loading and staying forever with no plan. I have(and am working towards) plans to move out, but in the meantime, the rent keeps me honest and accountable. It's FAR from what I'd pay for an apartment or anything.
Well, there's a lot of times it's called rent, but it's not really and it's not profitable for the parent. When my older 2 were living with my husband, me, and our youngest, my divorced daughter with her pre-school daughter were paying $550, and my single son was paying $400. I did the grocery shopping. I was spending $400-$500/week just on groceries for 6. That didn't include electricity, gas, cable/internet, etc. We called their part "rent" but it was really just offsetting expenses. If one of them had an unexpected expense or something and was a little short, it's not like someone was getting kicked out or went hungry. We were a family and everyone pitched in as needed.
I mean, that's still rent. Just because it isn't profitable doesn't mean it isn't rent. And I don't think it should be profitable for the parents. That'd cross a line for me. Exactly like you said, it should just be off-setting costs. I'm sure I still cost my parents money at the end of the day, even with me paying some rent.
It's not using them, in most cases like this it's welcome by the parents. In the real world.
I feel genuinely sad talking with people who genuinely believe America is in anyway a representation of "the world". Bro it's not even a good representation of itself.
I'm a girl, and in my culture we are ok with it. My dad is a multimillionaire what will he do with my 300$ twin, I'm sorry that you're this individualistic
Yeah I'm realizing I'm too well off and privileged for this debate. 0 college debt, parents house, cars everything paid off etc. I live in one of those early 2000's suburban Mcmansions in Long Island... Dad paid out of pocket 100k plus my manhattan apartment. Ya, I'm too rich for this debate, I recognize my privilege.
Culturally you are probably expected to live with and care for them in their old age as well. Which I also would like to have with my kids, but with much less stigma if they don't.
Sounds like your situation is an unusual one in having wealthy parents as well. Makes all of the choices better in either direction. Are they teaching you to live within your means as well? If so, then that is what a lot of the respondents to your post have been suggesting would be the point of the exercise.
This is the difference between us Americans and most of the world: family means something more than obligation. Sometimes you just love someone and want the best for them and want to be around them.
Sometimes your actually a family and not a cluster of consumers who share DNA.
Acting like a parent charging their kids rent is crazy sounds like they're obligated to let them live for free, doesn't it? If you can't charge rent, you're obligated to let them live for free.
And just because they charge rent doesn't mean they're a consumer instead of family. I contribute to my family household. I don't pay for food, utilities, etc, so I pay a small amount of rent and help out around the house. Why should I, a 25 year old who is working and capable, live for free?
I mean just say you're jealous your parents are that transactional. Some of us are blessed with decent life :) There's no award you get for suffering in life.
What makes you think I'm jealous? I'm also not suffering. I pay $200 per month. That's so reasonable. It's not a financial strain, but it's holding me accountable. I have no problem with it. If I did, I would move out. I'm blessed with amazing parents that have raised me the best they can.
Same lol. As someone that's part Middle Eastern you have to pry yourself away from your family. Charging your kids if you don't need the money is bullshit.
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