Kate Hackett
As parents, it’s natural to want to support our adult children and help them in any way we can. However, it’s also important to encourage independence and personal responsibility. Walking that fine line is what brought u/Commercial-Virus-893 to Reddit’s AITA sub to wonder if she was wrong. Let’s check out her story.
OP explains that she has three kids and the eldest moved in with a boyfriend three years ago.
My husband and I have 3 children (25f)(16m)(13f). Our oldest moved out 3 years ago with her boyfriend, and got an appartment. They were together 4 years before that, so it wasn’t like she ran off with some guy she just met. We supported her decision, she was old enough and working full time.
But rent has absolutely skyrocketed in the area and the boyfriend and daughter were unable to stay where they were. (Let’s pause a second and gasp together about rent going up 40% in three years!)
The issue is rent in our area has more than doubled on average since. Their landlord raised the rent 40% in the span of 3 months, and they couldn’t afford to stay there anymore. The issue is they weren’t exactly swimming in cash before that, they don’t really have enough for first last and security with the market, not that there’s much to but anyway in their price range.
So the pair planned to move back in with the parents; his parents won’t let them live together as a couple, so they pitched moving back in with HER parents (OP).
Their plan was to move in with her boyfriends parents for a few months while they figured stuff out and saved up, but they won’t let her come with. So they proposed an idea, she’d move back in with us, him with his parents, and they’d save up and be gone in 6 months tops.
But OP and her husband don’t want that. They think the daughter should be taking care of herself, not relying on parents for “handouts”.
The issue is me and my husband don’t feel that’s appropriate. She’s an adult now, and she needs to learn to take care of herself, not relying on handouts from her parents. She offered to pay rent, but we would only do that if she agreed to pay the market average plus her share of utilities, which would mean she couldn’t save up like she wants to.
So this girl is now sharing a 2 bed with SIX PEOPLE. OP doesn’t seem to care that the situation is sketchy.
Because we aren’t doing that, she’s been force to share a 2 bed appartment with 6 other people, some of whom she finds “sketchy”. I feel for her, but I still think it’s her responsibility. At this point she doesn’t call much anymore and I’m worried this may have impacted our relationship.
Yikes, man. Yikes. Reddit did NOT care for this story.
Another person agreed: “YTA She’s sharing a 2 bed apartment with 6 strangers? How the hell does that work? You think you’re teaching her a life lesson. What you’re actually doing is abandoning your child and exposing her to her to harm Worst parent ever.”
“YTA. Market inflation is pushing us rapidly towards a recession. The landlord wanted more money to combat that. That screwed over your daughter…and she and her boyfriend found two doors waiting for them back home,” wrote a third.
A fellow Redditor was horrified that OP thought this might ruin their relationship. Of course it did! “It did. Congrats. Hopefully your other children wise up and see your cruelty here. Maybe you can still have something with them,” they wrote.
