A mom recently asked Mumsnet if her financial system for her teen daughter and adult son would cause resentment.
And, uh, yeah.
Mom is charging the daughter “rent/keep/petrol equivalent to 25% of her take home” while the daughter undergoes a full-time apprenticeship course. The son, who accepted a university offer and goes to school there, is not being charged anything.
“So we will be in a position of taking money from DD and sending money to DS. Which has totally changed the dynamic. I’m really conscious of causing resentment from DD who already suffers a bit with middle child syndrome and jealousy,” wrote the mom.
She continued, “If you’ve been in this situation what did you do? I want DD to contribute for lots of reasons, none of which go away just because DS now needs three more years of support.”
The post “One at uni, one at work…” started quite the debate on the platform.
One user agreed with the mom, writing, “I would look at it no different to one working at the other not. If a child is earning money and has disposable income, it is only fair they pay rent. If the other is still in education, then they don’t. If they both had the same opportunities to go to university, I don’t think you are being unfair.”
Another simply said, “Do you need to charge [daughter]? I’d stop doing so.”
The mom clarified for the above user, “We had long conversations when she started work about contributing to the bills and food and how important it is to get used to not having your whole monthly wage to keep right from the start. I’d rather not go back on that.”
“An apprenticeship wage at that age is very very low and I’d consider her still in a form of education. I think funding one at uni whilst taking money off a low wage apprentice is pretty shit frankly,” wrote SnarkyBag.
The mom responded to SnarkyBag: “She’s on 12k a year, it’s a high wage for an apprenticeship. Funnily enough I was unsure about charging her but had a thread on here at the time which swayed me. There are lots of good reasons to have her contribute to the household.”
At that point, a user wrote, “I’m blown away you’re charging when she’s on £12k a year! Seems really mean and unfair. They’ve got plenty of time in life to pay rent and mortgages and bills m. Glad my parents doesn’t have this thought process!”
So what do you think: asshole or naw?