I’m not against parents asking their grown up kids for contributing to the household bills. Help with council tax, internet, maybe energy bills and definitely food - that’s all reasonable. Especially if they’re using much more resources as an adult. But paying rent? No, fuck off, mum/dad. You can’t bring a child into the world, wait until they reach 18 and start charging them to live in the house they’ve always lived in! That’s greedy. It’s not a teenager’s fault mum and dad can’t pay the rent. You’re nothing but ponces. How will they save for their own property if you’re taking off them?
I feel that my aunt and uncle were rubbing their hands together with glee the moment my cousin turned 16 and could work. As a college dropout, he got a job in McDonalds and they took a cut. £100 per month from a teenage boy’s shitty McDonalds job for ‘rent’ is frankly disgraceful. Worse still, they were both unemployed - one was disabled and working illegally on the side, the other was their ‘carer’. This is NOT an attack benefits post, this is a true story. Their son was the only worker and they were taking some, trapping him in their poverty. It needs to be added that my aunt herself has never worked. That’s none of my business, that’s her choice, she’s not on benefits except carer’s allowance; my uncle supports her. But the line is crossed when such a person takes from her teen son’s wages!
The only reason they were given their council home is because they had a child when they were just fifteen and because it caused an overcrowding problem at my grandparents’ house. They had two more children, one a girl, which again caused overcrowding, requiring them to move into a decent sized three bedroom house. Nice, and all without working. Good job they had a teenage boy to scrounge off so they could buy new furniture every few years. My uncle’s secret side job also helped.
Two years later, Cousin 2 turned 16 and got a job (also in McDonalds) and so my aunt and uncle were earning £200 worth of ‘rent’ per month from both sons. Plus they also received child benefit for both until aged 19. My mum thought this was a great idea and demanded that I get a job to pay for her ‘rent’ (read fags) too, despite the fact I was full time in college and struggling.
Cousin 2 got a better paid job as a hospital porter. His parental payments rose to £200. Cousin 1 joined him, and then my aunt and uncle were making £400 a month from their adult sons, just so the ‘boys’ could have the pleasure of using the same old bunk bed they’d always slept in since childhood. Cousin 2 was sick of funding his parents’ Ikea trips and moved into his girlfriend’s family home where they charged him nothing. The £200 he was saving was now going towards his own life - he was 22 and his girlfriend was pregnant. Aunt and uncle were pissed off that they’d lost money but it was okay… their youngest child was now 16 and could work. Ker-ching! They actually vocalised this, leading me to think that while kids are expensive, some parents use them as a money-making scheme.
Cousin 3 didn’t want to just get a job in McDonalds like her older brothers. She tried. It didn’t go well. She wanted to go to college instead, and did a diploma, for which she received some kind of student finance for poor kids. I have no idea if they took some of that from her (I hope not), but they still pestered her to bring them some Ikea money… I mean ‘rent.’
Cousin 1 had a good job now, but was still living with them and he was giving them £400. Another new set of sofas came in. And a new car. Then he moved in with some daft hippie woman and Aunt Avarice and Uncle Fraud were back to being two unemployed parents with a child who wasn’t working. When Cousin 3 left college and got a job in a shop, they said she had to give them £400. ‘Why?’ she asked, when her brothers only gave them £100 for their first jobs.
‘Inflaaayyyyyshun,’ they replied. ‘Rent’s gone up.’ Nah. Your meal ticket (Ikea ticket) sons had left home and your teen daughter is your next source of income. Just admit it you greedy bastards.
This was a really long way of me saying that unemployed parents have a real nerve charging their children for rent, when back then, in the 80s and 90s, all you needed to do was have a kid to bump up the council housing list. Without the baby, you’d still be living with your parents in their converted garage. Same goes for my mother. She was unemployed and on the list for a bedsit. She had me and boom, big 2 bed flat and later, a house.
Things have obviously changed. Cousin 2 and his partner both had jobs and had to bid for a year to get a flat for them and their baby. Their eldest was 10 by the time they got a house and garden. Cousin 2 has really struggled too, as rent is so high and he’s never had anywhere permanent to live with his kids. My aunt and mother had it easy and don’t seem to appreciate it.
Don’t scrounge off your kids.